Bibl. / Southern Sotho is spoken mainly in Basutoland and its immediate surroundings, but is also found sporadically, because of the migration of its speakers, in other parts of the Republic of South Africa. Together with Northern Sotho and Tswana, it belongs to the Sotho group of Bantu languages, which is one of five such groups, together constituting the south-eastern Bantu language zone.

Ph.D. (African Languages) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Die doel van die studie is om ‘n oorhoofse grammatiese beskrywing te doen van hulpwerkwoorde wat as subkategorie van die woordklas werkwoord funksioneer. Sodanige beskrywing behels onder meer die identifisering en klassifisering van taalvorme wat as hulpwerkwoorde funksioneer. Die grammatiese aard van hierdie taalvorme word in taalkonteks semanties, sintakties en morfologies ontleed, met spesiale fokus op die diakroniese ontwikkelingsgang wat hierdie taalvorme kenmerk. Kategorie- en rangverskuiwing wat deurlopend in die ontwikkelingsproses met toepaslike voorbeelde toegelig word, vorm ‘n belangrike basis waarop die studie gebaseer is. Verder word daar veral aandag bestee aan die semantiese kenmerke van hulpwerkwoordgroepe wat tot op hede weinig aandag van grammatici ontvang het en verskeie voorbeelde word nougeset ontleed. Kategorie- en rangverskuiwing in die ontwikkelingsproses word deurlopend aangetoon. / Prof. L.C. Posthumus

Dissertation (DLitt)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

M.A. (African Languages) / Rank and category shifting are two language-dynamic processes of syntactic origin, wherein form words or word groups are used outside their usual and original syntactic functions and gradually shift their ranks as well as categories. This shifting leads to the development of new word forms with their own characteristics different from the original ones.

M.A. / The study of the ideophone as a linguistic phenomenon has, with regard to the Nguni group of languages, received considerable attention to date. Concerning Southern Sotho, however, the handling of this word category has been rudimentary. Comprising the highlighting of a few aspects at a tine only. The role the ideophone plays as a stylistic phenomenon has not yet been thoroughly investigated. This situation prompted a more thorough investigation into the dualistic function of the ideophone in Southern Sotho ...

Thesis (Ph. D.(African Languages))--University of Pretoria, 2001. / Summary in English and Afrikaans. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines the argument structures of applicative and causative verbs in Sesotho, and proposes conditions which they must comply with. It is argued that the two conditions in question are in fact general conditions on argument structure rather than restrictions specific to the individual suffixes. The first, the Thematic Hierarchy Condition, which accounts for the unacceptability of unaccusative verbs and experiencer verbs with a Benefactive argument, follows from a universal tendency to have the highest thematic role as the external argument. The second, the Internal Argument Principle, which accounts for the unacceptability of the applicative and causative suffixes with verbs that take two obligatory internal arguments, follows from the fact that basic verbs across languages take no more than two internal arguments. It is argued that this second principle does not follow from Case Theory or Theta Theory. / This thesis also demonstrates that the distinction between structural and inherent Case plays an important role in morphology. It accounts for certain differences between causatives and applicatives, including the unacceptability of causative verbs with an S$ sp prime$ complement and the order in which the applicative and causative suffixes appear.

Assignment (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

M.A. (African Languages) / Please refer to full text to view abstract