Infinitive ( ko- )

We learned in previous lessons a number of verbs. So far we have learned how to use a verb to say what something is or is doing now. But verbs can be used to describe a lot more than what is happening now. In this section we will learn about the infinitive form of a verb.

Lingala	English	Lingala Expression	English Expression
kokufa	to die	mpo na kokufa	for to die
kolinga	to like, want	kolinga ngai	to like me
koloba	to speak/talk	koloba yango	to speak it
komona	to see	komona bango	to see them
kopesa	to give	kopesa yo	to give you
kosala	to do/work	kosala yango	to do it
kosepela	to enjoy	kosepela yango	to enjoy it
kotanga	to read/count	kotanga mpo na bino	to read for you (plural)
koteya	to teach	koteya yo moko	to teach yourself
koyeba	to know	koyeba biso	to know us
kozala	to be/exist	kozala te	to not exist

We can see that the middle of the words contains the root of the verbs we’ve learned. We also see that each one is translated as to do something. In short, an infinitive verb is to do the action of the verb, but is not confined to a specific time, such as the past or future. Therefore we cannot say that the verb acts as a present continuous tense, i.e. I am doing.

An infinitive verb is formed by using the prefix ko– in the following way:

ko + ROOT + a

We also can use the infinitive of the verb to help construct the present tense for most verbs as we will now discuss.