house' The locative markers for personal pronouns are as follows: = 'he has seen me' = 'he has seen you' = 'he has seen him/her' = 'he has seen us' = 'he has seen you' (plural or respectful) = 'he has seen them' Tenses Tenses in Tumbuka are made partly by adding infixes, and partly by suffixes. Unlike Chichewa, tones do not form any part of the distinction between one tense and another. In the past a distinction is made between hodiernal tenses (referring to events of today) and remote tenses (referring to events of yesterday or some time ago). However, the boundary between recent and remote is not exact. Another distinction is made between past and perfect tenses. When a perfect tense is used it carries an implication that the resulting situation still exists at the time of speaking, for example: 'the pumpkins have spread () over the garden'. The present perfect can also be used in verbs expressing a current situation such as 'I am sitting' or 'I am pleased'. The remote perfect is used for events which happened some time ago but of which the effects still apply today, such as 'the rock has fallen' or 'he (has) died'. The future tenses similarly distinguish near from remote events. Some tenses imply that the event will take place elsewhere, for example 'I will go and visit'. Compound tenses are also found in Tumbuka, such as 'he had slept', 'he had just left' and 'he will have sold'. Other future tenses are given by Vail (1972) and others. In the 1st person singular, ni-ku- and ni-ka- are shortened to nkhu- and nkha-: 'I am going', 'I go', 'I used to go'. Negative verbs To make the negative of a verb in Tumbuka, the word or is added at or near the end of the clause. It seems that is preferred by younger speakers: 'he is not writing a letter' 'we will not work tomorrow' With the present perfect tense, however, a separate form exists, adding -nda- and ending in -e: 'yes, I have met him' 'no, I haven't met him' The Ngoni influence on Tumbuka Words of Ngoni (Zulu/Ndwandwe) origin found in Tumbuka: All Tumbuka dialects have to some extent been affected by the Ngoni language, most especially in Mzimba District of Malawi. Ngoni is a language that originates from the Ndwandwe people who were neighbours to the Zulu