A grammar sketch of the Shetjhauba variety of Shekgalagadi

Abstract

Shekgalagadi is an endangered Bantu language of the Sotho cluster spoken in Botswana. While it is known that the language shows extensive regional variation, very little documentation exists of smaller, more remote varieties. This paper provides a first ever description of the northern-most Shekgalagadi variety known as Shetjhauba, spoken along the Okavango panhandle close to the Namibian border. Using original field data, I provide a grammatical sketch of Shetjhauba. First, the segmental phonology of Shetjhauba is described, providing an overview of its phonemic consonants and vowels, as well as a major morphophonological process that occurs in several morphological environments, referred to as “strengthening”. A striking difference between the phonology of Shetjhauba and that of previously described Shekgalagadi varieties is its extensive use of click phonemes. Secondly, the nominal and verbal morphology of Shetjhauba are discussed, giving insights into noun classes, nominal derivation, and various pronouns and agreeing modifiers. Shetjhauba also has an extensive verbal morphology, with various verbal derivational suffixes, and inflectional affixes marking tense, aspect, mood, negation, as well as subject and object.

Divergence and contact in Southern Bantu language and population history

“…Language Dynamics and Change (2022) 1-58 | 10.1163/22105832-bja10022 Kgalagadi (S311) was originally seen as a variety of Tswana (S31; Doke, 1954), but later as a separate Sotho language (Auer, 1977;van Wyk, 1969: 176), which is confirmed by our classification. The Tjhauba variety of Kgalagadi (S311), spoken in northwestern Botswana, differs significantly from other varieties of Kgalagadi in lexicon and phonology (Lukusa and Monaka, 2008: 8;Gunnink, 2022b), but in our classification Tjhauba and Kgalagadi are still closely related sister languages.…”

Contact influence in the Tjhauba variety of Kgalagadi

“…Words referring to humans are assigned to class 1 (using the prefix mʊ-). These patterns mostly follow tendencies for noun class semantics also found in native Tjhauba vocabulary (Gunnink 2022c). The addition of a noun class prefix is expected for borrowings from Kx'a or Khoe languages, as these do not have a noun class system similar to Tjhauba.…”

“…17, 22). Morphological adaptation of verbs includes the addition of a suffix a, an inflectional suffix used in a wide range of constructions in Tjhauba (Gunnink 2022c). There are also borrowed verbs that do not display this final suffix (e.g.…”

“…9, 27). A total of six lexical verbs without it are attested in Tjhauba, including the two loanwords listed here (see Gunnink 2022c).…”

“…In the Tjhauba word mʊ-ʔʊĺɪ ́ 'rope made of palm leaves' the click has been lost, and the second root consonant /n/ has been replaced by /l/. This is not a case of phonological nativization (as /n/ does occur phonemically in Tjhauba, Gunnink (2022c)), but part of a regular sound change that has historically changed all instances of *n to /l/ (see section 4). The second Tjhauba loanword that reflects the same Yeyi source is mù-n!…”