Chapter II: Morphology

§6. Introductory. In morphology, the Chewa language conforms quite rigidly to the general Bantu pattern. It illustrates the typically synthetic language of agglutinative technique; i. e., the word is fairly elaborate in structure, with affixed elements that are loosely united to its nucleus. With the exception of the two vocalic suffixes of the verb form, 1 there is hardly a single element that may be regarded as fused. The system of noun classes and concordances serving as relational elements may be said to stamp the Bantu family as a ‘simple mixed relational’ type; i. e., the relational elements may be classified as 'concrete relational· elements. 2 We shall see that certain of the noun classes are more formal than semantic in application—at least in Chichewa. 3 Another feature (of Chichewa at least) is the identification, very much as in English, of the relation of actor and action with that of subject and predicate. 4