The compound sentence

A compound sentence has at least two independent clauses that have related ideas of equal importance. The two sentences go together. Each sentence or independent clause must still have a subject and a verb. A compound sentence does not have any dependent clauses. Usually we join independent clauses with one of the seven coordinating conjunctions (‘for’, ‘and’, ‘nor’, ‘but’, ‘or’, ‘yet’, ‘so’) or by a semi colon. The most common of these coordinating conjunctions are ‘and’, ‘but’ and ‘or’.

• Ndifuna ukuya emsebenzini, kodwa ndiyagula kakhulu andinakuqhuba. ‘I really want to go to work, but I am too sick to drive.’
• Ndiphelelwe yimali, kanti ndifuna izihlangu ezitsha. ‘I am out of money, yet I need new shoes.’

There are five types of moods in isiXhosa as discussed earlier. One of them is the Infinitive which will be the focus of this topic.

The Infinitive has a double nature, it exemplifies both nominal and verbal properties. It is commonly viewed as a class 15 noun on the one hand, characterised by the class prefix ku-, and as a verb on the other hand because of the verbal properties it exemplifies. The infinitival form of a verb is homophonous with the corresponding class 15 noun i.e., the verb and the noun have the same pronunciation and spelling, which in this view, is assumed to be derived from the particular verb.

• Ndithanda ukutya isonka. ‘I like to eat bread.’ (Verb)
• Upheke ukutya okumnandi. ‘She has cooked delicious food.’ (Noun)

This noun class is commonly referred to as the infinitive class (Du Plessis & Visser, 1992: 87).

The infinitive noun is on par with other nouns in that its gender class is identified by its class prefix. Like all nouns an infinitive as a noun can be used with all the concords associated with the following parts of speech:

• An infinitive as a subject
  • Ukufunda kubalulekile. Studying is important.

  The subject concord ku- agrees with the infinitive subject.

• An infinitive as an object
  • Uyakuthanda ukucula. ‘He/she likes singing.’

  The object concord ku-/k- agrees with the object.

• Infinitives qualified by adjectives and relatives
  • Ukulala okukhulu. ‘Deep sleeping.’ (Adjective)
  • Ukukhala okubuhlungu. ‘A painful cry.’ (Relative)
• Infinitives qualified by possessives and enumeratives
  • Ukufa kwenkosi. ‘The chief‘s death.’ (Possessive)
  • Ukubala kahlanu. ‘To count five times.’ (Enumerative)
• Infinitives qualified by the demonstratives, and the quantifiers
  • Oku kucula kulungile. ‘This singing is good.’ (Demonstrative)
  • Kukuthetha kodwa okufunekayo. ‘It is talking only that is needed.’

Infinitives used with the instrumental nga-, connective na-, and forms like: njenga-, kuna-.

• Nga-
  • Uhlala ngokuhleba. ‘He/she is always bad-mouthing.’
  • Uphilangokuba. ‘He/she survives by stealing.’
• Na-
  • Uthanda ukubhala nokufunda. ‘He/she likes writing and reading.’
  • Ukukhwela nokuhla emthini kulula. ‘Climbing and getting down the tree is easy.’
• Njenga-
  • Njengokuba undiva. ‘As you pick up what I am saying.’
  • Wenza njengelungisa. ‘You act like the righteous.’
• Kuna-
  • Mde kunam. ‘He/she is taller than me.’
  • Ndithanda iorenji kuneapile. ‘I prefer an orange than an apple.’
• The use of infinitives in copulatives
  • Kukuhamba oko? ‘Are you leaving?’
  • Kukwenza kukaThixo oku. ‘This is God’s action.’

  The vowel u- of the infinitive has been elided.

• Derivation of locatives from infinitives
  • Ekupheleni kosuku. ‘At the end of the day.’
  • Ekufikeni kwakhe, salala. ‘When he/she arrived, we went to sleep.’

  The preprefix u- is elided after the locative formative e-.

• Verbal characteristics in infinitives

  As mentioned in the foregoing discussion, infinitives also function as verbs. This means that infinitives in their predicative functions may have nouns functioning as objects, but not as subjects. This implies that the infinitive as a verb may not have a subject or a subject concord.

  • Ukudlala ibhola kulungile. ‘Playing football is quite right.’
  • Ukuyidlala ibhola kulungile. ‘Playing football is quite right.’
  • Sifuna ukungambonisi usana. ‘We wish she does not see the child.’

  The first and second sentence have the same meaning, but in the second the infinitive verb has taken an object concord. This means that an infinitive verb may be used with or without a concord. In the last sentence the infinitive is used in the negative.

• Infinitives as conjunctions

  Some infinitives are used as conjunctions, e.g., ukuba ‘if/that’, ukuze ‘so that’; ukuthi ‘to say’

  • Ufuna ukubandimkhaphe. ‘He/she requests that I escort her.’
  • Phakama ukuze ndikukhaphe. ‘Stand up so that I escort you.’
  • Ndithetha ukuthi suka apha. ‘I mean that you should move away from this place.’
• The infinitive can be qualified by a locative
  • Ukubhala ngokucacileyo ‘To write clearly’
  • Ukuthetha ngokuzithemba. ‘To speak confidently.’
• Infinitive verbs and auxiliary verbs

  For future tense the infinitive is preceded by the auxiliary verb forms like, -za- and ya- and the infinitive becomes the complement.

  • Ndiza kuhamba. ‘I am going to leave.’
  • Bayakuvuya. ‘They will be glad.’
• Infinitives are also used as complements for verbs that sometimes function as auxiliary verbs:
  • Umana ukundibhalela iileta. ‘He/she frequently writes me letters.’
  • Sizama ukwakha kwakhona. ‘We are trying to reconstruct again.’

In isiXhosa there are two types of sentences, the simple sentence as in the first example below and a complex sentence with a main clause and a subordinate clause as in the second example below:

• Ihobe libhabhile. ‘The dove has flown.’
• Inja iyakhonkotha, xa ibona isela. ‘A dog barks when it sees a thief.’

Traditionally isiXhosa grammar distinguishes between three types of sentences (according to their structural complexity) namely: simple sentence, compound sentence, and complex sentence (Finlayson et al., 1990). Each sentence is defined using independent and dependent clauses, conjunctions, and subordinators. Clauses consist of a subject followed by a predicate. Structurally the subject is usually a noun phrase and the predicate is usually a verb phrase (Finlayson et al., 1990).

The focus here will be on the structure of the compound sentences clause. A compound sentence is two (or more) independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction or semicolon. Coordinating clauses are clauses which occur in the same sentence yet function independently. So a compound sentence is like two (or more) simple sentences added together. It does not contain any dependant clauses. These are main clauses which are semantically independent. Finlayson et al. (1990) calls this type coordinating clauses. Certain conjunctions may introduce coordinating clauses. (Finlayson et al., 1990).

• Ndiye ekliniki, kodwa andiwanikwanga amayeza. ‘I went to the clinic but was not given medicine.’
• Lo mfundi unengqondo, uzinikele kwizifundo zakhe kodwa akafunwa ngabanye. ‘This student is intelligent, he is devoted to his studies but others do not like him.’

Independent clause plus independent clause

Independent clauses are two phrases that can stand alone as a complete thought. They are not dependent upon one another to express a complete thought, but they tie together similar ideas. This makes compound sentences distinct from complex sentences which contain an independent clause joined by at least one dependent clause. An independent clause functions on its own to make a meaningful sentence and looks, much like a regular sentence. When independent clauses are joined with coordinators (also called coordinating conjunctions) commas, semicolons or conjunctions they do more than just join the clauses. They add meaning, flow and style to writing.

• Abafundi baseCala bonwabile, kuba baphumelele kumdlalo webhola. yomnyazi. ‘Cala students are happy, because they have won a netball game.’

A compound sentence does not occur in isiXhosa since no coordinate conjunctions and exists. The independent clauses which compose the coordinate sentence appear to be separate sentences following upon one another. In fact, they are part of a whole compound action expressed by consecutive actions.

• Siyavuka, siyahlamba, siyanxiba. ‘We wake up, we wash and get dressed.’

There are however coordinate conjunctions that may introduce coordinating clauses like these:

• Kodwa ‘but’ is used to introduce a clause that contrasts with the preceding clause:
  • UThoko ubaleke kakhulu, kodwa akaluphumelelanga ugqatso. ‘Thoko ran very fast, but she did not win the race.’
• Futhi ‘and’ is used to join two clauses when the second clause is dependent on the first.
  • Ndiyifundile incwadi futhi naye uyifundile. ‘I have read the book and he read it.’

The examples above show that in isiXhosa no two independent clauses can be joined together and function independently. In the example above we cannot say naye uyifundile and call it an independent clause. It is not a complete thought.

Some words belong to particular parts of speech and are used in syntactical positions where they function like conjunctive coordinates like the following:

• The infinitives of auxiliary verb stems: ukuba, kuba and ukuze.

  • UNozi uza kugoduka ukuba izikolo zivaliwe. ‘Nozi will go home if the schools are closed.’
  • Uye wagodola, kuba bekukhithika. ‘He/she felt cold for it was snowing.’

Coordination

According to Haspelmath (2007) the term coordination in English refers to syntactic constructions in which two or more units of the same type are combined into a larger unit and still have the same semantic relations with other surrounding elements. The units or elements that are conjoined “may be words like verbs, phrases, noun phrases, subordinate phrases and sentences”. “All languages appear to possess coordination constructions of some kind but there is a lot of cross-linguistic variation. Individual languages may possess a wealth of different coordinate constructions that relate to each other in complex ways.”

The relevance of the above statement is observed in IsiXhosa which behaves differently from the norm as it does not have ‘and’ as a coordinator. Van Rooyen et al. (1982: 18) provides an explanation to the absence of ‘and’ in isiXhosa thus, “concerning the Nguni languages, which are, isiXhosa, isiZulu and siSwati, the coordinate conjunction ‘and’ in these three Nguni languages does not exist, i.e., the ‘and’ between sentences.” They argue that, in English, the compound sentence is normally viewed as a sentence that consists of independent clauses, which are, the main clause joined together by coordinate conjunctions like, ‘and’ as in, ‘She ate and they went to town’; a sentence that does not exist in Nguni languages. Instead, ‘and’ in Nguni languages occurs only between words, like:

• Umama notata. ‘Mother and father.’

According to Van Rooyen et al. (1982), conjunctive coordination poses a problem in these languages (Nguni languages) because the terms used as conjunctions do not have a particular form with which they can be associated as a part of speech. Be that as it may, these languages (Nguni) possess one to two words that are not conjunctions but are used as coordinate conjunctions that may be used to conjoin compound sentences except the following: kodwa, futhi.

• Uyalila umntwana kodwa uhluthi. ‘The child is crying but she is full.’
• Ndimbonile futhi naye undibonile. ‘I saw her and she saw me too.’

Pahl (1983: 205) confirms that the term kodwa is not a conjunction originally, but it has been derived from the quantitative pronoun -odwa.

As mentioned by Van Rooyen et al. (1982), isiXhosa has some words that belong to particular parts of speech which are used in syntactical positions where they function like conjunctive coordinates. Such conjunctives are:

• Auxiliary verbs that are followed by particular moods without having necessarily the meaning of the mood concerned (Van Rooyen et al., 1982) This applies to the infinitives of auxiliary verb stems: ukuba, kuba and ukuze.
  • Ndimazisile utata ukuba ndiziphumelele iimviwo. ‘I have informed my father that I have passed the examinations.’
  • Akatyi kuba uhluthi. ‘She is not eating because she is full.’
  • Ndilala ngethuba ukuze ndingaselwa. ‘I sleep on time so that I don’t oversleep.’
• Nouns and forms derived from nouns are sometimes used in a conjunctive manner: xa < ilixa and xenikweni < ixesha
  • Ndimbonile xa ahambayo. ‘I saw him while leaving.’
  • Ebehamba xeshikweni ndimbona. ‘He/she was leaving while seeing her.’
• It is also common for demonstratives such as apho to be used as conjunctives:
  • Ndiya kukwazisa apho ndimbona khona. ‘I will inform you where I see him.’

Conjunctions

A conjunction is a part of speech that is used to connect words, phrases, clauses or sentences. Conjunctions are invariable grammar particles, and they may or may not stand between items they join. Therefore, conjunctions are for connecting thoughts, actions, and ideas as well as nouns, clauses and other parts of speech. Conjunctions are also useful for making lists:

• Abantwana bayadlala, kodwa utitshala uyafundisa. The learners are playing whilst the teacher is teaching.
• Senze amagwinya, amaqanda nekofu ngesidlo sakusasa. We made pancakes, eggs and coffee for breakfast.

There are several different types of conjunctions that function within sentence structures. These include:

• Subordinating conjunctions – also known as subordinators, these conjunctions join dependent clauses to independent clauses.
• Coordinating conjunctions – also known as coordinators, these conjunctions coordinate or join two or more sentences, main clauses, words, or other parts of speech which are of the same syntactic importance.
  • Amadoda asebuhlanti kanti abafazi basendlini. ‘Men are in the kraal whilst women are in the house.’
  • Ndihlamba izitya phofu ndiza kutshayela indlu. ‘I wash dishes but will also sweep the floor.’

Du Plessis, J. A. & Visser, M. (1992) Xhosa Syntax. Pretoria: Via Africa.

Finlayson, R., Jones, C. J., Mfusi, J. M. & Podile, K. (1990) Study guide for XHS202-4. Pretoria; University of South Africa.

Haspelmath, M. (2007) Coordination. Language typology and syntactic description. 2, 1-51.

Pahl, H. W. (1983) IsiXhosa. Johannesburg: Educum Publishers.

Van Rooyen, C. S., Louw, J. A., Cantrell, J. V., Taljaard, P. C., Satyo, S. C., Ntuli, D. B. & Davey, A. S. (1982) Xhosa only guide for XHS201-3. Pretoria: University of South Africa.