This article presents a brief overview of the grammar of the Sesotho and provides links to more detailed articles.
Typology
The Sesotho language may be described in several ways depending on the aspect being considered. It is an agglutinative language. It constructs whole words by joining discrete roots and morphemes with specific meanings, and may also modify words by similar processes. Its basic word order is SVO. However, because the verb is marked with the subject and sometimes the object, this order may be changed to emphasise certain parts of the predicate. It is a tonal language; more specifically, a complex grammatical tone language. See Sotho tonology. It has no grammatical case marking on the noun. Nominal roles are indicated by a combination of word order and agreement markers on the verb, with no change to the nouns themselves. It has a complex grammatical gender system, but this does not include natural gender. See Sotho nouns. It has head-first order, though it may be changed for emphasis. If an inflected qualificative is placed before the head, then it is technically a qualificative pronoun. It is a pro-drop language. Verbs may be used without explicitly specifying the subject or the object with substantives (nouns or pronouns).
Formatives
Bantu languages are agglutinative — words are constructed by combining discrete formatives (a.k.a. "morphemes") according to specific rules, and sentences are constructed by stringing together words according to somewhat less strict rules. Formatives alone cannot constitute words; formatives are the component parts of words.
These formatives may be classed generally into roots, stems, prefixes, concords, suffixes, verbal auxiliaries, enclitics, and proclitics.
Roots are the most basic irreducible elements of words and are immutable (except under purely phonetic changes). Entire words are built from roots by affixing other formatives around the root as appendages; every word (except contractions and compounds) contains exactly one root, from which it derives its most basic meaning (though, technically speaking, the root by itself does not really have any meaning). Roots are the basis of the Sotho parts of speech.
The following words: ho ruta ('to teach') ba le rutile ('they taught you [pl]') re a rutana ('we teach one another') ha ba le rutisise ('they do not teach you [pl.] properly') morutehi ('an academic') thuto ('education') moithuti ('learner') are all formed from the root -rut-.
Although in some cases various phonetic processes may ultimately change the root's form in predictable ways (such as the nasalization in the last two examples above) the root itself is considered to be unchanged.
There can be no doubt that words never emerged simply as roots. The root is a dead thing — the study of roots is primarily to aid the compilation of dictionaries, to further the study of comparative Bantu linguistics, and to help trace the evolution and connections of different languages. Many roots are shared by a wide range of Bantu languages.
Some further examples of roots: -tho (Proto-Bantu *-jîntu) ⇒ motho ('Bantu-speaking person'), botho ('Ubuntu') -itsi (Proto-Bantu *-jîgî) ⇒ metsi ('water') (note the vowel coalescence: class 6 ma- + i ⇒ me-) -rwa (Proto-Bantu *-tua) ⇒ morwa ('a Khoisan person'), Borwa ('South') -j- (Proto-Bantu *-di-) ⇒ ho ja ('to eat'), dijo ('food'), sejeso ('a magical poison') -holo (Proto-Bantu *-kudu) ⇒ -holo ('large'), boholo ('size'), lekgolo ('one hundred'), moholo ('an older person'), moholwane ('elder brother') -rithi ⇒ morithi ('shade'), serithi ('human spirit') -re (Proto-Bantu *-ti) ⇒ ho re ('to say') -dimo (Proto-Bantu *-dîmu) ⇒ Modimo ('God') (traditionally never used in the plural), Badimo ('ancestors') (does not exist in the singular), Bodimo ('African Traditional Religion'), ledimo ('cannibal'), Dimo (the name of an ogre character) -edi (Proto-Bantu *-jedî) ⇒ ngwedi ('moon'), kgwedi ('month') -ja (Proto-Bantu *-bua) ⇒ ntja ('dog') -hlano (Proto-Bantu ) ⇒ -hlano ('five')
Note that although it is often true that the common root of a number of words may be defined as having some inherent meaning, very often the connection between words sharing common roots is tentative, and this is further evidence that prefix-less noun roots and stems are ultimately meaningless. Roots from a common source help to connect nouns with certain meanings, and often the class prefixes are merely incidental. bosiu ('night'), and tshiu ('24-hour day') leloko ('family/lineage/clan'), and moloko ('generation') boroko ('sleep'), and dithoko ('rheum') boko ('brain matter'), and moko ('bone marrow')