Sesotho verbs

Notes:
*The orthography used in this and related articles is that of South Africa, not Lesotho. For a discussion of the differences between the two see the notes on Sesotho orthography.
*Hovering the mouse cursor over most H:title| [ɪ'talɪk] |"italic"|dotted=no Sesotho text should reveal an IPA pronunciation key (excluding tones). Note that often when a section discusses formatives, affixes, or vowels it may be necessary to view the IPA to see the proper conjunctive word division and vowel qualities.

Sesotho verbs are words in the language which signify the action or state of a substantive, and are brought into agreement with it using the subjectival concord. This definition excludes imperatives and infinitives, which are respectively interjectives and class 14 nouns.

In the Bantu languages, verbs often form the centre of a complex web of regular derivational patterns, and words/roots belonging to many parts of speech may be directly or indirectly derived from them. Not only may new verbs be derived using a large number of derivational suffixes, nouns (and, iteratively, the other parts of speech which may be derived from them), some imperative interjectives and, to a lesser extent, ideophones may be formed by simple morphological devices.

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Varieties

Verb stems may be divided into four varieties:
#Regular stems beginning with a consonant and ending in a vowel
#Monosyllabic verbs
#Vowel verb stems begin with a vowel
#Derived verbs constructed from other verbs, noun roots, adjectival roots, and ideophones by suffixes.

Regular verbs are those beginning with a consonant and ending in the vowel H:title|/ɑ/|"a"|dotted=no. The final H:title|/ɑ/|"a"|dotted=no may change into every vowel except the near-close near-back vowel (IPA|/ʊ/) through inflexion or derivation. The verb root is the atomic part of the verb which does not change (save for some "purely phonetic changes") and Bantu languages share numerous similar verb roots (with predictable sound changes between languages).

: Stem H:title| [bɔnɑ] |"-bona"|dotted=no see, from root H:title| [bɔn] |-bon-|dotted=no, also existing as isiZulu -bon-, Kiswahili -on-, Tshivenda -vhon-, Chishona -von-, Chilamba -won- etc. Proto-Bantu *-bon-

Monosyllabic stems may be classified into several categories:

• The "i-stems" have a typical H:title|/i/|"i"|dotted=no in derivatives, and H:title|/u/|"u"|dotted=no in the passive: H:title| [t͡ɬʼɑ] |"-tla"|dotted=no come ⇒ Perfect H:title| [t͡ɬʼile] |"-tlile"|dotted=no, Causative H:title| [t͡ɬʼisɑ] |"-tlisa"|dotted=no, Passive H:title| [t͡ɬʼuwɑ] |"-tluwa"|dotted=no: H:title| [jɑ] |"-ya"|dotted=no go ⇒ Perfect H:title| [ile] |"-ile"|dotted=no, Causative H:title| [isɑ] |"-isa"|dotted=no, Passive H:title| [uwɑ] |"-uwa"|dotted=no: H:title| [xɑ] |"-kga"|dotted=no draw water ⇒ Perfect H:title| [xile] |"-kgile"|dotted=no, Causative H:title| [xisɑ] |"-kgisa"|dotted=no, Passive H:title| [xuwɑ] |"-kguwa"|dotted=no
• The "e-stems"There are very simple phonotactic explanations which may make these apparent irregularities more understandable.
  Almost all the non-velar e-stems are palatal or postalveolar in nature. This may be due to an original palatal glide being "absorbed" into the original consonant of the verbs (the alveolar H:title|/s/|"s"|dotted=no also has similar origins). In Sesotho, the palatal H:title|/j/|"y"|dotted=no may not be followed by the vowels H:title|/i/|"i"|dotted=no or H:title|/u/|"u"|dotted=no and these become weakened to H:title|/ɪ/|"e"|dotted=no and H:title|/ʊ/|"o"|dotted=no. The original passive suffix (still used in Setswana and many Northern Sotho languages) was H:title| [iwɑ] |"-iwa"|dotted=no, and so the suffixes are weakened to H:title| [ɪlɛ] |"-ele"|dotted=no, H:title| [ɪsɑ] |"-esa"|dotted=no and H:title| [ɪwɑ] |"-ewa"|dotted=no.
  Apparently the velar e-stems use the modern H:title| [uwɑ] |"-uwa"|dotted=no passive instead, and due to phonotactic restrictions occasionally applied on the labial approximant H:title|/w/|"w"|dotted=no, similar to those on the palatal, together with the fact that labialized consonants may not be followed by back vowels, the suffixes are weakened to H:title| [ɪlɛ] |"-ele"|dotted=no, H:title| [ɪsɑ] |"-esa"|dotted=no and H:title| [ʊwɑ] |"-owa"|dotted=no.] have a typical near-close near-front H:title|/ɪ/|"e"|dotted=no in their derivatives: H:title| [t͡ʃʰɑ] |"-tjha"|dotted=no burn ⇒ Perfect H:title| [t͡ʃʰɪlɛ] |"-tjhele"|dotted=no, Causative H:title| [t͡ʃʰɪsɑ] |"-tjhesa"|dotted=no, Passive H:title| [t͡ʃʰɪwɑ] |"-tjhewa"|dotted=no: H:title| [ʒɑ] |"-ja"|dotted=no eat ⇒ Perfect H:title| [ʒɪlɛ] |"-jele"|dotted=no, Causative H:title| [ʒɪsɑ] |"-jesa"|dotted=no, Passive H:title| [ʒɪwɑ] |"-jewa"|dotted=no
• The "velar" e-stems have labialized onsets, and have similar forms to other e-stems but have a near-close near-back vowel H:title|/ʊ/|"o"|dotted=no in the passive: H:title| [nʷɑ] |"-nwa"|dotted=no drink ⇒ Perfect H:title| [nʷɪlɛ] |"-nwele"|dotted=no, Causative H:title| [nʷɪsɑ] |"-nwesa"|dotted=no, Passive H:title| [nʊwɑ] |"-nowa"|dotted=no
• There are three defective stems, ending in a vowel other than H:title|/ɑ/|"a"|dotted=no. The first two of these verbs are very common among the Bantu languagesThe first two verbs, together with the copulative verb H:title| [nɑ] |"-na"|dotted=no (indicating possession, with a conjunctive import), are used in many Bantu languages in generally restricted circumstances.
  There exists certain "defective" verbs across most Bantu languages: Proto-Bantu *-di (Sesotho participial copulative H:title| [lɪ] |"-le"|dotted=no), *-ti (Sesotho H:title| [ʀɪ] |"-re"|dotted=no), and *-na (Sesotho H:title| [nɑ] |"-na"|dotted=no). Additionally, a common variant of *-ti — *-tio — appears as Sesotho H:title| [t͡ʃʰɔ] |"-tjho"|dotted=no — an irregular palatalization (when an alveolarization would have been expected) possibly due to the verb being borrowed from some Nguni language (it does not exist in most other Sotho-Tswana languages).
  These are distinguished from other verbs in that they are normally not used with many of the affixes in the verbal complex. For example, though they are all transitive and are therefore used with objects, they never take objectival concords (in Sesotho and many other languages, H:title| [ʀɪ] |"-re"|dotted=no may take an objectival concord when used with ideophones). Additionally, except for Sesotho H:title| [ʀɪ] |"-re"|dotted=no and H:title| [t͡ʃʰɔ] |"-tjho"|dotted=no, they may not be used as infinitives.
  Even though they have these peculiarities and, except for H:title| [nɑ] |"-na"|dotted=no, they do not end with the typical vowel, Bantuists consider them to be verbs due to the fact that they may be used with subjectival concords.
  The highly irregular passive of H:title| [ʀɪ] |"-re"|dotted=no may be due to Nguni "-thiwa" (most other Sotho-Tswana languages use "-riwa" instead).] : H:title| [ʀɪ] |"-re"|dotted=no say ⇒ Perfect H:title| [it͡sʼe] |"-itse"|dotted=no, No causative, Passive H:title| [tʰʷɪ] |"-thwe"|dotted=no: H:title| [lɪ] |"-le"|dotted=no be; very restricted in use (only used in the participial sub-mood of certain copulatives): H:title| [t͡ʃʰɔ] |"-tjho"|dotted=no say so ⇒ Perfect H:title| [t͡ʃʰɪlɔ] |"-tjhelo"|dotted=no / H:title| [t͡ʃʰʊlɔ] |"-tjholo"|dotted=no, No causative, No passive

Vowel verb stems are conjugated as regular verbs but are put into a separate class due to being uncommon in Bantu languages (and, in some languages but not in Sesotho, causing changes to concords and other formatives prefixed to them).The specific label comes from early descriptions of isiZulu grammar, where it was discovered that, apart from simply looking different from other verbs, vowel verbs are also conjugated slightly differently from normal verbs under certain situations, and many of them have alternative (and, at least in modern popular urban isiZulu, more common) forms with the initial vowel deleted.

Though isiZulu has five vowel phonemes (plus two allophones), vowel verbs in that language may only begin with the vowels IPA|/ɑ/, IPA|/ɔ/, and IPA|/ɛ/ (written 'a', 'o', and 'e' respectively in its orthography). There is no similar restriction in Sesotho.] Class 1 and 5 nouns derived from these verbs do not cause any velarization to the prefix. The Proto-Bantu reconstructions of many of these verbs suggests that they originally began with *g (or sometimes *j), which "protected" the vowel.: H:title| [ilɑ] |"-ila"|dotted=no avoid (as a taboo): H:title| [ɛtʼɑ] |"-eta"|dotted=no travel: H:title| [ut͡ɬʼʷɑ] |"-utlwa"|dotted=no hear, sense: H:title| [ɑhɑ] |"-aha"|dotted=no construct: H:title| [ɔt͡ɬʼɑ] |"-otla"|dotted=no strike, punish

Tones

Verbs fall into only two categories when it comes to their tones: L verbs and H verbs. The difference lies in whether the "underlying tone" of the verb's first syllable is high or null (under-specified). Thus, all verbs of a certain length which fall under the same tonal category are pronounced with similar tonal patterns under the same grammatical circumstances.

What the verbal tone system lacks in variety, however, it more than makes up for in complexity. The tones of the syllables of the verbs regularly change under varying grammatical environments, with the high tones being manipulated by "tonal rules", and the tones associated with certain syllables being changed by numerous "tonal melodies."

Verbal derivatives

Various derivatives may (recursively) be formed from verbs by means of several suffixes (called "extensions"). Each derived verb is as much an authentic verb as the original.

In the following sections, "polysyllabic" generally means "of more than two syllables."

Verbs are derived primarily through suffixes, some of which are no longer active ("dead").

In Sesotho, as with most other Bantu languages, this has been modified somewhat, resulting in the following structure ("I shall no longer look on his behalf"):

According to Doke's analysis, the situative is just the participial sub-mood, the qualificative is a form of the participial, the consecutive is the past subjunctive (used when telling stories, it sounds as if the story-teller is using the present tense to describe a past action, but the subjectival concords differ from those of the indicative present), the habitual is a multi-verbal tense using a specific set of deficient verbs (Group III in Doke's classification) followed by a perfect subjunctive (and its negative uses another deficient verb in the same group); while the infinitive and most imperatives are not verbal moods (they are separate parts of speech and cannot be used as the predicate of a sentence, though imperatives can form interjectival sentences and there is a form of the subjunctive which could alternatively be interpreted as an imperative using subjectival concords).

The analysis is further complicated by the seemingly unpredictable form of the negative for each tense of each verb. The one point most Bantuists seem to agree upon is that, apart from the indicative mood, Bantu languages also have a subjunctive formed (usually) by changing the final vowel of the verb to *-e (which corresponds to Sesotho IPA|/ɛ/).] .

*The indicative mood indicates what is, was, or will be. It uses the basic subjectival concord.
*The potential mood indicates that an action is possible. It uses similar concords to those of the subjunctive.
*The participial sub-mood is so-called since it has forms corresponding to the tenses of both the above moods (most of the indicative, but only the present potential). It is widely used after certain conjunctives, in forming the complements of numerous multi-verbal tenses, and in the formation of relative clauses.
*The subjunctive mood is used in subordinate or consecutive constructions, in many cases being parallel in usage to the Latin subjunctive.

Deficient verbs

Deficient verbs, so called because they require a subordinate or complementary verb to complete their action, are used to form many tenses and to impart certain shades of meaning. They form part of "multi-verbal conjugations" comprised of a string of verbs, each with its own subjectival concord.

Deficient verbs, being "deficient", are never used alone. Many of them are irregular in form and have irregular inflexions. Monosyllabic deficient verbs are never used with the penultimate H:title| [ɪ] |"e-"|dotted=no that is sometimes used with normal verbs (not to be confused with the indefinite concord).

Many of these verbs seem radical in nature, while others (especially those with complex implications) are obviously derived from certain extant normal verbs (but are used with slightly different meanings). What distinguishes the deficient usage of these normal verbs is the fact that they are followed directly by another verb and affect its meaning (and only the main verb may carry an objectival concord).

: H:title| [kʼɪse kʼɪsɑt͡sʼɪbɪ] |"Ke se ke sa tsebe"|dotted=no I no longer know: H:title| [kʼɪne kʼɪt͡sʼɪbɑ] |"Ke ne ke tseba"|dotted=no I knew: H:title| [kʼɪt͡ɬʼɑbe kʼɪt͡sʼɪbɑ] |"Ke tla be ke tseba"|dotted=no I shall (at some specific time) know: H:title| [ŋ̩kʼɑbe kʼiˌ'ile kʼɑt͡sʼɪbɑ] |"Nka be ke ile ka tseba"|dotted=no I should/would have known: H:title| [ŋ̩kʼɑɬɑ kʼɑt͡sʼɪbɑ] |"Nka hla ka tseba"|dotted=no I may indeed know: H:title| [kʼɪt͡ɬʼɑm̩pʼe kʼɪt͡sʼɪbɛ] |"Ke tla mpe ke tsebe"|dotted=no I will at least know: H:title| [ŋ̩kʼɑn̩nɑ kʼɑt͡sʼɪbɑ] |"Nka nna ka tseba"|dotted=no I may still know: H:title| [kʼɑbɑt͡ɬʼɑ kʼɪt͡sʼɪbɑ] |"Ka batla ke tseba"|dotted=no I nearly knew: H:title| [ŋ̩kʼekʼe kʼɑɬɔlɑ kʼɪt͡sʼɪbɑ] |"Nke ke ka hlola ke tseba"|dotted=no I shall no longer know: H:title| [kʼɪt͡sʰʷɑnet͡sʼɪ hʊt͡sʼɪbɑ] |"Ke tshwanetse ho tseba"|dotted=no I have to know

Notes

References

*Coupez, A., Bastin, Y., and Mumba, E. 1998. "Reconstructions lexicales bantoues 2 / Bantu lexical reconstructions 2". Tervuren: Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale.
*de Schryver, G. M., and Prinsloo, D. J. 2000. "Towards a sound lemmatisation strategy for the Bantu verb through the use of frequency-based tail slots — with special reference to Cilubà, Sepedi and Kiswahili". Makala ya kongamano la kimataifa Kiswahili 2000. Proceedings: 216–242, 372.
*Doke C. M. 1963. "Text Book of Zulu Grammar". Cape Town.
*Doke, C. M., and Mofokeng, S. M. 1974. "Textbook of Southern Sotho Grammar". Cape Town: Longman Southern Africa, 3rd. impression. ISBN 0 582 61700 6.
*Güldemann, T. "The history of quotative predicates: Can lexical properties arise out of grammatical construction?"
*Hyman, L. M. 2003. "Segmental phonology". In D. Nurse & G. Philippson (eds.), The Bantu languages, pp. 42-58. London: Routledge/Curzon.
*Hyman, L. M. 2007. "Niger-Congo verb extensions: Overview and discussion". In D. L. Payne and J Pen̈a (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 149-163. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
*Lodhi, A. Y. 2002. "Verbal extensions in Bantu (the case of Swahili and Nyamwezi)". In Africa & Asia, No 2, 2002, pp 4-26. Department of Oriental and African Languages, Göteborg University.

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