The basic linguistic description of Tense Aspect, Mood, and/or Modality in hiBena is provided in this thesis. Because tense and aspect serve various purposes, the analysis takes the verb's place in the whole discourse into account. The use of the present perfect tense illustrates the relationship in time and space between the speech time—the moment the statement is made—and the reference time—the event time when occurred. The Remote Past and Remote Future tenses differ from their Recent/Immediate counterparts in that they speak about events that happened in a time and/or place that was very different from the speech moment and/or things that happened in the surrounding discourse. Aspect doesn't merely demonstrate the durational relationship between a real-world occurrence and the speaker's chosen reference period. The Perfective aspect expresses an event as a single change of state at a single point on the timeline that also serves as the reference time. The imperfective aspect, on the other hand, links the event to a reference time that is given by the context, such as the time of the speech, a time adverb, a time frame that was previously stated in a previous conversation, or the interlocutors' shared experience. Imperfective often relates background information, meaning that it refers to an event that is still ongoing during the following event, or it is relevant for the following event like in ‘While I was sleeping, a big thunderstorm destroyed the flowers on my balcony.
This study tense, aspect, and modality utilization in a variety of contexts. Furthermore, I claim that hiBena doesn't have a simple present tense as in English, for example ‘he eats’ but a progressive tense which is denoted by imperfect/ imperfective, past and future in varying degrees, these tenses are conditioned and recognized by the final vowels suffixed to the verb, such as (-a) future – imperfect/imperfective, (-e) past (perfect/perfective), and tense markers. Also, the subject markers, have to agree with the final vowels (FV) which have syntactic functions of Tense Aspects (TA).

Abstract vii
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 The hiBena Language 2
1.2 Bena Dialectical Variations 6
1.3 Genetic Relationship: Language Family 7
1.4 Genetic Relationship: Subgrouping 8
1.5 Basic Language Typology 9
1.5.1 hiBena as an Agglutinative Language 9
1.5.2 hiBena Noun Classes 12
1.5.3 Noun Class 9 and 10 15
1.5.4 Augments in Noun Classes 16
1.5.6 Diminutives 17
1.5.7 Class Noun 19 18
1.5.8 Locative adpositions Swahili -ni vs. hiBena hu-/ pa-/ mu- 19
1.5.9 Numeral system with Noun class markers 19
1.6 hiBena Subject Markers 20
1.6.1 hiBena Tense Markers 24
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 27
2.1 Niger-Congo Family Noun Classes 27
2.2 Niger-Congo Family Syntax (Word order) 32
2.3 Niger-Congo Family (Morphology) 36
CHAPTER 3 The VERB IN hiBena 39
3.1 Verb in the Bena language. 39
3.2 A standard Bantu verb morphological structure for finite verb forms 39
3.3 A template summary of hiBena verb morphological structure for finite verb forms 43
CHAPTER 4 TENSE ASPECT AND MODALITY (TAM) 44
4.1 Tense in typology phenomena 44
4.2 Tense 47
4.3 Tense, Aspect, and, Mood (TAM) in hiBena language. 47
4.3.1 Present tense (lihu-) 48
4.3.2 Present perfect tense (-e) 50
4.3.3 Past tense (ha-) 52
4.3.4 Future tense (la-) 55
4.3.5 Immediate future: 57
4.3.6 Remote future (la-) 58
4.3.7 AUXILIARY viy-a ‘will be’ in future tense Bena 60
4.4 Test of Tense Markers with subject markers/Pronouns 62
4.5 Aspect 66
4.5.1 Viewpoint Aspect 68
4.6 Bena aspect 70
4.6.1 Situation type aspect in the Bena language 71
4.6.2 Viewpoint Aspect in Bena 72
4.7 Habitual 76
4.7.1 Habitual in the Bena Language 77
4.7.2 Habitual past imperfective (-aga) ‘used to’ 77
4.7.3 Habitual future imperfective (-aga) ‘used to’ 78
4.7.4 Habitual in the past perfective (-ige) ‘used to’ 79
4.8 Modality 81
4.8.1 Modality is categorized into three groups as follows: 82
4.8.2 Modal Auxiliary Verbs 82
4.8.3 Modal Auxiliary Verbs in the Bena Language 83
CHAPTER 5 NEGATION IN hiBena (si) 86
5.1 Literature Review for Bantu Negation 86
5.2 Negative marker (si) in the Bena language 88
5.2.1 Test negative (si) with the subject markers in the pre-initial position before the subject marker. 88
5.2.2 Test of negative (si) with the subject markers in the post-initial position (after the subject marker). 90
5.2.3 Analysis for negative (si) in pre-initial (before subject markers) and post-initial (after subject markers)- (human being) 92
5.2.4 Observation for the negative (si) and Subject markers (for +human) 92
5.3 NEG/PARTCLE ka ‘no’ 94
5.3.1 Shinyiha Particle haa ‘no’ 94
5.3.2 hiBena particle ka ‘no’ 95
CHAPTER 6: SUBJUNCTIVE AND IMPARATIVE IN hiBena 97
6.1 major predication with the subjunctive in hiBena 97
6.2 imperative in hiBena 98
CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION 106
References 107

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