-avyo

The tenseless relative (often called the general relative) conveys a habitual, continuous, or timeless state rather than a specific event in time.

1. Manner Expressions (Everyday Usage)
This pattern is extremely common in everyday Swahili to express "how," "the way in which," or "as." Phrases like kama ujuavyo ("as you know") or fanya upendavyo ("do as you please") are highly natural and frequent. Why do "things" and "how" share the exact same morpheme? Class 8 (vi-) is the standard noun class used to form adverbs of manner (e.g., vizuri, vibaya). Therefore, -vyo literally translates to "the manner in which."

2. Class 8 Agreement (Formal Usage)
It also acts as the relative pronoun "which/that" for plural inanimate nouns in the KI-VI class (e.g., vitu). For example, vitu nipendavyo means "the things which I generally like." This usage is somewhat formal or literary compared to using amba-.

3. Negative Form
In the negative, the relative marker does not attach to the end of the verb. Instead, it becomes an infix placed immediately after the negative marker -si- (e.g., asivyojua). Crucially, the subject prefix must remain affirmative before the -si- marker (e.g., use a-, not ha-, resulting in asivyojua, not hasivyojua). Furthermore, the final vowel of Bantu verbs does not change to -i in this negative form; it remains -a (e.g., asivyosema, never asivyosemi). Because this negative structure has no tense marker, it is used to negate all tensed relatives (meaning "how he does not know," "how he is not knowing," or "how he did not know"). If you need to explicitly specify the tense in the negative, you must abandon this structure and use amba- (e.g., ambavyo hakujua - "how he did not know").

4. Monosyllabic Verbs
For short verbs like kula or kuja, the dummy infinitive ku- is dropped in the affirmative tenseless relative because the suffix adds a syllable, shifting the stress (e.g., ulavyo - "how you eat"). However, in the negative infixed form, the ku- is retained (e.g., usivyokula - "how you do not eat").

Important Note: The suffix -vyo and the manner relative infix are actually the exact same morpheme. The position simply changes depending on the presence of a tense marker. If a specific tense marker is present, the morpheme sits in the middle of the verb as an infix, but this is restricted to only three tenses: present -na-, past -li-, and future -taka- (note that the future marker -ta- must change to -taka- when taking a relative infix, e.g., atakavyosema, not atavyosema). For other tenses like -me-, -ki-, or -nge-, you must use amba- instead. If there is no tense marker, it moves to the end of the verb as a suffix (e.g., asemavyo - "how he speaks generally").

First-Person Negation:
Nisivyojua means “as/in the way that I do not know,” depending on the sentence. Its prefix is affirmative ni- plus relative negation -si- and -vyo-. Do not begin with ordinary first-person negative si- and then add another relative negative to make sisivyojua.