Syntax as linguistic discipline

Syntax is construed as the structural description of sentences and their constituting parts. It is the field of linguistics that studies how words are combined into larger phrases and, ultimately, sentences. In Setswana the minimal structure of some phrases is only a word. This word may be modified with another word or word group. For example, a noun phrase may only consist of a noun such as basimane ‘boys’. This noun may be modified with a demonstrative pronoun ba ‘these’ constituting the noun phrase basimane ba ‘these boys’.

However, some phrases cannot consist of only one word as the head word must be followed by a complement which is a compulsory word or word group. For example, the instrumental particle ka ‘with’ must be followed by a complement such as the noun pene ‘a pen’ and in this instance an instrumental particle phrase ka pene ‘with a pen’ is formed.

Phrases act as constituents in more comprehensive structures such as other phrases or sentences. For example, the noun phrase basimane ‘the boys’ can be a complement of the associative particle le ‘with’ and in this instance an associative particle phrase le basimane ‘with the boys’ is formed. The noun phrase can also act as a subject or object in a sentence. In the sentence Basimane ba a tshameka. ‘The boys are playing.’ the noun phrase basimane ‘boys’ act as the subject in the sentence. In the sentence Mosadi o bitsa basimane. ‘The woman calls the boys.’ The noun phrase basimane ‘boys’ act as the object in the sentence.

Sentences have a specific clause structure. Clauses are divided into main (independent) and subordinate (dependent) clauses. A main clause functions on its own and constitutes a well-formed sentence. It does not depend on another clause for its existence. This sentence includes a single verbal element and apart from the verbal element, the sentence can also include various other constituents such as a subject, objects, obliques, and adjuncts (Louwrens, 1994: 13, 17). For example, the sentence in (1) is a simple sentence and it consist of only one independent clause.

A subordinate clause is reliant on the appearance of a main clause to supplement its meaning (Louwrens, 1994: 28, 84). It is part of a complex sentence that consists of a main clause and at least one subordinate clause (Watters, 2000: 217). The complex sentence consists of at least two verbal elements. One verb is included in the main clause and one in the subordinate clause (Louwrens, 1991: 30). For example, the complex sentence in (2) consists of the main clause Phefo e a tsena ‘The wind comes in’ and the subordinate clause fa re bula lebati ‘when we open the door’ that denotes the participial mood.

Syntax can also be described as the study of rules (phrase structure rules) which manage the formation of sentences and therefore it is possible to generate an infinite number of sentences Words are combined according to rules governing the word distribution, sequence and combination (Watters, 2000: 194; DALL, 2000: 1). Phrase structure rules contain the constituents and word order. For example, the structure of the sentence Basimane ba a tshameka. ‘The boys are playing.’ can be represented by the rule ‘S → NP VP’. This sentence consists of the NP (noun phrase) basimane ‘boys’ and the VP (verb phrase) ba a tsameka ‘they play’. The words are placed in a language specific word order and are arranged according to a specific rule. The NP consists of a noun and the rule for this phrase is ‘NP → N’. The VP consists of a verb and the rule for this phrase is ‘VP → V’. The following tree diagram represents the mentioned phrase structure rules.

[click image to enlarge]

The ‘S → NP VP’ rule is also applicable to the structure of the sentence Basimane ba reka dibuka. ‘The boys buy books.’. The NP consists of the noun basimane ‘boys’ while the VP consists of the verb ba reka ‘they buy’ and the noun dibuka ‘books’. The noun dibuka is thus a NP within this VP. The rule for this phrase is ‘VP → V NP’. The following tree diagram represents the phrase structure rules of this sentence.

[click image to enlarge]

A study of the syntax of a language is also concerned with the internal and external syntax. Internal syntax thus deals with how a given phrase or sentence itself is constructed in a well-formed manner while external syntax is concerned with the external environment in which a phrase or sentence occurs. The internal syntax represents the framework in which a variety of phenomena operate (Krüger, 2013a: viii). These phenomena are:

• word categories
• structuring of phrases
• arrangement of constituents
• grammatical functions applicable to the constituents

The external syntax shows how phrases or sentences may combine as members of other more comprehensive structures and what their new function is in a newly formed internal structure (Krüger, 2013a: viii).

The description of the syntax of Setswana includes a description of the lexical items and constituents as well as the functional structure of phrases and sentences. The constituent structure expresses the order and grouping of constituents (Dalrymple, 2006: 82). The functional structure represents the functional or syntactic information of the internal structure of the sentence. The functional structure contains surface grammatical functions, such as subject and object, as well as features which are represented by the morphosyntactic properties of constituents. These morphosyntactic properties represent linguistic categories such as class, person, number, tense, aspect, mood etc. (Dalrymple, 2001: 7).

There are many reasons for studying syntax, from general humanistic or behavioural motivations to much more specific goals such as to help us to illustrate the patterns of a specific language more effectively and clearly and to enable us to analyse the structure of sentences in a systematic and explicit way (Kim & Sells, 2007: 7). The purpose with syntax is thus to study the structure of sentences and it includes a study of the structure of phrases as well.

In forming grammatical (valid) sentences, words as the basic units of syntax are used. The words are used to form phrases which are larger constituents. The phrases are used to form a clause which either is, or is part of, a well-formed sentence.

Setswana words can be classified into word categories (grammatical classes, lexical categories, parts of speech) according to morphological, syntactical, phonological, as well as semantic criteria (Van Wyk, 1966: 251-257; Krüger, 2006; Pretorius, 2014: 49). Based on the application of these criteria the following eight word categories for Setswana can be distinguished:

• nouns
• pronouns
• verbs
• particles
• conjunctions
• adverbs
• interjections
• ideophones

The nouns and verbs are morphologically productive and constitute open word categories while pronouns, particles, conjunctions, adverbs, interjections and ideophones are closed word categories as they are morphologically unproductive. Numerous subcategories can also be acknowledged and the division of words into subcategories is also based on the morphological, syntactical, phonological and semantic criteria applied to classify word categories (Van Wyk, 1966).

In syntactic descriptions a distinction is also drawn between lexical categories and functional categories with regards to the word categories. Lexical categories apply only to those word categories and their phrasal counterparts that form open classes and have full semantic content. The word categories that form closed classes and have mainly just functional content are called functional categories. Functional categories therefore not refer to grammatical functions such as subject and object (Wardhaugh, 2005: 4-30).

Nouns are grouped into twenty noun classes.

The noun class prefixes determine verbal agreement, the agreement between heads and their complements and also the agreement between heads and modifiers (cf. Krüger, 2006: 57-98; Louwrens, 1994: 126; Poulos & Louwrens, 1994: 47; Letsholo & Matlhaku, 2014: 24; Berg, 2018: 189).

The odd class numbers of classes 1 to 14 express the singular and the corresponding even class numbers express the plural (3). Class 15 consists of the infinitive nouns (4). Classes 16 to 20 consists of the locative class nouns ((5) to (9)) (Take note: Classes 19 and 20 are either referred to as classes X and Y or the ga- and N-locative classes.)

The subcategories of nouns are the basic nouns (noun classes 1 to 15) and locative class nouns (noun classes 16 to 20). However, locative nouns (10) and adjectives ((11) and (12)) are also subcategories of the noun (Cole, 1955: 59; Krüger, 2006: 57-98; Krüger, 2013a: 127-133; Krüger, 2013b: 157-159).

Setswana pronouns are divided into personal pronouns and the different pronoun types that agree with the noun classes.

The personal pronouns

Personal pronouns include pronouns for first, second and third person. The personal pronouns have corresponding possessive pronouns that indicate ordinary (13) or communal possession (14) (Cole, 1955: 163-164).

The personal pronouns also have corresponding quantitative pronouns (inclusive (15), exclusive (16), selective (17), separative (18) and interrogative (19) (Cole, 1955: 154-158; Krüger, 2006: 141).

Pronouns for the noun classes

The pronouns for the noun classes show agreement with the noun classes. Absolute (Krüger, 2006: 131), demonstrative (Krüger, 2006: 134-135), quantitative (Cole, 1955: 154-158; Krüger: 2006: 137-139) and possessive (Krüger, 2006: 145; Cole, 1955: 163-164) pronouns are distinguished ant they also represent subcategories of the pronoun.

The absolute pronoun

The absolute pronoun has a meaning of ‘specific’ or ‘particular’ (20) or a meaning of ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’ or ‘they’ (21) (Krüger, 2006: 131).

The demonstrative pronoun

The demonstrative pronoun is also class bound (Krüger, 2006: 134-135) as demonstrated by die examples below.

The quantitative pronouns

For Setswana inclusive (25), exclusive (26), selective 27), separative (28) and interrogative (29) quantitative pronouns are distinguished (Cole, 1955: 154-158; Krüger, 2006: 137-139).

The possessive pronoun

The possessive pronoun has a referential lexical meaning of 'possessor' (Krüger, 2006: 145).

The verb in Setswana has three sub-categories, viz. the main, auxiliary and copulative verbs (Pretorius, 2003: 14; Pretorius, 1997: 76-81; Krüger, 2013b: 320).

The main verb

The main verb (31) is an independent verb and typically expresses the grammatical features of tense, aspect, mood and polarity (Kosch, 2006: 7; Krüger, 2006: 268).

The auxiliary verb

The auxiliary verb is a dependent verb as it must be followed by a complement. It always occurs with a main (32) or a copulative verb (33) as complement (Berg, 2018: 119). The complement expresses the main action, process or event and the auxiliary verb enriches the meaning of the complement by adding semantic information regarding the progression or completion of the main verb (Louwrens, 1994: 17; Pretorius, 1997: 98, 259-343).

The copulative verbs

Three copulative verbs, i.e., the identifying, describing, and associative copulative verb are distinguished in Setswana.

The identifying copulative verb

The identifying copulative verb is used to identify a subject with regards to type, status or profession (34) or to predicate the existence or presence of a thing (35) (Cole, 1955: 311). The identifying copulative verb has different forms i.e., ke, -se, -le, -nna, -nne, -nnile) which are determined by mood, tense, aspect and polarity (Krüger, 2013b: 140-154). See examples (36) to (40) for the use of the different forms.

The describing copulative verb

Describing copulative verbs are used to predicate some quality, characteristic or state of the subject (41), or its situation or locality (42) (Cole, 1955: 319). The describing copulative verb exhibits class or person and number agreement with its subject noun or personal pronoun and also has different forms (-se, -le, -nna, -nne, -nnile) based on its mood, tense, aspect and/or polarity (Krüger, 2013b: 156-173). See examples (43) to (47) for the use of the different forms.

The associative copulative verb

The associative copulative verb expresses the idea of the English ‘have’ or ‘be with’ and indicates possession or association (Krüger, 2013b: 178-185). The associative copulative verb has different forms (-na, -nna, -nnile, -nne) determined by mood, tense, aspect and polarity. See examples (48) to (51) for the use of the different forms.

No prepositions are distinguished for Setswana but the so-called particles are used to express the various meanings that are related to prepositions. Possessive, qualificative, instrumental, temporal, locative, agentative, associative, comparative and hortative particles are distinguished.

The possessive particle

In structures that denote possession or ownership a possessive particle that shows agreement with the possessor is included (Cole, 1955: 160). A possessive particle is always class bound (52) and has the meaning of ‘of’.

The qualificative particle

A qualificative particle has a referential relational meaning indicting ‘which is/are’ or ‘that is/are’ (Krüger, 2006: 157) and is also always class bound.

The instrumental particle

The instrumental particle ka (54) has the meaning of ‘with’, ‘by means of’ or ‘on’ (Poulos & Louwrens, 1994: 328).

Temporal particle

The temporal particle ka (55) conveys meanings such as ‘by’, ‘in’, ‘at’, ‘during’ or ‘per’ (Poulos & Louwrens, 1994: 329).

Locative particle

The locative particles are go, ga, ka, fa, mo and kwa and they convey the meaning of ‘to’, ‘at’, ‘into’, ‘in’, and ‘on’ (56).

Agentative particle

The agentative particle ke (57) conveys the meaning of ‘by’ in passive sentences (Lombard et al., 1985: 173).

Associative particle

The associative particle is le ‘with’ and act as the head of an associative particle phrase. This phrase functions as an adjunct in a sentence (58).

The associative particle is also used in an associative copulative verb phrase where it follows the positive of the associative copulative verb (59).

Comparative particle

The comparative particle jaaka (60) has a meaning of ‘like’ or ‘similar to’ (Krüger, 2006: 149).

Hortative particle

The hortative particle A (61) conveys a meaning of ‘let’ (Krüger, 2013b: 115).

Interrogative particle

The interrogative particle A (62) is used to focus the question on the predicate itself (Krüger, 2013b: 331, 350).

A conjunction is a word or word group that is used to link words in coordinated structures (Krüger, 2013a: 219; Cole, 1955; Le Roux, 2011). The conjunction kgotsa ‘or’ in (63) is used to link two nouns. It can also be used to link two clauses to form a complex or compound sentence (Louwrens, 1994: 29-33). The complex sentence in (64) includes the conjunctions gore ‘so that, that’ and kgotsa ‘or’. The compound sentence in (65) includes the conjunction mme ‘and’.

In Setswana words (66) or word groups (67) that refer to time, place and manner etc. can act as adverbs. It is used as an adjunct in sentence (Krüger, 2006: 170-172).

Interjections are interposing remarks (68) that are used to express reactions and emotions such as joy, approval, disapproval, sorrow, distress, fear, disgust, agreement, disagreement, surprise, disbelief, and to draw attention or to call or urge on animals (Krüger, 2006: 165-166).

Ideophones are highly expressive words that are used for sound symbolism regarding colour, sound, smell, taste, feeling, etc. (Louwrens, 1991: 79; Ras, 1991: 108-111). An example of an ideophone is tu that enhances a meaning of ‘quiet’ to ‘absolutely quit’ in (69). In this instance the ideophone acts independently. However, an ideophone can also be used as the complement of the the verb -re ‘say’ (Ras, 1991: 111). In (70) the sentence consists of a main clause and a subordinate clause. The ideophone tuu in the subordinate clause is the complement of the verb a re ‘he says’.

The combinatory properties of words involve two aspects of structuring i.e., internal and external syntax. Internal syntax deals with how a given phrase itself is constructed in a well-formed manner whereas external syntax is concerned with how a phrase can be used in a larger construction. One important property with regard to the phrase-internal syntax of Setswana is that in constructing any phrase, there is one obligatory element in each phrase i.e., the head. A language can typologically be classified according to a head directionality parameter in word order (Baker, 2001: 68; Tanaka et al., 2011). This parameter classifies languages according to whether a phrase is head-initial (the head precedes its modifiers or complements) or head-final (the head follows its modifiers or complements) (Tallerman, 2005: 106-108). Setswana is a head-initial fixed word order language and the word categories and their subcategories can function as heads in phrases. Setswana phrases can consist of only a head, a head and a modifier or a head and a complement (Berg, 2018: 104). This will be discussed in detail in subsequent topics that focus on a description of the syntactic structure of each one of the Setswana phrases.

Heads

The head of a phrase is the nucleus of the phrase. It is the word that determines the syntactic category of the phrase. For example, the head of the noun phrase basimane ba ‘these boys’ is the noun basimane ‘boys’. A head is thus the essential, obligatory element within a given phrase (Tallerman, 2005: 95-98). The following phrases are distinguished for Setswana and their forming is based on a specific word category or sub category that appear in the head-initial position (Berg, 2018: 105):

The head is thus a phrasal element that is essential in forming a phrase. Some of the mentioned Setswana phrases can only consist of a head as it is does not need an obligatory complement to form a grammatical phrase. The phrases that can only consists of a head word are:

Some phrases cannot consist of only a head as the head needs to be followed by a complement in order to constitute a grammatical phrase. The complement is a phrasal element with which the head must combine with so as to be grammatical. The complement can also be a clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression. The head of each phrase thus determines its projection into a larger phrasal constituent. The word order requires the head to be in the initial position followed by a complement. Phrases that consist of a head and a compulsory complement are:

Certain relationships hold between words whereby one word, the head controls the other words, the modifiers (also in Setswana sources referred to as qualificatives or qualifiers) (Krüger, 2013a: 58). A given head may have one or more than one modifier. Words are thus grouped into phrases and the groupings typically bring together heads and their modifiers. The head is conveying a central piece of information and the modifiers expresses extra information. For example, in (71) the noun basimane ‘boys’ is modified with the demonstrative pronoun ba ‘these’ and in (72) the noun basimane ‘boys’ is modified with the inclusive quantitative pronoun botlhê ‘all’. A modifier is thus a non-essential element in a phrase and in Setswana it follows a head word to add more information with regards to some quality, feature or characteristic (Krüger, 2013a: 36).

In syntax a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a syntactic structure. Constituents are phrases and a phrase is a sequence of one or more words built around a head and working as a unit within a sentence. One basic description of a language's syntax is the sequence in which constituents such as the subject, verb, and object usually appear in sentences. Most Bantu languages usually place the subject first in the sequence SVO (subject verb object) (Watters, 2000: 196-201). This is also the case in Setswana because this language is typically classified as an SVO language (Cole, 1955: 426; Krüger, 2006: 11-12). If an adjunct is included in a sentence the order is SVOX where X indicates the adjunct function.

The word order followed in simple sentences, compound sentences and complex sentences will be discussed in detail in the topics that focus on the syntactic structure of the simple, compound and complex sentences in Setswana.

The constituents in a sentence have specific grammatical functions and these grammatical functions are considered to be primitives of syntactic representation. The inventory of grammatical functions consists of the subject, direct object, indirect (secondary) object, oblique, complement and adjunct (Bresnan, 2001: 94-98, 307-309; Dalrymple, 2001: 8-27). These functions are applicable to sentence structure.

Subject

The subject executes or helps to execute the action or process that is indicated by the predicate. It is directly or indirectly involved in the execution of the action or process implied by the verb (73) (Tallerman, 2005: 172-175; Krüger, 2013a: 32-34).

Direct object

The direct object is an object that is directly affected by the process or action indicated in the verb or it undergoes the process or action (74) (Tallerman, 2005: 179-181; Krüger, 2013a: 35).

Indirect object

The indirect object is an object that is indirectly affected by the process indicated in the verb (75). It is referred to as the benefactor, i.e., the process is carried out on its behalf (Tallerman, 2005: 179-181; Krüger, 2013a: 35).

Oblique

The meaning of some verbs requires the inclusion of a compulsory phrase in sentence structure. The oblique is thus a syntactically necessary or obligatory phrase that must be included in the structure of the sentence in order to form a semantically sensible and grammatically correct sentence. The oblique in Setswana is usually represented by a locative particle phrase (76) (Berg, 2018: 67-75).

Adjunct

An adjunct describes the process or action contained in the predicate regarding place, time, manner, instrument, association etc. (77). Krüger (2013a: 38-39) refer to the adjunct as a descriptive.

Krüger (2013a: 31-44) also describes functions applicable in the forming of word groups. These functions are antecedent and qualificative (modifier), introductory member and complement, first and succeeding member and main (head) member and appositional member.

Antecedent and modifier (qualificative, qualifier)

The antecedent is described by a modifier regarding a characteristic, quality or property (78). The modifier describes an antecedent regarding a characteristic (79) (Krüger, 2013a: 36).

Introductory member and complement

The introductory member is a word with a relational meaning and it is placed between its complement and a preceding member (80). It is syntactically independent and must compulsory be followed by a complement. Introductory members are particles, copulative verbs (identifying, describing, associative) and auxiliary verbs. The complement is the compulsory phrase that follows the introductory member (81). The complement indicates the information with which the introductory member determines the relation (Krüger, 2013a: 37-38).

First member and succeeding member(s)

A first member and succeeding members are syntactically equal or functionally even or on a par. They appear in coordinated structures. The members are combined with a conjunction such as le ‘and’ (Krüger, 2013a: 40-41). For example, in (82) the first member is monna ‘man’ and the succeeding member is mosadi ‘woman’.

Main (head) member and appositional member

An appositional member re-defines, explains, describes or emphasise a head member in more detail. It therefore adds some additional information to the content of the head member in case some misunderstanding or vagueness might occur (Krüger, 2013a: 40). For example, in (83) banna bao ‘those men’ gives more information about the ‘they’ in ba tlile ‘they have come’.

These functions mentioned above will be discussed in detail regarding their role in the different phrases and also regarding the simple, compound and complex sentences in the topics that follow.

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