Re: CHAT: relative tense

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> FFlores wrote:
> > That _kitabu_ "book" is a Semitic loan, isn't it?
> > Or does the first syllable ki- have anything to do
> > with the _ki_ for object "it"? I'm sure I've heard
> > of languages which mark nouns this way (not that
> > this is one of them, but maybe...)
>
> Swahili does mark for various genders.  The ki- is the gender-marker, I
> think.  And the same marker is presumably used in the verb.  Much in
Kitabu is an Arabic loan in Swahili, one of many.  This is not to
say that the ki- has not been reanalyzed, I don't recall that one
way or the other.
--
Brad Coon
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