CS:construct state FS:free state ANN:annexed state ABS:free state
Nouns and adjectives
Gender
As an Afro-Asiatic language, Kabyle has only two genders, masculine and feminine. Like most Berber languages, masculine nouns and adjectives generally start with a vowel, while the feminine nouns generally start with t- and end with a -t. Note that most feminine nouns are in fact feminized versions of masculine nouns. Examples:
aqcic "a boy", taqcict "a girl".
amɣar "an old man", tamɣart "an old woman".
argaz "a man", tameṭṭut "a woman".
izi "a fly", tizit "mosquito".
Pluralization
Singular nouns generally start with an a-, and do not have a suffix. Plural nouns generally start with an i- and often have a suffix such as -en. There are three types of plural : External, Internal, Mixed:
External or "Regular": consists in changing the initial vowel of the noun, and adding a suffix -n,
Internal: involves only a change in the vowels within the word:
Mixed: combines a change of vowels with the suffix -n:
As in all Berber languages, Kabyle has two types of states or cases of the noun: one is unmarked, while the other serves as a post-verbal subject of a transitive verb and the object of a preposition, among other contexts, and may be glossed as, or. The former is often called free state, the latter construct state. The construct state of the noun derives from the free state through one of the following rules: The first involves a vowel alternation, whereby the vowel a become u : The second involves the loss of the initial vowel in the case of some feminine nouns : The third involves the addition of a semi-vowel word-initially: Finally, some nouns do not change for free state: Depending on the role of the noun in the sentence, it takes either its free or annexed state. When located after a verb, the direct object of the verb takes the free state, while the subject is in the annexed state. When the direct object is indicated on the verb by a direct object affix, the direct object's identity may be restated in the annexed state. When a noun is moved in front of the verb to establish it as the sentence topic, it remains in its free state. After a preposition, all nouns take their annexed state. Hence the free-state noun aman, annexed state waman, can form kas n waman,, with the preposition n "of" triggering the construct state's appearance.
Verbs
Kabyle verbs inflect for four paradigms of tense–aspect–mood, three of them conventionally labelled the preterite, intensive aorist and aorist. Unlike other Berber languages, where it is used to express the present, the aorist alone is rarely used in Kabyle, instead often appearing with an accompanying particle. The preterite also has an accompanying negative paradigm which may or may not differ from that of the non-negative preterite depending on the verb.
"Weak verbs" have a preterite form that is the same as their aorist. Examples of weak verbs that follow are conjugated at the first person of the singular:
Verb
Preterite
ad + aorist
Intensive aorist
If
ifeɣ
ad ifeɣ
ttifeɣ
Muqel
muqleɣ
ad muqleɣ
ttmuquleɣ
Krez
kerzeɣ
ad kerzeɣ
kerrzeɣ
"Strong verbs" or "irregular verbs":
Verb
Preterite
ad + aorist
Intensive aorist
Aru
uriɣ
ad aruɣ
ttaruɣ
Conjugation
in Kabyle is done by adding affixes. These affixes are static and identical for all finite stems, with only the theme changing.
A group of stative/resultative verbs use a different set of person-number endings in their preterites, which contains only suffixes.
Person
Singular
Plural
1st
— ɣ
— it
2nd
— ḍ
— it
2nd
— ḍ
— it
3rd
—
— it
3rd
— t
— it
As an example, the full finite conjugation of the verb afeg "to fly" exhibiting its four themes is given below. For Kabyle verbs, the citation form of a verb is the second-person singular imperative. The participles in Kabyle are used as a means of expressing relative phrases in which the preceding noun is the participle's subject. In the following proverb, ur nxeddem "who doesn't work" modifies argaz "man". Each Kabyle verb has five participles, all formed by attaching various affixes onto a corresponding finite stem.
Verb framing
Kabyle is a satellite-framed based language, Kabyle verbs use two particles to show the path of motion:
d orients toward the speaker, and could be translated as "here".
n orients toward the interlocutor or toward a certain place, and could be translated as "there".
Examples:
« iruḥ-d », « iruḥ-n ».
« awi-d aman», « awi-n aman ».
Negation
Kabyle usually expresses negation in two parts, with the particle ur attached to the verb, and one or more negative words that modify the verb or one of its arguments. For example, simple verbal negation is expressed by « ur » before the verb and the particle « ara » after the verb:
« Urareɣ » → « Ur urareɣ ara »
Other negative words are used in combination with ur to express more complex types of negation.
Verb derivation
Verb derivation is done by adding affixes. There are three types of derivation forms : Causative, reflexive and Passive.
Causative: obtained by prefixing the verb with s- / sse- / ssu- :
Reflexive: obtained by prefixing the verb with m- / my- / myu-:
Passive: is obtained by prefixing the verb with ttu- / ttwa- / tt- / mm- / n- / nn-:
Complex forms: obtained by combining two or more of the previous prefixes:
Two prefixes can cancel each other:
Agent noun
Every verb has a corresponding agent noun. In English it could be translated into verb+er. It is obtained by prefixing the verb with « am- » or with « an- » if the first letter is b / f / m / w.
Examples:
Action noun
Every verb has a corresponding action noun, which in English it could be translated into verb+ing: There are 6 regular stems of forming action nouns, and the 7th is for quality verbs :
The predicative particle "d" is an indispensable tool in speaking Kabyle, "d" is equivalent to both "it is + adjective" and "to be + adjective", but cannot be replaced by the verb "ili". It is always followed by a noun. Examples:
D taqcict, "it's a girl".
D nekk, "it's me".
Nekk d argaz, "I'm a man".
Idir d anelmad, "Idir is a student".
Idir yella d anelmad, "Idir was a student".
The predicative particle "d" should not be confused with the particle of coordination "d"; indeed, the latter is followed by a noun at its annexed state while the first is always followed by a noun at its free state.
Pronoun
Personal pronouns
Example : « Ula d nekk. » — "Me too."
Possessive pronouns
Example : « Axxam-nneɣ. » — "Our house."
Pronouns of the verb
Direct object
Person
Singular
Plural
1st
yi
ɣ / aɣ / naɣ / anaɣ
1st
yi
ɣ / aɣ / tnaɣ / anteɣ
2nd
k
ken
2nd
kem
kent
3rd
t
ten
3rd
tt
tent
Example : « Yuɣ-it. » — "He bought it."
Indirect object
Example : « Yenna-yas. » — "He said to him."
Complex example : « Yefka-yas-t. » — "He gave it to him."
Demonstratives
There are three demonstratives, near-deictic, far-deictic and absence:
Suffix: Used with a noun, example : « Axxam-agi» — "This house.".
Isolated : Used when we omit the subject we are speaking about : «Wagi yelha» — "This is nice."
Numerotation
Only the first two numbers are Berber; for higher numbers, Arabic is used. They are yiwen "one", sin "two". The noun being counted follows it in the genitive: sin n yirgazen "two men". "First" and "last" are respectively amezwaru and aneggaru. Other ordinals are formed with the prefix wis : wis sin "second ", tis tlata "third ", etc.
Prepositions
precede their objects: « i medden » "to the people", « si temdint » "from the town". All words preceded by a preposition take their annexed state. Some prepositions have two forms : one is used with pronominal suffixes and the other form is used in all other contexts. Also some of these prepositions have a corresponding relative pronoun, example:
