Zulu Newspaper Reader - Dunwoody Press

2.3.10. noma ‘although, or, whether’
noma … noma ‘whether … or’
2.3.10.1. non-influencing ‘or, whether’
(i.e. can be followed by the indicative, subjunctive, potential, or
participial depending on context: (after verbs of knowing, believing,
thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, saying, asking, promising, finding
…).
(a) + indicative principal (i.e. non-participial) (in a statement of fact
or belief):
[Including noma … noma ‘whether … or’]
Ukungazi ukuthi ipuleti lokudla uzolitholaphi noma uzolalaphi
ebusuku … ‘Not knowing where you will get a plate of food or
where you will sleep at night …’
angazi noma bayakhohlwa yini ukuthi angiboni emehlweni ‘I
don’t know whether or not they forget that I am blind’
kukhona isifo owake waba naso noma yake yalimala
leyonhlamvu ‘there is a disease which you once had or that testicle
was once injured’
Uma usubhekene nabo noma uxoxisana nabo ‘When you are faceto-face
with them or are negotiating with them,’
(b) + potential (in a statement of doubt, possibility, …)
singaphuma nabo noma singasala la siphekele abavakashi ‘we
could go out with them or we could stay here and cook for the
guests’
(c) + subjunctive (in a statement of obligation, necessity, …):
sekufanele ehlele phansi noma asuke kuleso naleso sikhumulo
sezindiza ‘(s)he must land or take off from some or other airport’
zama ukumboza amafasitela … noma uvale ebusuku ‘try to
screen the windows … or close up at night’
noma baye kuzo uma izulu lingani kakhulu ‘or they should go to
them when it is not very rainy’
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