Word structure

Although the discipline of morphology accepts the word as its unit of analysis, the word is by no means an ideal basis for universal grammatical description (Kosch, 2006: 2). For example, in one language you may need a sentence (consisting of a number of words) to express something, whereas in another you may need only one word to express the same information as in the following:

• English: I see them.
• IsiXhosa: Ndiyababona.
• Sesotho sa Leboa: Ke a ba bona.

The English example constitutes a sentence in which one can recognise three units corresponding to three meanings. Each of the three units is an independent word. In the isiXhosa counterpart, we have a sentence which consists of only one unit, namely a single word, the meaningful components of which Ndi- ‘I’, -ya (syntactic semantic marker or so-called present tense morpheme), -ba- ‘them’, -bon- ‘see’, and -a (final verb suffix). Each of these meaningful components constitutes a bound part of the word and can never appear independently (Kosch, 2006: 3). From this it becomes clear that the concept word cannot be applied universally to describe meaningful units of different languages. The focus of this section is on the structure of isiXhosa words.

The form is made up by the following morphemes:

• Root

  This is the most constant part of a word and gives the word its basic meaning though not complete as in the following:

  • um(faz)i ‘woman’
  • u(thand)o ‘love’
  • a(ndi)(bon)anga ‘I did not see’
  • um(hamb)i ‘traveller’
  • ama(lung)u ‘parts’
• Suffix

  Anything that follows the root is a suffix. The suffixes range from the final vowel to the different derivational suffixes. The root and the suffix form the stem as in the following:

  • ilizwe(kazi) ‘huge country’
  • incwad(ana) ‘small book’
  • isideng(ana) ‘young stupid’
  • inja(kazi) ‘bitch’
  • indoda(kazi) ‘sister-in-law’
• Prefix

  A prefix is a formative that comes before the root. A word may have one or more prefixes depending on the part of speech as in the following:

  • (si)lahlekile ‘it got lost’
  • (masi)hambe ‘let’s go’
  • (khawu)tsho ‘tell me’
  • (ndinga)fundanga ‘that I’m not educated’

    None of these morphemes can form a word independently of the other.

Orthographic words and linguistic words

The term word is used in different senses. On the one hand it is understood as a unit which is separated by spaces from other units in the sentence. This is purely a matter of convention and pertains only to the written representation. Such unit is called an orthographic word (Kosch, 2006: 3). An orthographic word is a sound or sequence of sounds separated from other sounds or sequences of sounds by means of spaces in writing (Kosch, 2006: 4).

On the other hand, the term word is used to denote units which function as members of a word category (such as nouns, pronouns, verbs and adverbs) with their own particular meaning. Such words are known as linguistic words (Kosch, 2006: 3). A linguistic word is a unit which has its own independent meaning. Structurally it contains at least a root. In addition to the root, it may contain another root (or roots) and / or affix(es) (Kosch, 2006:4). The writing convention in the African languages whereby single linguistic words may be represented by several orthographically separated units is known as the disjunctive writing system which has been adopted for all Sotho languages. In the Nguni languages which includes isiXhosa the writing system is largely a conjunctive one, whereby meaningful units (morphemes) of the same linguistic word are joined in practical orthography.

When a morpheme overlaps (i.e., equals) a word, it is referred to as a free morpheme. It does not have to combine with other units to form a complete word but carries a complete meaning by itself (Kosch, 2006: 5). These can thus be classified into free morphemes which can occur as separate word, this applies to ideophones:

• Thu! sudden appearance
• Gqi! sudden appearance
• Cwaka! absolute quietness

Thus, a free morpheme is one that can occur in isolation. As such it is a self-contained word and does not require the presence of another morpheme. In the Bantu languages the occurrence of free morphemes is rare, since most morphemes are always bound.

Morphemes occur more commonly as meaningful units below the level of the word, namely as bound morphemes in polymorphemic words. Bound morphemes are not independently meaningful but rely on other units to complete the meaning of a word, as in the following:

• Ndiyahamba < ndi(ya)hamb(a) ‘I am going’
• Bayathetha < ba(ya)thet(a) ‘They are speaking’
• Uyabona < u(ya)bon(a) ‘He/she sees.’

A bound morpheme is thus one that can never occur is isolation. As such it is always a dependent part of a word and is always attached to at least one other morpheme (Kosch 2006: 6). Affixes will always be bound morphemes since they cannot constitute words on their own.

Roots and affixes

Morphemes are divided into two main types, namely roots and affixes. They are the minimal units of grammatical analysis which can be used to form word. Some theorists refer only to affixes as morphemes, but this is not the way in which morpheme was originally applied by Jan Baudouin de Courtenay in 1880 when he coined the form. His “morpheme’ was not restricted to affixes, but included all constituents of the word, including roots (Kosch 2006: 6).

• Roots:

  According to Kosch (2006: 7), roots are those inomissable morphemes which carry the basic meaning of a word. They may occur as free or as bound morphemes. Free morphemes in the Bantu languages are limited. They have the status of autonomous words and do not require the assistance of affixes to complete a meaning.

  Roots are single morphemes that carry the principal semantic load of a word. It is the most constant part of a word and gives the word its basic meaning though not complete as in the following where the root appears in bold:

  • aba(sebenz)i ‘workers’
  • imi(theth)o ‘laws’
  • i(thamb)o ‘bone’

  Most roots are bound morphemes to which other bound morphemes are attached as shown above. As a bound morpheme, the root will not be independently meaningful, but will require one or more affixes to modify its meaning to form a complete word. In the following examples the root -bon- constitute the basic meaning ‘see’ in each of the given words, while the affixes serve to particularise the meaning:

  • siya(bon)a ‘we see’
  • siya(bon)ana ‘we see each other’
  • siyaku(bon)isa ‘we show you’
  • baza ku(bon)akala ‘they will be visible’

  When words are formed, they will always be built around a root as the essential meaning-bearing element. The roots need not be currently existing ones. New words based on totally new roots can also be produced. There is no limit to the number of roots which can be created in a language and roots are therefore said to form an open category (Kosch, 2006: 7).

  Roots are generally monomorphemic units, in African linguistics one may also encounter a specialised application of the term, whereby the root denotes a polymorphemic structure. This is known as the extended root and it consists of a root plus at least one suffix, excluding the final suffix. Examples of extended roots occurring would be:

  • -thandan < root -thand + suffix -an- ‘love each other’
  • -thandis < root -thand + suffix -is ‘cause to love/like’
  • -thandisis < root –thand + suffix -is + suffix -is ‘love/like completely’
  • -thandek < root -thand + suffix -ek ‘be lovable/likeable’

  The following are a few representative roots:

  • Noun root:
    • (faz) in umfazi ‘woman’
    • (dod) in indoda ‘man’
    • (thand) in uthando ‘love’
  • Verb root:
    • (bon) in bona ‘see’
    • (thand) in thanda ‘like/love’
    • (dlal) in dlala ‘play’
  • Adjectival roots:
    • (bi) in ombi ‘ugly’
    • (hle) in omhle ‘beautiful’
    • (de) omde ‘tall’
  • Relative roots:
    • (-banz) in obanzi ‘broad’
    • (qath) in qatha ‘tough’
• Affixes:

  Affix is the term used to refer to an element that cannot occur independently (Kosch, 2006: 8). Affixes occur in conjunction with roots to form words, and serve to modify the meaning of a word and /or to charge a word according to the grammatical context.

  Affixes are always bound parts of words. Unlike roots, they can never carry the basic meaning of a word. However, they can modify the meaning of a word or to change a word to comply with the grammatical context. They may be optional in the sense that their presence is not always required in a word, for example, affixes such as object morphemes, also referred to as object concords, do not obligatorily feature in every verb (Kosch, 2006: 8). There are words which can exist as fully self-contained units (i.e., roots) without the help of any affixes (e.g., ideophones, interjections, conjunctions, and certain nouns and adverbs). Affixes belong to a closed group of morphemes (Kosch, 2006:8). This means that the number of affixes in a particular language is generally fixed and no new ones can be created arbitrarily. In the Bantu languages the most common types of affixes are prefixes and suffixes. Affixes are classified according to the position which they occupy in relation to the root morphemes.

The stem of a word consists of the root plus all the suffixal morphemes in the word (Kosch, 2006: 10). Cole (1987: 66) writes that stems are those portions of words which remain when all prefixal (but not suffixal) formatives are removed. Doke (1930: 286) points out that “In fact a stem is generally speaking, that part of a word which is shorn of its prefixal elements.” From the above-mentioned definition, there seems to be consensus what a stem is as in the following:

• Ndim(fundis-ile) I taught him/her
• Sim(bonis-ile) we showed him/her
• Bam(ngxolis-ile). they scolded him/her.

There are two ways in which the term has come to be applied in African morphological analysis, namely polymorphemic and the monomorphemic structures (Kosch, 2006).

• Polymorphemic structure

  With reference to the polymorphemic structure, its defined as follows: “The stem of a word (which) consists of the root plus all the suffixal morphemes in the word” (Kosch, 2006: 10). According to this description, the sections printed in bold below constitute stem, because they contain a root -bamb- plus one or more suffix as in:

  • Ukubamba: Ukubamb- + -a ‘to catch’
  • Ukubambela: Ukubamb- + -el- + -a ‘to catch for’
  • Ukubambelana: Ukubamb- + -el- + -an- + -a ‘to catch for each other’

  Not only verbs, but also words from other word categories may display stems which consist of a root plus at least one suffix, for example as in derived nouns:

  • Umthwalo: um(thwal)o ‘load’
  • Uhambo: u(hamb)o ‘journey’

  The above exposition illustrates the first of two applications of the term stem in the Bantu languages, namely that of a polymorphemic structure excluding prefixal element (in other words, a root plus one or more suffixes, including the final suffixal morpheme). This structure is typically found in verbs and derived words (Kosch, 2006: 10).

• Monomorphemic structure

  The second application is that of the stems as a monomorphemic unit as encountered in examples like the following:

  • Noun: -taba in intaba ‘mountain’
  • Adjective: -ncinci in in(taba) e(ncinci) ‘small mountain’
  • Adverb: -ninzi in ka(ninzi) ‘often, many times’
  • Enumerative: phi in iincwadi ezi(phi) ‘which books?’

The difference between the stem as a polymorphemic structure and the stem as a monomorphemic structure is that the latter has a root as its word final element (Kosch 2006: 11). The word final element is a primitive, basic, underived form encountered in non-verbal word categories. It constitutes the lexical core of a word and therefore it would be linguistically more correct to describe -ntaba, -ncinane, -ninzi and -phi? as roots instead of stems. In some grammar textbooks such word final elements are indeed described as roots (Kosch, 2006: 11). Nevertheless, it has become general practice in African linguistics to refer to these underived and unanalysable units, where the final vowel is part of the root and not a separate suffix, as stems (Kosch, 2006: 11).

Cole, D. T. (1987) An Introduction to Tswana Grammar. Cape Town: Longman Penguin.

Doke, C. M. (1930) Textbook of Zulu grammar. Cape Town: Longman

Kosch, I. M. (2006) Topics in Morphology. Pretoria: University of South Africa.