The associative copulative and expression of bodily discomfort in Northern Sotho

Abstract

This article discusses one of the meanings expressed by the associative copulative construction with -na le, 'have' in Northern Sotho, namely to 'physically experience discomfort', 'suffer from' or 'be ill with' something. In light of alternative available verbs that are employed to express the same concept in specific ways, this article aims to investigate the occurrence of such alternative verbs, their semantic relationship with -na le 'have' and with each other. A lexical semantics investigation involving verb classes, selectional restrictions and paradigmatic sense relations reveals that -na le 'have' functions as a superordinate in a troponymy relationship with these verbs. It also shows that these verbs are not on the same level in the hierarchical scheme, placing -bolaya 'kill', -tshwenya 'trouble' and -swara 'catch'/ 'hold' just below -na le 'have' as they select both body-part and affliction arguments. The rest of the verbs are positioned on a lower level, selecting either body-part or affliction.

Truncation, affection, and pain in Southern Bantu

“…the second person singular possession in truncated possession, but no meaning difference has been established (Mojapelo 2007).…”

“…TshiVenḓa (Section 3) has the narrowest set, with only two eligible possessees -mother and child -and one eligible possessor, the first person singular. Setswana (Section 4) will be shown to have a narrower set of eligible possessors and possessees, and will be compared to similar data from its sister language Northern Sotho (Mojapelo 2007). A discussion (Section 5) will show that the conditions for truncation are extremely similar across these Southern Bantu languages, both in phonology and semantics, and will examine similar data from Kiswahili and other Bantu languages in light of this.…”