Sotho parts of speech

The Sesotho parts of speech convey the most basic meanings and functions of the words in the language, which may be modified in largely predictable ways by affixes and other regular morphological devices. Each complete word in the Sesotho language must comprise some "part of speech."
There are basically twelve parts of speech in Sesotho. The six major divisions are purely according to syntax, while the sub-divisions are according to morphology and semantic significance.
As a rule, Bantu languages do not have any prepositions or articles. In Sesotho, locatives are inflected substantives and verb imperatives are treated as interjectives. The division of the four qualificatives is dependent solely on the concords that they use. Cardinals are nouns but are given a separate section below.
In form, some parts of speech (adjectives, enumeratives, some relatives, some possessives, and all verbs) are radical stems which need affixes to form meaningful words; others (copulatives, most possessives, and some adverbs) are formed from full words by the employment of certain formatives; the rest (nouns, pronouns, some relatives, some adverbs, all ideophones, conjunctives, and interjectives) are complete words themselves which may or may not be modified with affixes to form new words. Therefore, the term "word classes" instead of the somewhat more neutral "parts of speech" would have been somewhat of a misnomer.
Pronouns.
There are four main types of pronouns in Sesotho: absolute, demonstrative, quantitive, and qualificative. Each pronoun is a complete word and may stand in place of the noun or right next to it (for emphasis).
Concords are NOT pronouns. Concords are usually mandatory in certain places while pronouns are often not. Pronouns cannot be used in place of concords. Pronouns are complete words while concords are strictly affixes.
Absolute pronouns.
These merely stand in place of nouns and say nothing else about them. They are formed from the pronominal concord of the noun (Doke & Mofokeng claims that the pronominal concord is actually derived from the absolute pronoun) plus the suffix "-na". Note that any affixes attached to the pronoun do not change its form.
The tone pattern is [ _ ¯ ].
When a verb has two objects, the second object cannot be indicated in Sesotho by a concord:
Demonstrative pronouns.
Sesotho has three positional types of pronouns (1 less than many other Bantu languages; the missing one being the 3rd. form "this here") each in two forms.
When the relative concord is used to form the demonstrative pronouns it appears with a more natural high tone instead of the irregular extra-high allotone. However, in the rarely used first form of the first demonstrative it appears with a low tone.
The first demonstrative.
The first demonstrative signifies "this" indicating proximity to the speaker. It corresponds to Bantu 1st. position.
The first form has tone pattern [ _ ¯ ] and is formed by suffixing the relative concord with the vowel in the class prefix (the exception being class 1(a) using "eo", due to its irregular concords, and class 9 uses "ee"). This pronoun is not very commonly used.
In common speech they are often simply shortened to the first syllable, and there is at least one commonly used formation where the pronoun for the first person singular is used as an enclitic.
The second form has tone pattern [ ¯ ¯ ] and is formed by suffixing "-na" to the relative concord (the exception being class 1(a) "enwa", but it appears as "ona" in non-standard speech). These words have an irregular stress which falls on the final syllable.
The second demonstrative.
The second demonstrative signifies "that" indicating relative distance from the speaker. It corresponds to Bantu 2nd. position.
The first form has tone pattern [ ¯ _ ] and suffixes "-o" to the relative concord.
This form is the one employed in indirect relative constructions
The second form has tone pattern [ ¯ ¯ ] and suffixes "-no" to the relative concord.
The third demonstrative.
The third demonstrative signifies "that yonder" indicating distance from both parties. It corresponds to Bantu 4th. position.
The first form has tone pattern [ ¯ ¯ ] and is formed by suffixing "-ane" to the relative concord. In this case the "a" interacts strongly with the vowel in the concord.
The second form has tone pattern [ ¯ _ ] and is formed somewhat irregularly from the relative concord. The suffix is "-la" which changes to "-le" if the concord ends with an "a". Class 1(a) has an irregular pronoun with "elwa" (but it appears as "ole" in non-standard speech). In common speech "-le" is used throughout.
Quantitative pronouns.
While many other Bantu languages have several quantitative pronouns, Sesotho only has the "-hle" ('all') form. It has tone pattern [ ¯ ¯ ] and is formed from the pronominal concord for nouns (singular persons use class 1's concords and plural persons use class 2's concords).
Qualificative pronouns.
Qualificative pronouns are qualificatives used substantivally in a sentence. They are basically formed when a qualificative is used without the substantive, or if it appears before the substantive.
Adjectives.
Adjectives are qualificatives used with the adjectival concords.
In the Bantu languages, the adjectives form a closed class (with some languages having no proper adjectives at all). Sesotho has a rather large number of adjectives due to the included colour adjectives. It has about 50 adjectives which may be divided into two categories:
Common adjectives.
Common adjectives are miscellaneous in nature and number about 20. The numbers 2 to 5 belong to this category.
Many of these adjectives are very ancient and exist in almost every Bantu language (sometimes as relatives).
Colour adjectives.
Colour adjectives are a bit more numerous and indicate basic colours and animal colour patterns. These are responsible for the unusually large number of adjectives in Sesotho, since most other Bantu languages have the colours as relatives instead.
Notes:
E.g.:
Relatives.
Relatives are qualificatives used with the relative concords.
In the Bantu languages, the relatives form an open class and are the primary qualificatives used. Relative clauses are also used with the relative concords.
There are two types of relative stems:
Examples of both types follow below:
The relative "-tala" is not to be confused with the adjective "-tala".
E.g.:
Verbs can be used in very short relative clauses, although these are not considered proper relative stems:
Enumeratives.
In the Bantu languages, enumeratives are a category of qualificatives generally having some significance of enumeration. They are distinguished from other qualificatives by the fact that they use the enumerative concord.
In many Bantu languages the first five numerals belong to this category, but in Sesotho only the numeral 1 is an enumerative (the second to fifth are adjectives).
Sesotho has three basic enumeratives, divided into two types ("weak" or "strong"):
The strong enumerative stems use the strong form of the enumerative concord, and the weak stems use the weak form.
The numeral "-ng" has a special form with class 9 nouns where it appears as "-nngwe" (thus the numeral). It is always preceded by one of two constructions:
This stem should not be confused with the adjective "-ng" ('some') which has a high tone and is used as a normal adjective:
The other enumeratives are used regularly using the enumerative concord:
"-fe" may also be used in a particular construction (repeated and with the conjunctive enclitic "le-") to mean "any":
Possessives.
Possessives are qualificatives used with the possessive concords.
The direct possessive.
The direct possessive occurs when the concord agrees with the possessee, while the stem indicates the possessor.
Pronominal possessive stems agree with the possessee. Sesotho has these only for the singulars of the first and second persons and class 1(a) (third person) nouns; the other nouns and persons used the full absolute pronouns to indicate possession.
E.g.:
 "-eso" ('of my people'), "-eno" ('of your people'), and "-bo" ('of his/her people') indicate collective possession. The vowels in the stems coalesce with the vowel in the possessive concord, changing the vowel quality:
Prefixing "ha-" to these stems gives "-heso" ('of my family/community'), "-heno" ('of your family/community'), and "-habo" ('of his/her family/community'). Coalescence occurs again:
The possessive concord with nouns.
The possessive concord with nouns is used to directly indicate the possessor. The construction is "possessee, concord + possessor". The concord may also be used with demonstrative and qualificative pronouns.
E.g.:
The descriptive possessive.
The descriptive possessive occurs when the concord agrees with the possessor of some descriptive quality, which cannot be prononomial. In this case the possessor, being a noun, is used to describe the possessee.
This happens less commonly in Sesotho than in many other Bantu languages (the relative use being preferred instead), but there are still numerous instances of its use:
Cardinals.
Bantu languages tend to use a quinary counting system with six basic numbers, the other four being miscellaneous.
Here is a comparison between the first ten cardinals in some Bantu languages:
Notes:
Copulatives.
A copulative is a word which does the work of a predicative, and which is formed from some other part of speech by modification of a prefix or concord, or by means of some formative addition.
Complete predicates and sentences may be formed with substantives, qualificatives, or adverbs without employing any verbs, according to definite rules. These copulatives generally take the place of the verb "to be" in English. In Sesotho, there are also conjugations of the copulative using verbs ( "-ba", "-le", and "-na", as well as their inflected forms) giving meanings of "to become" and "to have."
Forming the copulative.
There are six basic rules, used in differing situations to form the most basic copulatives. The first two rules do not use any verbs (the zero copula) using only changes in tone and/or the copulative formative "ke-". The other rules employ the irregular verb "-le".
The rules may be classed into 3 categories (plain predication or zero copula, participial, past relative clause participial) and each category may be further divided into 2 groups (all persons with qualificatives and adverbs and 1st. and 2nd. persons substantives, versus 3rd. person substantives). Each rule further has its own unique negative.
SC indicates the subjectival concord, CB is the copulative base, RC is the relative concord, and DE is the demonstrative element. This is one instance where the relative concords for the 1st. and 2nd. persons may be used.
Note that the participial sub-mood is the basis for all relative clause constructions (used in rules 3 to 6).
The indefinite concord "ho-".
Indefinite copulative construction is achieved by using the class 17 concord "ho-" prefixed to the subject. Except with adverbs of manner, this always gives a locative implication to the construction.
A more common form in the positive uses "ho na le-" instead of "ho-". The negative of this is "ha ho na"
Conjugation.
Just like verbal conjugation, the conjugation possibilities of copulatives are varied and complex, with most tenses needing deficient verbs and/or infixed verbal auxiliaries. What follows is only a brief overview of some points.
There is a two way division between direct and associative forms of the conjugation. The direct forms generally mean "to become" while the associative forms mean "to have."
In the direct form the verb "-ba" is commonly employed. This verb is inceptive and (when used as a transitive verb) means "become" (not "is", which is indicated by the direct non-verbal copulative).
Thus there are two main aspects of the direct copulative conjugation, the inceptive and the stative. In the former "-ba" appears; in most multi-verbal tenses of the latter the verb "-le" is used, though not all tenses may conjugate in this aspect. In all there are about than 35 "basic" tenses in the direct inceptive, and 13 in the stative.
The associative form of the copulative conjugation generally signifies "to have" (lit. 'to be with'). It too shares a division between inceptive and stative aspects, the former using "-ba" with the conjunction "le-" (conjunctive import), and the latter using "-na" with "le-" (in the positive; the negative has no "le-"). This conjunctive "le-", which is a prefix attached to the verb's object, is not to be confused with the copulative verb "-le". In all there are about 30 "basic" tenses in the inceptive and 10 in the stative.
A few more examples follow.
Adverbs.
Adverbs are words which describe qualificatives, predicatives, or other adverbs with respect to time, place, or manner.
As in many other Bantu languages, there is a close relationship in Sesotho between adverbs and nouns, with many adverbs appearing as normal nouns and locatives of nouns being used as adverbs. However, the function of an adverb is always clearly distinct from that of a noun.
Though adverbs are obviously usually used with a predicative, there are some cases where the predicative does not appear and the adverb may be assumed to be describing a covert copulative.
Adverbs of place.
Generally all adverbs of place are "locatives", which are inflected nouns and pronouns. These are formed by certain rules of inflexion listed below. They generally indicate the place at, on, in, into, from etc. which the action takes place. When used with nouns indicating time they may denote time rather than place.
The actual meaning of a locative is determined by the verb used or the context.
The locative merely indicates the place brought into relationship with the verb, thus the many prepositions used in English are completely unnecessary in the Sesotho language.
These are the rules for forming the locative from nouns:
While "ho-" is used to mean "at", its possessive form "ha-" is used to indicate "at the place of"
Locatives may be formed from pronouns (except the quantitative) by prefixing "ho-" and its possessive form "ha-"
Furthermore, there are class 16, 17, and 18 nouns, certain forms with the prefix "ko-" (an irregular unchanged Proto-Bantu class 17 prefix *ku-, possibly from the Serolong dialect of Setswana), and some other nouns, all used uninflected as locative adverbs.
The adverbs indicating "here," "there," and "yonder" are simply class 18 demonstrative pronouns, using class 18 concords (instead of the more usual class 15 concords used by the three locative classes). The relative concord used to form these words does not seem to be weakened (it appears as "mo-" instead of the "o-" used with class 3).
Adverbs of time.
Apart from certain locative formations with a temporal implication, many nouns and seemingly radical adverbs may be used as adverbs of time.
Some use the high tone prefix "ka-" to form adverbs of time. These nouns include days of the week and months of the year. Certain other nouns which accept the suffix "-ng" may also take this prefix instead.
Adverbs of manner.
Some adverbs of manner are radical in formation; others are miscellaneous formations from nouns. There are also several ways of forming adverbs of time from other parts of speech by using affixes "ha-", the conjunctive "le-", "ka-", "jwale ka-" (which is a complete word followed by a prefix), the copulative "ke-", etc.).
Additionally, in slightly non-standard speech, absolute pronouns may be inflected to form adverbs meaning "on X's own" by prefixing the instrumental "ka-" and the class 14 noun prefix "bo-" to the pronoun.
The interrogative.
The high tone adverb "na" may be used to mark or emphasise questions. It, and its variant forms, may appear before, after, or both before and after the complete sentence.
Ideophones.
An ideophone is a word, often onomatopoeic in nature, which describes the qualities of a predicative, qualificative, or adverb.
In the Bantu languages ideophones form a distinct part of speech, which resembles to a certain extent the adverb in function, but unlike which it may (in some languages) be used as a predicate. In Sesotho there are two ways of using ideophones; one involves the use of the verb "ho re" ("verbum dicendi") which in this case means "to express" instead of the usual "to say." The other way involves simply placing the ideophone after a verb or qualificative with the aim of intensifying its meaning.
Often when using ideophones in speech, the speaker may accompany the utterance with an action (indeed, with the ideophone "mpf" "of being finished completely" the action — running ones index finger very close in front of the lips — is necessary to pronounce the word properly).
The verb "-re" when used with ideophones may take a direct object (indicated by an objectival concord). It is this verb which carries all forms of inflexion on behalf of the ideophone. Its mood, transitivity, tense, objects, aspect, etc. are all reflected in the verb "-re", while the ideophone itself does not in any way change.
This illustrates that the ideophone itself is neither transitive nor intransitive, etc., and they are usually translated to English with the construction "of..."
Many Sesotho ideophones are radicals, and many of them are shared by many Bantu languages (such as Sesotho "tu!" and isiZulu "du!" / "dwi!" 'of silence'), though many are formed from other parts of speech. Indeed, it is common for a speaker to intensify the meaning of a descriptive word or verb by improvising ideophones and placing them after the word, or by simply leaving the listener to surmise the meaning from the context or accompanying action. Ideophones are often created from verbs by simply replacing the final vowel "-a" of the basic verb with a high toned "-i".
Ideophones, being very emotional in nature, tend to not follow the phonetic rules of the language and may be pronounced in peculiar ways. For example, the stress may fall on the last or first syllable of all ideophones regardless of length, vowels may be indefinitely lengthened (), syllabic "r" may be heard ( "therr 'of frying'), syllables may have codas ( "thethengtheng 'of performing with a stop'), prenasalized consonants may occur ( "kgampepe" 'of running'), vowels may be devocalised ( "phu 'of smelling bad'), and various consonants not found in core Sesotho may be used ( vi..." 'of a thrown projectile travelling through the air in a hyperbolic path'). There is even a case of three syllabic nasals with contrasting tones pronounced with three separated air breaths (not as a very long nasal with an undulating tone) "nnng" [ _ ¯ _ ] ('of refusing outright').
Conjunctives.
Conjunctives introduce or join up sentences.
Sesotho conjunctives may be studied from two aspects: form and function.
There are four forms of conjunctives:
There are four functions of conjunctives:
Interjectives.
Interjectives are isolated words or groups of words of an exclamatory nature, used to express emotion, or for the purpose of calling attention, giving commands, or conveying assent or dissent. They may themselves also constitute complete sentences, without the use of predicates.
In the Bantu languages interjectives may be divided into three types:
Interjections.
Interjections have no grammatical or concordial bearing on the sentence; they are merely attached as appendages.
As with ideophones, their emotional nature causes some of them to be pronounced in peculiar ways, but these irregularities are not as great as those exhibited by ideophones.
Vocatives.
Vocatives are formed in Sesotho from nouns and 2nd. person pronouns (since all proper vocatives are naturally addressed to "the second person").
No change in form takes form in the noun.
A suffix/clitic "-towe" and its plural equivalent "-ting" may be used to indicate an insult
The adverbial instrumental prefix "ka-" is used to form interjectives of oath
Imperatives.
Imperatives have neither subjects nor subjectival concords. They are 2nd. person forms, and have the same force as other interjectives, but, being verbal, they may also take objects and assume extensions.
The rules for the formation of the singular imperative are as follows:
Sometimes an epenthetic "h" or "y" may be inserted between the two "as or "os for emphasis.
The negative may be formed in several ways:
If the first person is included in the plural subjects, the hortative prefix "ha-" is used in the subjunctive mood. This is an example of the cohortative mood (a form of the subjunctive)
Again in the subjunctive mood, an object may be specified in all of the above forms by an objectival concord. This is in the subjunctive mood, and so the final vowel of the verb changes to "e" (in the positive) "e" (in the negative) when the deficient verb "-ke" is not used
Except for forms employing subjectival concords, the plural is formed by adding the suffix "-ng" to the verb (or the deficient verb "-ke" when it is used). This "-ng" may regularly result in vowel raising if the verb ends with the open vowel "e"
When subjunctive tenses are used "imperatively" they are not interjectives since they have subjectival concords (and have more typical verbal tonal patterns), but note that in this case there is a distinction between singular, dual, and plural number in the 1st. person. In this case dual number is marked by the hortative prefix "ha-" and 1st. plural subjectival concord, and plural is marked by the prefix, the concord, and the suffix "-ng" to the verb (or the deficient verb "-ke" if it is used).
All imperatives addressed to the 2nd. person (even if that person is included in a 1st. person plural) may be strengthened by using the enclitic "-bo". This formative leaves the stress in place, thus resulting in words with stress on the antepenultimate syllable.