Sotho Parts of Speech - Ideophones

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).

ho re fi! to suddenly become dark, lebone la tima fi! the light suddenly went out

ho re twa! to be very white, diphahlo di tshweu twa! the clothes are very white

ho re pududu to be gray or dirty, o mo putswa pududu his is rather gray (from dirt or from not applying moisturiser after bathing)

The verb -re 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 -re, while the ideophone itself does not in any way change.

ho mo re mu! to hit him over the head with a walking stick

e ne e re tepe! it was wet

...a re funyafehle! ...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...."

to! of being alone

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.

a e tshawara tshwari!, a e re tshwari! he grabbed it (accompanied by the action of reaching out and quickly grasping an invisible object)

a mo re kgom! 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 (po... of being cold), syllabic r may be heard (tjerr 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.