Aw ni ce! A recently got a good grammar question via the feedback form of the “Verbs in the Present” grammar chapter for Maninka.
Here it is:
Greetings! I’m grappling with the word order (verb / object) in habitual and
future sentences using “di”. Your examples variously show the object before
the verb and after the verb in different cases, but I can’t determine the
“rules” that make it so. I’m guessing that the difference lies in whether the
sentence is meant to be habitual or future, but would like to be sure.
Examples are:
N di wa Kankan (object after verb)
Adama di maninkakan karan (object before verb)
Adama di sobo san (object before verb)
NOTE: This question is for Maninka. It begs the question of how to handle Maninka vs Bambara/Jula in a way that keeps the Forum user-friendly.
And here’s my response which I have edited slightly for clarity:
- It’s a good question because a lot of people get tripped up by this idea there are direct objects in verbal expressions with verbs like
ka wa “to go”
- The word order is actually always object then verb. This is true for imperfective, perfective and habitual/future sentences (e.g., with di)
- The issue is that when talking about destinations that you are going (e.g., with the verb ka wa “to go”), the destination is not technically a direct object but rather an adverb. Actually this perspective is the same in English grammar too. For instance, in a sentence like “I go home”, the word “home” is considered to be acting as an adverb. That is, “home” as a destination expresses location/direction; it doesn’t “undergo” the action.
- In Maninka, when we say N di wa Kankan, “Kankan” is acting as an adverbial phrase of destination. That is why it doesn’t appear before the verb (e.g.,
N di Kankan wa). Similarly, we say N ye bɔla Ameriki (Lit. “I come.out.of America” —> “I am from America”) and not N ye Ameriki bɔla
- In short, direct objects always appear before verbs, but destinations with verbs of movement (e.g., ka wa “to go”, ka bɔ “to exit”, ka se “to arrive”, ka na “to come”, etc) appear after the verb because they are like adverbial phrases