Sesotho parts of speech
Encyclopedia
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 affix
es 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 article
s. 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.
s 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.
The tone pattern is [ _ ¯ ].
When a verb has two objects, the second object cannot be indicated in Sesotho by a concord:
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 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 , due to its irregular concords, and class 9 uses ). 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 to the relative concord (the exception being class 1(a) , but it appears as in non-standard speech). These words have an irregular stress which falls on the final syllable.
The first form has tone pattern [ ¯ _ ] and suffixes to the relative concord.
This form is the one employed in indirect relative constructions
The second form has tone pattern [ ¯ ¯ ] and suffixes to the relative concord.
The first form has tone pattern [ ¯ ¯ ] and is formed by suffixing to the relative concord. In this case the 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 which changes to if the concord ends with an . Class 1(a) has an irregular pronoun with (but it appears as in non-standard speech). In common speech is used throughout.
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:
Many of these adjectives are very ancient and exist in almost every Bantu language (sometimes as relatives).
Notes:
E.g.:
In the Bantu languages, the relatives form an open class
and are the primary qualificatives used. Relative clause
s are also used with the relative concords.
There are two types of relative stems:
Examples of both types follow below:
The relative is not to be confused with the adjective .
E.g.:
Verbs can be used in very short relative clauses, although these are not considered proper relative stems:
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 has a special form with class 9 nouns where it appears as (thus the numeral). It is always preceded by one of two constructions:
This stem should not be confused with the adjective (some) which has a high tone and is used as a normal adjective:
The other enumeratives are used regularly using the enumerative concord:
may also be used in a particular construction (repeated and with the conjunctive enclitic ) to mean "any":
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.:
(of my people), (of your people), and (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 to these stems gives (of my family or community), (of your family or community), and (of his/her family or community). Coalescence occurs again:
E.g.:
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:
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:
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 giving meanings of "to become" and "to have."
) using only changes in tone and/or the copulative formative . The other rules employ the irregular verb .
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).
A more common form in the positive uses instead of . The negative of this is
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 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 appears; in most multi-verbal tenses of the latter the verb 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 with the conjunction (conjunctive import), and the latter using with (in the positive; the negative has no ). This conjunctive , which is a prefix attached to the verb's object, is not to be confused with the copulative verb . In all there are about 30 basic tenses in the inceptive and 10 in the stative.
A few more examples follow.
s 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.
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 is used to mean "at", its possessive form is used to indicate "at the place of"
Locatives may be formed from pronouns (except the quantitative) by prefixing and its possessive form
Furthermore, there are class 16, 17, and 18 nouns, certain forms with the prefix (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). Interestingly, the relative concord used to form these words does not seem to be weakened (it appears as instead of the used with class 3).
Some use the high tone prefix to form adverbs of time. These nouns include days of the week and months of the year. Certain other nouns which accept the suffix may also take this prefix instead.
Additionally, in slightly non-standard speech, absolute pronouns may be inflected to form adverbs meaning "on X's own" by prefixing the instrumental and the class 14 noun prefix to the pronoun.
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 ("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 when used with ideophones may take a direct object (indicated by an objectival concord). It should be noted that 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 , 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 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 of the basic verb with a high toned.
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 ( of being cold), syllabic may be heard ( of frying), syllables may have codas
( of performing with a stop), prenasalized consonants may occur ( of running), vowels may be devocalised
( of smelling bad), and various consonants not found in core Sesotho may be used ( 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) [ _ ¯ _ ] of refusing outright.
Sesotho conjunctives may be studied from two aspects: form and function.
There are four forms of conjunctives:
There are four functions of conjunctives:
Inflected forms of conjunctives and other parts of speech may be used as conjunctives.
This may be done with certain words through the use of a handful of prefixes and suffixes.
Compounds may also be used as conjunctives.
In the Bantu languages interjectives may be divided into three types:
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.
No change in form takes form in the noun.
A suffix/clitic and its plural equivalent may be used to indicate insult
The adverbial instrumental prefix is used to form interjectives of oath
The rules for the formation of the singular imperative are as follows:
Sometimes an epenthetic or may be inserted between the two 's or 's for emphasis.
The negative may be formed in several ways:
If the first person is included in the plural subjects, the hortative prefix 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 (in the positive) or (in the negative) when the deficient verb is not used
Except for forms employing subjectival concords, the plural is formed by adding the suffix to the verb (or the deficient verb when it is used). This may regularly result in vowel raising if the verb ends with the open vowel
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 and 1st. plural subjectival concord, and plural is marked by the prefix, the concord, and the suffix to the verb (or the deficient verb 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 . This formative leaves the stress in place, thus resulting in words with stress on the antepenultimate syllable.
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es 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
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
, while the sub-divisions are according to morphology and semantic significance.
| Parts of speech |
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As a rule, Bantu languages do not have any prepositions or article
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
s. 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
Sesotho concords
Just as the Sesotho sentence centres around the Sesotho noun, the noun is made to "concòrd" with the verbs, pronouns, and qualificatives describing it by a set of Sesotho noun 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
Sesotho verbs
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...
) 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
Sesotho nouns
Sesotho nouns signify concrete or abstract concepts in the language, but are distinct from the Sesotho pronouns.Bantu languages are often said to have sentences which are "centred around the noun" due to the striking nature of the noun concordance system...
, 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.
Nouns
| Pronouns: |
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Pronouns
There are four main types of pronounPronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s in Sesotho: absolute, demonstrative, quantitive, and qualificative. Each pronoun is a complete word and may stand in place of the noun
Sesotho nouns
Sesotho nouns signify concrete or abstract concepts in the language, but are distinct from the Sesotho pronouns.Bantu languages are often said to have sentences which are "centred around the noun" due to the striking nature of the noun concordance system...
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.
| Class | Absolute | Demonstrative | Quantitative | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st. position | 2nd. position | 3rd. position | ||||||
| 1st. form | 2nd. form | 1st. form | 2nd. form | 1st. form | 2nd. form | |||
| First and second persons | ||||||||
| (1st. pers. sg.) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| (1st. pers. pl.) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| (2nd. pers. sg.) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| (2nd. pers. pl.) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Third persons and noun classes | ||||||||
| Class 1(a). | — | |||||||
| Class 2(a). | ||||||||
| Class 3. | ||||||||
| Class 4. | ||||||||
| Class 5. | ||||||||
| Class 6. | ||||||||
| Class 7. | ||||||||
| Class 8. | ||||||||
| Class 9. | ||||||||
| Class 10. | ||||||||
| Class 14. | ||||||||
| Class 15, 16, 17, 18. | ||||||||
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 . Note that any affixes attached to the pronoun do not change its form.The tone pattern is [ _ ¯ ].
- You, what do you want? (the pronoun is merely used for emphasis)
When a verb has two objects, the second object cannot be indicated in Sesotho by a concord:
- I showed it2 to them1.
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 , due to its irregular concords, and class 9 uses ). This pronoun is not very commonly used.
- These dogs
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.
- Here I am
The second form has tone pattern [ ¯ ¯ ] and is formed by suffixing to the relative concord (the exception being class 1(a) , but it appears as in non-standard speech). These words have an irregular stress which falls on the final syllable.
- These people
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 to the relative concord.
- That airplane.
This form is the one employed in indirect relative constructions
- The data which I am collecting
The second form has tone pattern [ ¯ ¯ ] and suffixes to the relative concord.
- That purpose
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 to the relative concord. In this case the interacts strongly with the vowel in the concord.
- That car there
- That picture there
The second form has tone pattern [ ¯ _ ] and is formed somewhat irregularly from the relative concord. The suffix is which changes to if the concord ends with an . Class 1(a) has an irregular pronoun with (but it appears as in non-standard speech). In common speech is used throughout.
- That star there
Quantitative pronouns
While many other Bantu languages have several quantitative pronouns, Sesotho only has the ("all"/"whole") form. It has tone pattern [ ¯ ¯ ] and is formed from the pronomial concord for nouns (singular persons use class 1's concords and plural persons use class 2's concords).- The whole day
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.- The beautiful cars ⇒ The beautiful ones (cars) have arrived
| Adjectives: |
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Adjectives
Adjectives are qualificatives used with the adjectival concords.In the Bantu languages, the adjectives form a closed class
Closed class
In linguistics, a closed class is a word class to which no new items can normally be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items. Typical closed classes found in many languages are adpositions , determiners, conjunctions, and pronouns.Contrastingly, an open class offers...
(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.| Stem | English meaning(s) |
|---|---|
| ugly, bad | |
| big | |
| some, other | |
| two | |
| , | tall, long |
| female, left hand side | |
| , | small, few |
| beautiful, proper | |
| how many/much? | |
| many |
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.| Stem | English meaning(s) |
|---|---|
| white | |
| , | red |
| white with long black stripes | |
| fawn | |
| green, blue | |
| brown | |
| black with white spots (goats only) | |
| with white spot on the forehead | |
| red and white | |
| white faced |
Notes:
- The adjective means "green/blue", while the relative means "raw/unripe." The two meanings are obviously related.
- a green pumpkin, a raw pumpkin
- The of the adjective and the of the adjective -rolo are never nasalized with class 8, 9, and 10 nouns.
- Adjectives beginning with do not undergo nasalization either.
- is nasalized irregularly to , though it is very common to hear just the nasalized form used with all nouns.
- The adjective is not to be confused with the enumerative (one) which has a different tone. Like the enumerative, it is also irregular. It appears nasalised as with class 9 (it is simply for all other classes). Also, for the classes it uses the irregular (though normal in Setswana) concord instead of .
- some goats
- many goats, Setswana dipodi tse dingata
E.g.:
- A large amount of (iron) ore
- A yellow mask
- The right (lit. male) hand
Relatives
Relatives are qualificatives used with the relative concords.In the Bantu languages, the relatives form an open class
Open class (linguistics)
In linguistics, a word class may be either an open class or a closed class. Open classes accept the addition of new morphemes , through such processes as compounding, derivation, inflection, coining, and borrowing; closed classes generally do not....
and are the primary qualificatives used. Relative clause
Relative clause
A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
s are also used with the relative concords.
There are two types of relative stems:
- Stems which seem to be radical in nature, and from which abstract nouns in class 14 may be formed.
- Certain nouns unchanged in form.
Examples of both types follow below:
| Type | Example | English meaning(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Radical | wild | |
| wicked | ||
| difficult, hard | ||
| raw, unripe | ||
| wide | ||
| Nouns | wet (water) | |
| worthwhile (worth) | ||
| brave (liver) | ||
| intelligent (intelligence) | ||
| difficult, heavy (heaviness) |
The relative is not to be confused with the adjective .
E.g.:
- Simple strategies
- An important phase/stage
- Fierce flames
Verbs can be used in very short relative clauses, although these are not considered proper relative stems:
- to become old ⇒ an old man
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"):
| No. | Stem | Type | English meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | [ _ ] | strong | one, alone |
| [ ¯ ] | what kind? | ||
| 2. | [ ¯ ] | weak | which? |
| [ ¯ ¯ ] | |||
| 3. | [ ¯ _ ] | weak | other |
The strong enumerative stems use the strong form of the enumerative concord, and the weak stems use the weak form.
The numeral has a special form with class 9 nouns where it appears as (thus the numeral). It is always preceded by one of two constructions:
- The participial copulative
- One nurse
- The nurses only
- The relative
- One nurse
This stem should not be confused with the adjective (some) which has a high tone and is used as a normal adjective:
- some nurse
The other enumeratives are used regularly using the enumerative concord:
- What type of medicine is this?
- Which medicine is this?
- It's the wrong medicine!
may also be used in a particular construction (repeated and with the conjunctive enclitic ) to mean "any":
- any year
| Possessives: |
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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.
| Person | Stem |
|---|---|
| 1st. person singular | |
| 2nd. person singular | |
| 3rd. person and class 1 nouns |
E.g.:
- My face
- Its face (class 9)
(of my people), (of your people), and (of his/her people) indicate collective possession. The vowels in the stems coalesce with the vowel in the possessive concord, changing the vowel quality:
- Your sheep
Prefixing to these stems gives (of my family or community), (of your family or community), and (of his/her family or community). Coalescence occurs again:
- Your family's sheep
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 child's eye
- My father's love
- The handwriting of these (class 2(a))
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:
- An iron knife
- A sack of mealies
- A blind man (lit. "man of a blind person")
- The fourth year
Cardinals
Bantu languagesBantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
tend to use a quinary
Quinary
Quinary is a numeral system with five as the base. A possible origination of a quinary system is that there are five fingers on either hand. The base five is stated from 0-4...
counting system with six basic numbers, the other four being miscellaneous.
Here is a comparison between the first ten cardinals in some Bantu languages:
| No. | Sesotho | Tswana | Swahili Swahili language Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia... |
Zulu | Ganda |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | ngwe | moja | ukunye | emu | |
| 2. | pedi | mbili | isibili | bbiri | |
| 3. | tharo | tatu | kuthathu | ssatu | |
| 4. | nne | nne | okune | nnya | |
| 5. | tlhano | tano | isihlanu | ttaano | |
| 6. | thataro | sita | isithupa | mukaaga | |
| 7. | supa | baba | isikhombisa | musanvu | |
| 8. | robedi | nane | isishiyagalombili | munaana | |
| 9. | robong | tisa | isishiyagalokunye | mwenda | |
| 10. | shome | kumi | ishume | kumi |
Notes:
- The six basic numbers are 1 to 5, and 10.
- As in many Bantu languages, numbers 2 to 5 are adjectives (in many others they are enumeratives); the number 10 is a relative. In Sesotho, all the other numbers are relatives derived from verbs indicating gestures (e.g. 7 is derived from "to point").
- The above are the cardinal (counting) forms, derived from the adjectival forms (for 2 to 5); in particular, the forms in the Sotho–Tswana languages are nasally permuted.
- In Sesotho, is a variant (allomorph) of the adjective stem used only for Class 9 nouns. The use of the number "one" in Sesotho is different from the other Sotho–Tswana languages, because the Sesotho is an irregular enumerative which behaves sometimes like an adjective and can therefore become a noun.
Verbs
| Copulatives: |
|
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 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 copulaZero copula
Zero copula is a linguistic phenomenon whereby the subject is joined to the predicate without overt marking of this relationship...
) using only changes in tone and/or the copulative formative . The other rules employ the irregular verb .
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.
| Type | All qual. & adv., 1st. & 2nd. subst. |
3rd. subst. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | |Rule 2 | ||
| SC + CB | + CB | ||
| – | + SC + CB | – | + CB |
| Participial | |Rule 4 | ||
| SC + and CB | + and CB | ||
| – | SC + and CB | – | + and CB |
| Relative | |Rule 6 | ||
| RC + + and CB | DE and + + and CB | ||
| – | RC + + and CB | – | DE and + + and CB |
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).
- Rule 1: To form copulatives from qualificatives and adverbs, with all persons and classes as subjects, and from substantives with 1st. and 2nd. person subjects, the subjectival concord is prefixed to the unchanged word or word-base. The prefix is used in the negative. It also has a definite tone pattern which avoids ambiguity with plain uses of qualificatives.
In the case of adjectives, the subjectival concord takes the place of the "relative" part of the adjectival concord (that is, with the exception of the classes, the adjective assumes the class prefix of the noun). Note that there is no downstep between the two words and that high toned subjectival concords cause any following noun prefix to be raised to a high tone (due to High Tone Doubling, see Sesotho tonologySesotho tonologyLike almost all other Niger–Congo languages, Sesotho is a tonal language, spoken with two basic tones, high and low . The Sesotho grammatical tone system is rather complex and uses a large number of "sandhi" rules.However, the Sesotho system is by no means the most complicated, nor even one of...
).
- Those sheep are fine
- [ _ _ ¯ ¯ ¯ _ ] Those people are large
Contrast the last example with [ _ _ !¯ _ ¯ _ ] The large people, where the relative concord has an irregular extra-high tone and does not raise the second low tone , and there is a downstep between the two words which is not heard in the copulative.
In the case of relatives, the subjectival concord takes the place of the relative concord and the relative stem functions as the copulative.
- Cheetahs are wild
- [ _ _ ¯ _ ¯ ] The people are lazy
Contrast the last example with [ _ _ !¯ _ ¯ ] The lazy people, with a downstep and extra-high tone on the relative concord.
With the enumerative (one) the subjectival concord is prefixed to the enumerative with the enumerative concord. The other enumeratives are not used in this way.- The tree is one
With (mainly locative) adverbs the subjectival concord is simply prefixed to the adverb.- We are home
The first and second persons are only used with substantival bases in using this rule.
- I am a person
- We are them
The negative of all these formations may be formed by simply prefixing the low toned . This is exactly the same way that the negatives of most verbs in most tenses and moods are formed. Additionally, just as with verb negatives, the subjectival concord for class 1 nouns becomes , and all subjectival concords are high toned (not just third persons and noun classes). Note that the subjectival concord does not affect the tones of the base as in the positive.
- My clothes are not wet
- She is worthwhile [ ¯ ¯ _ _ ]
- She is not worthwhile [ _ ¯ _ _ _ ]
- Rule 2: To form copulatives from substantives with a third person or noun class noun, the high toned prefix is used in the positive and in the negative. This should not be confused with the verb (used in the negatives of rules 3 to 6).
- This man is the minister
- That house is not mine (qualificative pronoun)
- There they are
- [ ¯ _ _ ] He/she/it is a person
Contrast the last example with [ _ _ _ ] I am a person.
- Rule 3: To form participialsParticipleIn linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
of copulatives of qualificatives and adverbs with all persons and classes as subject, and from substantives with 1st. and 2nd. person subjects, the subjectival concord is prefixed to the verb preceding the copulative base. The negative uses the irregular negative of the verb.
- Although we are labourers
- If they are worthwhile (class 2)
- If they are not good (class 8 or 10)
This is the usual way of using the enumerative (one).
- Although the year is one
- Rule 4: To form participials of copulatives from substantives with a 3rd. person or noun class subject, the indefinite concord is prefixed to the verb . The negative uses the irregular negative of the verb.
- If she is the leader
- Although she is not my child
- Rule 5: To form relative clauses in present time of copulatives falling under rule 3, employ the direct relative concord and suffix to ( in the negative).
- I who is a person
- The cattle which are in the veld
- Rule 6: To form relative clauses in present time of copulatives falling under rule 4, employ the indirect relative construction with a demonstrative element followed by the subjectival indicator , preceding the verb ( in the negative), with the relative suffix .
- People who are teachers
- People who are not slaves
The indefinite concord ho-
Indefinite copulative construction is achieved by using the class 17 concord prefixed to the subject. Except with adverbs of manner, this always gives a locative implication to the construction.- There is a man in the house
- There isn't a man in the house
A more common form in the positive uses instead of . The negative of this is
- There is food in the bag
- There are not a lot of cattle (lit. There are not cattle which are a lot)
Conjugation
Just like verbal conjugation, the conjugation possibilities of copulatives are varied and complex, with most tenses needing deficient verbsSesotho deficient verbs
In the Sesotho language, the deficient verbs are a special subset of Sesotho verbs that require a subordinate or complementary verb to complete their action, and which are used to form many tenses and to impart certain shades of meaning to the predicate...
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 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 appears; in most multi-verbal tenses of the latter the verb 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.
- He became a professional singer last year
- She was not his spouse
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 with the conjunction (conjunctive import), and the latter using with (in the positive; the negative has no ). This conjunctive , which is a prefix attached to the verb's object, is not to be confused with the copulative verb . In all there are about 30 basic tenses in the inceptive and 10 in the stative.
- I shall have a child
- We shall (at some specific time) have evidence. Note the Group I deficient verb used with the infix to show the continuous future positive tense, with an implication of the time being known.
A few more examples follow.
- I will (at that time) not have any peace. Stative inceptive indicative future negative.
- It (class 3) has never ever been as big as this. Direct inceptive subjunctive past negative.
- It [the month] is now December. Direct stative exclusive positive.
| Adverbs: |
|
Adverbs
AdverbAdverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s 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
Covert (linguistics)
In linguistics, a feature of a word or phrase is said to be covert if there is no surface evidence of its existence within that word or phrase. For example, many languages have covert grammatical gender in nouns, in that there is no way to tell from the form of a noun which gender it is; gender...
copulative.
- People First (South African Government service delivery slogan), the full form may be assumed to be It is the People First
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.
- They go to the mountain
- They come from the mountain
- They are sitting on the mountain
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:
- Most nouns except those of class 1a suffix a low tone . This suffix comes from original Proto-Bantu *-nî which results in vowel raising
- stone wall ⇒
- Non-class 1a nouns ending with replace it with . (day) is an exception with , though its plural has a regular locative with
- mountain ⇒
- Non-class 1a nouns ending with the syllabic nasal suffix as usual, resulting in two consecutive syllabic nasals
- vultures ⇒
- Class 1a nouns assume the high tone prefix .
- opposite sex sibling ⇒
- Nouns indicating persons (except those in class 1a) may use either the prefix or the suffix
- grandchild ⇒ ,
- Many nouns, such as place names and nouns indicating times are used without any modification
- summer, in the summer
While is used to mean "at", its possessive form is used to indicate "at the place of"
- I come from my younger uncle's place
Locatives may be formed from pronouns (except the quantitative) by prefixing and its possessive form
- They come from that town
Furthermore, there are class 16, 17, and 18 nouns, certain forms with the prefix (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). Interestingly, the relative concord used to form these words does not seem to be weakened (it appears as instead of the used with class 3).
| Here | There | Yonder | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st. form | 2nd. form | 1st. form | 2nd. form | 1st. form | 2nd. form |
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.- a long time ago
- night, at night
- afternoon, in the afternoon
- day, in the day ( (in Lesotho orthography) "In the Days of Cannibals" is a landmark historical tale written in 1911 by Edouard Motsamai about Difaqane)
- midnight, at midnight
Some use the high tone prefix to form adverbs of time. These nouns include days of the week and months of the year. Certain other nouns which accept the suffix may also take this prefix instead.
- July ⇒ in July
- Thursday ⇒ on Thursday
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 , the copulative , etc.).- one ⇒ once (also post-haste)
- many ⇒ often
- together
- thus
- I defeated him with (my) genius
- on purpose
- I am dead from hunger! (I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!)
Additionally, in slightly non-standard speech, absolute pronouns may be inflected to form adverbs meaning "on X's own" by prefixing the instrumental and the class 14 noun prefix to the pronoun.
- That which you did on your own
The interrogative
The high tone adverb 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.- Did you speak to her?
Ideophones
An ideophoneIdeophone
Ideophones are words used by speakers to evoke a vivid impression of certain sensation or sensory perceptions, e.g. smell, color, shape, sound, action, or movement. Ideophones are attested in all languages of the world, however, languages differ in the extent to which they make use of them...
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 ("verbum dicendi
Verbum dicendi
A verbum dicendi is a word that expresses speech or introduces a quotation, such as "say", "utter", "ask" or "rumble". Verba dicendi may grammaticalize into quotatives....
") 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).
- to suddenly become dark, the light suddenly went out
- to be very white, the clothes are very white
- to be gray or dirty, his is rather gray (from dirt or from not applying moisturiser after bathing)
The verb when used with ideophones may take a direct object (indicated by an objectival concord). It should be noted that 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 , while the ideophone itself does not in any way change.
- to hit him over the head with a walking stick
- it was wet
- ...while he was completely drunk
This illustrates that the ideophone itself is neither transitive nor intransitive, etc., and they are usually translated to English with the construction "of...."
- of being alone
Many Sesotho ideophones are radicals, and many of them are shared by many Bantu languages (such as Sesotho 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 of the basic verb with a high toned.
- , he grabbed it (accompanied by the action of reaching out and quickly grasping an invisible object)
- and he grabbed him by his shirt (accompanied by the speaker performing the action on himself)
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 ( of being cold), syllabic may be heard ( of frying), syllables may have codas
Syllable coda
In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a rime. Some syllables consist only of a nucleus with no coda...
( of performing with a stop), prenasalized consonants may occur ( of running), vowels may be devocalised
Voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...
( of smelling bad), and various consonants not found in core Sesotho may be used ( 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) [ _ ¯ _ ] of refusing outright.
| Conjunctives: |
|
Conjunctives
Conjunctives introduce or join up sentences.Sesotho conjunctives may be studied from two aspects: form and function.
There are four forms of conjunctives:
- Primitive conjunctives, which we may call conjunctionsGrammatical conjunctionIn grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
, - Other parts of speech unchanged in form but used as conjunctives,
- Inflected forms of conjunctives and other parts of speech, and
- Compounds.
There are four functions of conjunctives:
- Non-influencing conjunctives which don't affect the grammatical mood of the succeeding predicate,
- Conjunctives which govern the indicative mood,
- Conjunctives which govern the subjunctive mood, and
- Conjunctives which govern the participial sub-mood.
Forms
- Conjunctions are very rare, and many may have originated from simpler forms.
- if/when
- and
- whereas
- to say ⇒ that/such that
- that over there (class 15 demonstrative pronoun) ⇒ if only (note the irregular palatalization)
- only (adverb) ⇒ but, however
- deficient verb implying "may as well just, act notwithstanding" ⇒ but
This may be done with certain words through the use of a handful of prefixes and suffixes.
- if ⇒ even if
- class 15 demonstrative pronoun ⇒ therefore
- but ⇒ but
- some day ⇒ perhaps
Functions
- Non-influencing conjunctives do not affect the mood of the following predicate. They are co-ordinating and merely form compound sentences.
- He does not know me (indicative mood) ⇒ I know him
- Should I stop asking you? (subjunctive mood) ⇒ Will you help me with this work
or should I stop asking you?
- Conjunctives which govern the indicative mood are followed by clauses in the indicative mood.
- He said he knew him
- You can see
that it's raining (this is pronounced with tone pattern [ _ _ ])
- Conjunctives which govern the subjunctive mood are followed by (subordinate) clauses in the subjunctive mood.
- You need to hurry up
- Conjunctives which govern the participial sub-mood are followed by clauses in the participial sub-mood. Note that some of these conjunctives are followed by a pure participial form, while others are followed by a relative construction (since all relative clauses in Sesotho are in the participial sub-mood).
- You can finish it
- They opened for them
although they had already closed- He showed that he was sad from the way in which he was speaking
| Interjectives: |
|
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:
- Radical interjectives, or interjectionInterjectionIn grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...
s, - Vocatives, and
- Verb imperativesImperative moodThe imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
.
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.
- greetings!
- of astonishment
- of contempt (really just an isolated lateral click)
- of approval (the final vowel is lengthened)
- of calling
- of pain ("ouch!")
- of dissent ("no") (the vowel is long with a very irregular low rising tone { ／ })
- of dissent (the two vowels are separated by a glottal stopGlottal stopThe glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
; see hiatusHiatus (linguistics)In phonology, hiatus or diaeresis refers to two vowel sounds occurring in adjacent syllables, with no intervening consonant. When two adjacent vowel sounds occur in the same syllable, the result is instead described as a diphthong....
) - of assent ("yes") (the vowel is long with a high falling tone { ＼ })
- of being dumfounded (this is a common interjection among all language groups in the more cosmopolitan areas of South Africa)
- of thanks (from Afrikaans "dankie")
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.
- oh my! (only used by men)
- hey you!
- your mother! (used as an insult similar to Afrikaans "jou ma!")
A suffix/clitic and its plural equivalent may be used to indicate insult
- you wretched evil hag!
The adverbial instrumental prefix is used to form interjectives of oath
- by my father!
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:
- Verbs with more than one syllable are used without any modification
- run!
- Most monosyllabic verbs may either suffix or prefix
- exit ⇒ / get out!
- The verbs (say), (go), and only use the prefix
- say ⇒
- The imperative of the verb (come) is
Sometimes an epenthetic or may be inserted between the two 's or 's for emphasis.
The negative may be formed in several ways:
- By prefixing to the basic verb and changing the final to
- eat ⇒ / eat!, do not eat!
- By using with the infix with no change in the verb's final vowel
- enter ⇒ don't come in!
- A commonly used negative, although technically not an interjective (as it contains a subjectival concord) is made by employing the (inflected) Group IV deficient verb in the subjunctive mood (that is, with the "auxiliary concord" prefixed to the main verb). The above negative is most probably a contraction of this form (hence the final vowel was not changed due to the contracted concord)
- speak ⇒ don't say a word!
If the first person is included in the plural subjects, the hortative prefix is used in the subjunctive mood. This is an example of the cohortative mood (a form of the subjunctive)
- let us rather not go
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 (in the positive) or (in the negative) when the deficient verb is not used
- tell ⇒ tell them!, y'all should not tell them!, let's tell them!
Except for forms employing subjectival concords, the plural is formed by adding the suffix to the verb (or the deficient verb when it is used). This may regularly result in vowel raising if the verb ends with the open vowel
- y'all must not run!
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
Dual (grammatical number)
Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...
, and plural number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
in the 1st. person. In this case dual number is marked by the hortative prefix and 1st. plural subjectival concord, and plural is marked by the prefix, the concord, and the suffix to the verb (or the deficient verb if it is used).
- run! (singular 2nd. person)
- let (the two of) us run! (dual 1st. person)
- let us (more than two) run! (plural 1st. person)
- let us (more than two) not run! (plural 1st. person negative)
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 . This formative leaves the stress in place, thus resulting in words with stress on the antepenultimate syllable.
- run I say!