Sotho Verbs - Conjugation

Conjugation

Verbal conjugation is by far the most complex and varied topic in the Bantu languages. The tenses are conjugated by means of prefixes and infixes indicating person, mood, implication, and aspect.

There are two conjugations, the positive and negative, and most tenses have corresponding forms in each. The language recognises four moods: the indicative, the subjunctive, the potential, and the participial sub-mood (infinitives are nouns and imperatives are interjectives). The moods may be divided into tenses according to time (remote past, immediate past, present, immediate future, and remote future) and implication (simple, progressive, and exclusive), which may be further subdivided according to aspect into indefinite, continuous, and perfect.

There are also many often complex compound tenses, indicated by changes in tone and the use of deficient verbs (multi-verbal conjugations).

Import refers to how the object of the verb is indicated.

Verbs can be either:

  • Intransitive, with no direct object
    Ke a thola I become quiet
  • Transitive, with a single direct object
    Ke a o leboha I thank you
  • Ditransitive, with two objects
    Ke fa ngwaneso mofaho I give my sibling food for the journey
  • Locative, with a locative adverbial construction often indicated by -ng / -eng
    Ke kena lapeng I enter my home
  • Agentive verbs (usually passives), which need a copulative used as an agent adverb indicated by ke-
    Ba thuswa ke bukantswe They are helped by the dictionary
  • Instrumental verbs, which use an instrumental adverb indicated by ka-
    Re eta ka koloi We travel by car
  • Conjunctive verbs (mostly reciprocals), which use the conjunctive proclitic le-
    Re dumellana le bona We agree with them

Many verbs can have more than one import (-tsamaya (walk) can be locative, instrumental, or conjunctive; -bua (speak) can be intransitive, transitive, instrumental, or conjunctive) and verb derivatives can also change the import of the stem.

Many shades of meaning are achieved by the employment of deficient verbs in multi-verbal conjugations. Many tenses and moods may only be formed in this manner.

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