Possession: the hunter's gun
Say that one thing belongs to another. The marker between the two nouns comes from the class of the first.
After this unit
Build a phrase of the kind "the hunter's gun", with the right marker for the class of the noun that is possessed.
How to build it
- Find the class of the noun that is possessed. This is the thing that belongs, and it comes first.
- Take the marker for that class from the table below.
- Say the possessed noun, then the marker, then the possessor.
You should now have a phrase like this one. The marker comes from the gun, not from the hunter.
The marker for each class
Each row gives the class of the noun that is possessed, the marker, and one of Chatelain's own examples. The marker is the concord prefix of that class plus a. The concord prefix is usually the noun prefix, but not in class 1, where mu- gives u- and so wa. The unit on agreement sets out both prefixes and shows why the possessed noun decides.
| Class | Marker | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (I) | wa | mubhika wa kuku | the grandfather's slave |
| 2 (I) | a | abhika a kuku | the grandfather's slaves |
| 3 (II) | wa | munya wa muxi | the thorn of the tree |
| 4 (II) | ya | minya ya muxi | the thorns of the tree |
| 5 (IV) | dia | dibitu dia nzo | the door of the house |
| 6 (IV) | ma | mabitu ma nzo | the doors of the house |
| 7 (III) | kya | kinama kya muhatu | the woman's leg |
| 8 (III) | ya | inama ya muhatu | the woman's legs |
| 9 (IX) | ya | ndandu ya mama | the relative of the mother |
| 10 (IX) | ja | jindandu ja mama | the relatives of the mother |
| 11 (VI) | lwa | lumbu lwa nzo | the yard wall of the house |
| 12 (X) | ka | kamona ka muhatu | the little child of the woman |
| 13 (X) | twa | twana twa muhatu | the little children of the woman |
| 14 (V) | wa | uta wa mukongo | the hunter's gun |
| 15 (VIII) | kwa | no example shown |
In the examples for classes 5, 6 and 11, the house is nzo, the short form of inzo that the dictionary also holds.
The examples with mubhika are Chatelain's. In his 1889 grammar they refer to slavery, which existed in Angola at the time. The dictionary also gives servant. The unit Words for people says more.
Chatelain gives the marker for class 15, but his one example uses a verb noun whose modern spelling the dictionary has not settled. This course shows no example rather than guess it.
Markers that look alike
Some classes share a marker. Classes 1, 3 and 14 all use wa, and classes 4, 8 and 9 all use ya. Class 6 is the shared plural of classes 5, 11, 14 and 15, so it has one marker, ma. Always start from the class of the possessed noun, and the marker follows.
Two exceptions in class 1
Chatelain notes two cases where the class prefix drops out and only a is left. First, a verb noun of class 1 followed by its object. Second, a few nouns for a relative or a close person. He suggests the second is an older form. The two examples below are of the second kind.
Saying female or male
To say whether a person or animal is female or male, add a word to the noun with the same marker. Chatelain uses the word for woman for the female and a word for man for the male. The dictionary has no entry for the word for man, so its form here rests on the spelling rules alone.
mulambi wa muhatu
woman cook
mulambi wa diala
man cook
Where this comes from
- Chatelain, Grammatica elementar do Kimbundu (Loanda, 1889), printed pages 10 to 14 — the genitive in every class; every phrase is his example, respelled
- The 1940s Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary this site is built from — every dictionary word