Irregular Zarma verbs are irregular with respect to the sentence order and not with respect to conjugation. This irregularity concerns the position of the direct and indirect object or, in one case, of the indirect object only. These verbs are listed here.
General rule for the place of the direct object
Now the direct object in Zarma generally precedes the verb, while the indirect object and adverbial and other modifiers regularly follow it (see examples in
Lesson 2.C.2).
General exception
There is one general class of verbs, those
showing subjective perception or emotion,
which regularly take the direct object
afterwards, see
Lesson 2.C.3. These verbs are marked with an "#" in the vocabularies as they occur in lessons.
Other exceptions
A very few common verbs (notably "buy" and
"sell") will sometimes be heard with the
direct object after them, but the regular
way is correct as well, and more commonly
heard. In
Lesson 2.C.3 to the above rules are discussed.
Verb auxiliary
When there is a direct object before the verb, there is always some kind of verb auxiliary preceding it to distinguish it from the subject. But in all tenses, aspects and moods of the verb, the same sentence order is preserved. |