WHAT CAN A SINGLE LUBUKUSU VERB FORM CONTAIN?

Abstract

This paper is a brief description and illustration of all that a single verb form can
contain in Lubukusu as an agglutinating Bantu language (of Kenya). From left to
right, the most complex verb form will have the following ten morphemes: preroot negation marker, subject marker, tense marker, object marker, root,
applicative marker, aspect marker, mood marker, aspect emphasizer1, and postroot negation marker. Here is an example, in its orthographic form: se-ba-khamu-lom-el-eng-e-kho-ta ‘they will not be speaking for him repeatedly’, in which
the root is lom ‘speak’. Since negation in Lubukusu is double-marked, the English
not is represented by two separate morphemes, se- and -ta. The paper describes
each one of the ten morphemes above, with the lion’s share of space being
accorded to the categories of tense and aspect, as these are divided into many
sub-categories: past, present, and future tenses, on the one hand, and
progressive, habitual, perfective, sequential, and iterative aspects, on the other
hand.