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VH10
CHOK
LINGUISTIC AMBIGUITY IN NORTHERN SOTHO: SAYING THE UNMEANT
by
SEKGAILA J. CHOKOE
Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of
D. Litt. et Phil.
in the
DEPARTMENT OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES
at the
RAND AFRIKAANS UNIVERSITY
PROMOTER : PROFESSOR L.C. POSTHUMUS
MAY 2000
-i-
DECLARATION
I declare that the thesis, Linguistic Ambiguity in Northern Sotho: Saying the
Unmeant, for the degree of D. Litt. et Phil., in the Department of African Languages,
at the Rand Afrikaans University, hereby submitted by me, had not previously been
submitted by me for a degree at this or any other university, and that it is my own work
in design and execution, and that all sources used or quoted have been indicated and
acknowledged by means of complete references.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
If I tried to thank everyone who has helped me in the preparation of this thesis, the list
of names would be longer than what Elgin (1979:viii) calls Segats'. Ambiguity is that
sort of field, I am happy to say, which is distinguished by a constant and lively exchange
of information. The names mentioned below are but a minimal expression of my
gratitude.
It is with pleasure that I acknowledge my debt and gratitude to my supervisor,
Professor Lionel C Posthumus, whose incisive comments helped to shape the
development of this study. To him, I owe the fruition of this thesis: I cannot
thank him enough. Ke ya Leboa (Ke a leboga)!!!
Thanks are due to my mentor, Professor Phaka M Makgamatha, whose genuine
interest in my work, and whose constant support and guidance sustained me
through various periods of doubt, despondency and despair. Mmat§hipi!!!
Thanks are due to Mr Doctor Mashamaite for prodding me to write this thesis.
Had it not been for his honours article, I would not have thought of writing a
thesis on semantics, let alone ambiguity. Thanks Mokone for opening my eyes.
Thanks are due to my editor and friend, Doctor Cleopas Mphela Thosago, whose
support, encouragement, direction and infinite patience have been valuable
during the process of revision. He has acted as my thesaurus. 0 gole o kake
tiou Kolobe!!!
Thanks are due to my friend, Ben Maboke Modiba, who sacrificed most of his
valuable time checking and analysing my ambiguous examples. It is because
of the discussions we had that he is now leading an ambiguous life.
Mokhutlama!!!
My indebtedness also goes to my friend, my cousin, my everything - Poopedi
'Jazzman' Phihlela, who was, and still is, with me in times of need. Your
courageous efforts have always paved the way for me. Mokone!!!
Thanks are due to my father, Setsoa , my brothers Kwena, Tlou and Mapitsi,
who helped throughout by offering untiring encouragement and understanding,
both morally and spiritually, and sometimes financially. Kgomo gaol Thu
ge§o!!!
Thanks are due to my family; Brenda, my wife, Tlou and Matlakala, my
daughters, for their love and belief in me. These are the people who have truly
earned the sometimes loosely awarded adjective "long-suffering". Kgomo
t'e§o!!! Do not forget: Ke kgona go bolela Afrikaans kudu!
To all these individuals, and many more, I am thankful. For all inadequacies which
remain, I am responsible. All thanks to the Lord Almighty!!!
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DEDICATION
Dedicated to a beautiful lady who taught me the true and unambiguous meaning of
love many, many years ago ... my mother, Tthwene Violet MmaKwena Chokoe, nee
Phihlela, who has, unfortunately and untimely, passed away. Ikhut§e Mokone!!!
-v-
SUMMARY
The main aim of this thesis is to study ambiguity in Northern Sotho. Ambiguity, often
referred to as 'double or multiple meaning', is, as Scheffler (1979:i) observes,
"deserving of systematic study" in its own right. In this study, an attempt is made to give
it the attention it deserves insofar as research is concerned.
Life is full of verbal (and visual) tricks that are constantly teasing the interlocutors and
never allow their interpretative faculties to come to rest. Such verbal tricks sometimes
lead to confusions and misunderstandings that often result in unnecessary conflicts.
It is the main aim of this investigation to investigate such misunderstandings by
revealing what these tricks are, and try to make people aware of such verbal tricks.
The first chapter introduces the various approaches to and theories pertaining to
ambiguities with a view to choosing the most appropriate approach(es) to the topic.
Some important concepts are also introduced and defined. It is in this chapter where
a distinction between different types of ambiguity is made.
The second chapter focusses primarily on the problem of orthography highlighting the
shortcomings which result in writing what one does not mean. Ambiguity in written
language is more complex than that of spoken language. The slip of the pen brings
about unintended meanings.
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The third chapter focuses on lexical ambiguity where one word or phrase is responsible
for the ambiguity of the sentence as a whole.
The fourth chapter dwells mostly on structural ambiguity which arises in sentences. In
this chapter the focus is on a sentence which becomes ambiguous due to its syntactic
structure.
The fifth chapter dispels the confusion likely to arise when ambiguity and vagueness are
unwittingly regarded as synonymous and therefore interchangeable.
The sixth chapter, which is the last in this enquiry, is a general assessment of the
previous chapters. Conclusions are drawn and some suggestions are made in this last
chapter.
-vii-
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Declaration (i)
Acknowledgements (ii)
Dedication (iv)
Summary (v)
Table of Contents (vii)
CHAPTER 1
ASSEMBLING THE TOOLS
1.1 Preliminary Remarks 1
1.2 Hypothesis 2
1.3 Towards an Approach: Theoretical Concerns 6
1.4 The Research Topic 9
1.4.1 Problem Statement 9
1.4.2 A Glance at the Concept 'Ambiguity' 12
1.4.2.1 Linguistic Ambiguity 13
1.4.2.2 Literary Ambiguity 19
1.5 The Aim and Scope of the Study 27
1.5.1 The Aim 27
1.5.2 Scope 28
1.6 Research Method and Procedure 34
1.6.1 Research Method 34
1.6.2 Procedure 35
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1.6.2.1 Abbreviations 35
1.6.2.2 Special Symbols 36
1.7 Exposition of Chapters 37
CHAPTER 2
ORTHOGRAPHIC AMBIGUITY: WRITING THE UNMEANT
2.1 Preliminary Remarks 38
2.2 The Word in Northern Sotho 41
2.2.1 The Concept `Word' 41
2.2.2 Northern Sotho Word Categories 43
2.2.3 Word Structure 44
2.3 Orthography 46
2.3.1 Introduction 46
2.3.2 Doke's Viewpoint 47
2.3.3 Van Wyk's Viewpoint 49
2.3.3.1 Word Identification 49
2.3.3.2 Modes of Writing 52
2.4 The Problem of Word Division 53
2.4.1 Concords 54
2.4.2 Adverbial Prefixes 56
2.4.3 Noun Class Prefixes 57
2.4.4 Résumé 58
2.5 Writing the Unmeant 59
2.5.1 Preliminary Remarks 59
-ix-
2.5.2 Wrong Punctuation 61
2.5.3 Word Division 66
2.5.3.1 Introduction 66
2.5.3.2 Uncertainty due to Wrong Word Division 69
2.5.3.3 Résumé 77
2.6 Conclusion 77
CHAPTER 3
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY: THE MAGIC OF ONE WORD
3.1 Preliminary Remarks 80
3.2 Polysemy 85
3.2.1 Sources of Polysemy 87
3.2.1.1 Shifts in Application 87
3.2.1.2 Specialization in a Social Milieu 91
3.2.1.3 Figurative Language 93
3.2.1.4 Homonyms Reinterpreted 95
3.2.1.5 Foreign Influence 96
3.3 Homonymy 98
3.4 Metaphor 104
3.5 Grammatical Forms 108
3.5.1 Prefixes 108
3.5.1.1 The Prefix of Class 2a (Bo-) 108
3.5.1.2 The Subject Morpheme of 2' Person Plural (le-) 109
3.5.2 Suffixes 110
-x-
3.5.2.1 The Diminutive Suffix (-ana) 110
3.5.2.2 The Applied Verbal Extension (-el-) 111
3.5.2.3 The Causative Verbal Extension (-it-) 113
3.6 Context: The Determinant of (Dominant) Meaning 114
3.6.1 Models for Processing Lexical Ambiguity 116
3.6.2 The Problem 118
3.6:3 Experiments 119
3.6.4 Summary of Results 122
3.6.4.1 Words and Associates 122
3.6.4.2 Statistical Analysis 122
3.6.5 Observations and Discussion 123
3.7 Conclusion 129
CHAPTER 4
STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY: SENTENCE STRUCTURE AND MEANING
4.1 Preliminary Remarks 131
4.2 Deep Structure Versus Surface Structure 136
4.2.1 Phrase Structure Rules 136
4.2.2 Transformational Rules 140
4.3 Surface Structure Ambiguity 143
4.4 Deep Structure Ambiguity 156
4.4.1 Word-Order 159
4.4.2 Range of a Word's Reference 167
4.4.3 Ellipsis 173
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4.4.4 Nominalisation 177
4.4.5 Possession 184
4.4.6 Unambiguous Yet Ambiguous 189
4.5 Résumé 192
CHAPTER V
AMBIGUITY VERSUS VAGUENESS: WHO IS FOOLING WHO?
5.1 Introduction 193
5.2 Ambiguity Tests 196
5.3 Types of Vagueness 202
5.3.1 Referential Vagueness 202
5.3.2 Indeterminacy of Meaning 203
5.3.3 Lack of Specification in the Meaning of an Item 205
5.3.4 Disjunction of Different Interpretations 209
5.4 Semantic Indeterminacy and Ambiguity 211
5.4.1 Referential Indeterminacy 212
5.4.2 Indexical Indeterminacy 214
5.4.3 Meaning and Use 217
5.5 Ambiguity and Negation 220
5.6 Résumé 227
CHAPTER VI
TOWARDS A COMPOSITE PICTURE
6.1 Types of Meaning 230
6.2 Pragmatic Ambiguity 234
6.3 The Slips 236
6.4 Context and the Selection of Meaning (Disambiguation) 238
6.4.1 Linguistic Context 240
6.4.2 Situational Context 242
6.4.3 Résumé 244
6.5 The Pros and Cons of Ambiguity 246
6.6 The Final Word 251
CHAPTER VII
BIBLIOGRAPHY
7.1 Sources (Cited) 254
7.2 Selected List of Other Works (Not Cited) 267
7.3 Orthographies 270
7.4 Newspapers 270
APPENDIX 271
CHAPTER 1
ASSEMBLING THE TOOLS Language without meaning is meaningless - Roman Jakobson in Fromkin & Rodman (1993:123).
1.1 Preliminary Remarks
Scholars and critics of Northern Sotho linguistics contend that the study of grammar in
general, and semantics in particular, has to date not been researched adequately.
Those who conducted research in Northern Sotho explored in some detail its
phonology, syntax and morphology. Mokgokong (1975), Louwrens (1988) and Mojela
(1991) are some of the few researchers who focussed on Northern Sotho semantics.
Mokgokong's (1975) doctoral research concentrated on contextual meaning.
Northern Sotho, like any other language, contains words, phrases and sentences which
are ambiguous in nature. Ambiguity, which refers to the fact that words, sentences or
mere utterances "can have several meanings, thus making us uncertain of what is
meant" (Peck & Coyle, 1984:129), became established as a widely used critical term
after the publication of William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity in 1930. Since the
publication of Empson's book the term 'ambiguity' has been widely used in criticism to
identify a poetic device known as "the deliberate use of a word or expression to signify
two or more distinct references, or to express two or more diverse attitudes or feelings"
(Abrams, 1988:9). In other words, the term has been extended to include ambivalence,
that is, the coexistence of two different attitudes to the same object - the ambiguity of
feeling, (Gray, 1992:19). Empson considers ambiguity as a literary device and points
out that different views can often be taken of what the words mean in a line of poetry.
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Many words, phrases and statements are ambiguous in isolation but clear in context or
amenable to logical analysis within a particular context. For example, though there are
scores of meanings of -ja (eat), someone who speaks of go ja le§ela (to eat a cloth,
that is, to dress expensively) is not likely to be using the word in the same sense as in
go ja bogobe (to eat porridge), "although that is possible and may in some
circumstances be so" (McArthur and McArthur,1992:33).
Words are not used in isolation, each and every word is used within the context of a
sentence or an utterance (context can be subcategorised into the context of the text or
the extralinguistic context - the coordinates of the speech participants and referent; the
time and space). Therefore, it is not the purpose of this enquiry to search for ambiguity
in isolated words.
1.2 Hypothesis
In communication, the communicators have one thing in common - the discourse topic.
For one to convey one's message to the other, there must be some meaningful signs;
verbal or non-verbal. Each and every sign agreed upon must be meaningful, and the
communicators should have the same understanding of these signs. Individuals may
convey their messages through the medium of language. For one to use this medium,
one should, among other things, have a thorough knowledge of the meaning attached
to each and every sound string. No wonder Fromkin & Rodman (1983:163) remark:
Learning a language includes learning the 'agreed-upon' meanings of
certain strings of sounds and learning how to combine these meaningful
Page -2-
units into larger units that also convey meaning. We are not free to
change the meanings of these words at will, for if we did we would be
unable to communicate with anyone.
These 'meaningful units' of speech are combined to form larger units in order to convey
full meaning. What is of utmost importance to the linguist is the function and meaning
of words in the process of communication. When one looks insightfully into these
`strings of sounds', searching for their meaning in the building up of phrases and
sentences, one is busy with semantics - the study of meaning.
When people acquire language, Salzmann (1993:67) is convinced, "they do not only
learn the phonemic shapes of morphemes and the manner of putting morphemes
together to form words and sentences, they also learn what these morphemes, words,
and sentences mean. The speaker of any language shares the large majority of
meanings with those who speak the same language; not to do so would cause frequent
misunderstandings and greatly impeded communication". What Salzmann indicates
is that meaning is of utmost importance in the study of language. When one hears an
utterance, or when one reads a sentence, one is (to borrow Fodor's (1995:209) words)
"aware more or less instantaneously of what it means. Our minds compute the
meaning somehow ..." Anderson & Trudgill (1990:3) emphasise the importance of
meaningful communication:
Everyone knows that what is being said is important. Answering a
question by yes instead of no makes a big difference - a yes should be a
Page -3-
yes and a no should be a no.
When one wants to express oneself, one has to arrange one's thoughts and express
them in verbal symbols, that is, words, sentences, utterancs. The effectiveness of one's
verbal symbols is mostly determined by their arrangement, though one cannot talk of
the choice and the arrangement of words without considering meaning. Take for
instance the following sentence:
1. Le Matsepe nka be a ngwadile puku ye kaone.
`Even Matsepe could have written a better book.'
Does this sentence make sense? To a non-native speaker or an illiterate and/or
ignorant native speaker of Northern Sotho, the answer is a resounding `yes'. For a
native speaker of Northern Sotho, the sentence is anomalous. There is nothing
grammatically wrong with the sentence, yet it is logically unacceptable. The sequence
and the orthography of the words are correct, but it is still regarded as anomalous.
Why? The difficulty with sentence 1 above is that (to borrow words from Elgin's
(1979:14)) If it is true, a number of other things must also be true".
In sentence 1 the following propositions are implied:
It would have been easy to write a better book.
Even Matsepe was not that good at writing.
Page -4-
In Elgin's (1979:14) words, if sentence 1 is to be true, then these propositions should
also be true. But to an informed Northern Sotho speaker, the name Matsepe refers to
an accomplished author, and one who is highly rated for that matter. Then, how on
earth could Matsepe be compared to people who could not write books? For the sake
of clarity, let sentence 1 be rewritten as in 2 below:
2. Le Matome nka be a ngwadile puku ye kaone.
'Even Matome could have written a better book.'
Though only personal names have been substituted for one another, sentence 2 is
totally acceptable. The reason for its acceptance is that the unidentified Matome's
writing skills are not known. It is not only Matsepe's (or hypothetically Matome's) writing
abilities that matter, but the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
Linguists who are concerned with describing all and only acceptable sentences of a
language have been attempting to develOp rules about language which represent the
intuitive knowledge of native speakers. These linguists, led by Noam Chomsky, "make
a fundamental distinction between competence (the speaker-hearer's knowledge of his
language) and performance (the actual use of language in concrete situations)"
(Chomsky 1965:4). As part of the competence model, idealised native speakers of a
language are, according to Katz (1972:5-6), assumed to have the ability to understand,
among others:
Page -5-
... the phenomenon of semantic ambiguity, that is, multiplicity of sense
versus uniqueness of sense - for example, the fact that the words
"button," "ball," "foot", "pipe" have more than one sense and the fact that
the sentences "There's no school anymore," "I've found the button," 'Take
your pick" have two or more senses.
One's intuitive knowledge of the language prompts one to distinguish between words
or sentences which are ambiguous from those which are not. Ambiguity is one aspect
of semantics which in a language like Northern Sotho, has not received the scholarly
attention it deserves. Pervasive as it is, ambiguity deserves an analytic study in its own
right, that is the main objective of this enquiry. In the study of ambiguity, "we are not
just asking 'what' words mean but also 'how' they mean" (Makgamatha 1990:20).
1.3 Towards an Approach: Theoretical Concerns
As already mentioned in the introductory paragraphs of this chapter, a recent overview
of sources on the linguistics of African languages in general, and of Northern Sotho in
particular, shows that semantics has to date received little attention. What has been
intensively and extensively explored in research is morphology. This point is enhanced
by Kisseberth & Abasheikh (in Mosisidi, 1987:1):
Until very recently, most analyses of Bantu grammar have been analyses
of the morphological structure of the various Bantu languages.
Page -6-
A number of factors have been advanced to explain, if not to justify, this situation.
Some of them are advanced by Mosisidi (1987:1). The first is the complex morphology
of the Bantu languages; the second is the fact that most linguists who did preliminary,
though invaluable work on these languages were not themselves native speakers of any
Bantu language and consequently tended to look at these languages through the
spectacles of the Indo-European languages.
Northern Sotho is no exception to the general state of affairs outlined above. This
leaves enough room for the prospective researchers of the Northern Sotho language
to plunge into the deserted fields, one of which is semantics. It is against this
background that in this enquiry, it is opted to give a section of semantics, namely,
ambiguity, the attention it deserves. The need for the study of ambiguity is backed by
Scheffler (1979:xi) who argues that ambiguity, vagueness, and metaphor are pervasive
features of language, deserving of analytic study in their own right.
Let it be reiterated that most scholars who conducted research in Northern Sotho were
non-native speakers of the language. Being non-native speakers of the language,
some of them were often guilty of language projection in their research. They tended
to be prescriptive in formulating the rules of grammar rather than being descriptive.
On the contrary, the approach followed in this enquiry is descriptive in nature, for a
descriptive grammar "doesn't tell you how you should speak; it describes your basic
linguistic knowledge; it explains how it is possible for you to speak and understand"
(Fromkin & Rodman, 1983:12). This does not in any way suggest that the theories of
Page -7-
grammar propounded for other languages are not applied in this enquiry. The
standpoint of the traditional grammatical theory, which has the word as its primary unit
of description (Lyons, 1968:194) and that of the structural grammatical theory, which
pays explicit attention to the way in which linguistic features can be described in terms
of structures and systems (Crystal, 1991:330) are touched. The approach to this work
is based mainly on the transformational-generative theory as proposed by Chomsky in
Syntactic Structures (1957) and later simplified in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
(1965). In Chomsky's model, syntax consists of two principal structures: the deep
structure and the surface structure. The deep structure of sentences contains all the
information relevant to a full and unique semantic interpretation of that language. This
implies that if a sentence has more than one meaning it is ambiguous, and will thus
have more than one deep structure. For each distinct meaning of a sentence there is
a corresponding deep structure.
Though Chomsky's theory was the best known, some linguists such as Hockett (1958),
Roberts (1964) and Koutsoudas (1966), to mention but a few, also published works in
which they analysed both the deep and the surface structures of sentences by means
of transformational rules. Chomsky, as Newmeyer (1981:21) puts it:
... attacked the structuralist-empiricist concept of a linguistic theory for
imposing conditions on theory formation which were incompatible with the
provision of an insightful picture of the workings of human language.
Chomsky argued that in fact no science demands that a theory be
literally extractable from the primary data. Yet this was the goal that the
Page -8-
structuralists had set for themselves.
Chomsky's theory, which adopts the sentence as the point of departure for grammatical
description, embodies a reaction to the structuralists' standpoint. The structuralists,
according to Kosch (1991:92)
... were largely concerned with the order of discovery of their data,
working 'upwards' from the sound system (which served as their point of
departure) to the grammatical system, and keeping these two systems
completely apart. With the sentence as a 'new' focal point in TGG,
syntactic studies received a major impetus ...
Notwithstanding the fact that the TGG (Transformational-Generative Grammar) has in
recent years come under severe criticism by linguists who have adopted a more
pragmatic approach to linguistic analysis, this model remains the most dynamic and
influential. In this enquiry, this approach (and not totally disregarding others) is adopted
because as Liles (1971:7) puts it, "the grammar should not generate sentences that a
native speaker would reject ".
1.4 The Research Topic
1.4.1 Problem Statement
A glance at a dictionary will convince one that most words have multiple meanings. For
example, the verb stem -uta means `to rot' as well as 'to hide'; §et§e has a sense as
a deficient verb (already) and as a main verb (remained); the noun dihiong refers to
Page -9-
'shyness' as well as 'the hedgehog', et cetera. Yet in most conversations, as Allen
(1987:8) has also observed, most people do not notice those senses that are not
appropriate. This fact makes the problem of multiple-meaning appear much simpler
than it actually is. Multiple-meaning or ambiguity is a problem which needs serious
attention because it may lead to misunderstandings. On the question of
misunderstandings and ambiguity, Lutz (1996:12) has the following to say:
Understanding one another is a lot more complicated than we would like.
It would be nice if words had precise, unchanging meanings, and if words
clearly referred to one idea or thing. We would learn these words, each
of us would use them in exactly the same way, and we would all agree on
what to call things. Instead, there are the words I use to label things and
the words you use. When each of us uses different words, we have to
work hard to reach some kind of agreement.
In speech, it is not only words which are used to communicate. Thus, ambiguity does
not only occur at word level, but at other levels of analysis as well. This point is
enhanced by Simpson (1989:14):
It is becoming clear that linguistic ambiguity is a subtle but pervasive
phenomenon. As will be made apparent in the coming chapters of this
volume, ambiguity arises at every level of language processing, from
lexical, through syntactic and semantic, to pragmatic levels of
performance.
Page -10-
For instance, even if one determines the right sense of each word in sentence 3 below,
the sentence could still mean that Matome might have left because the windows were
closed (that is, he saw that the windows were closed) or Matome might have left
because the windows were being closed (that is, we see the window being closed, thus
we are convinced that he has left).
Matome o swanetS'e go ba a tlogile ka gobane mafesetere a tswalet§we.
`Matome might have left because he found the windows closed.'
`Matome might have left because we saw the windows being closed.'
Without knowing the context of the sentence, one cannot identify the appropriate
reading. Some sentences may appear to have only one meaning, yet one can use
them to convey something else. For instance, if one is standing in a hall full of people,
and one hears the person next to one saying sentence 4 below, it would be
inappropriate for one to simply reply in the affirmative. In this context, the sentence is
obviously meant to caution and request one to get off that person's foot.
0 nkgatile.
`You have treaded on me.'
The above example illustrates that context has an important influence on resolving
ambiguity - it sometimes detours one from recognizing ambiguity. As illustrated above,
the sentence is posited as the locus of ambiguity. Giving reasons for positing the
sentence as the locus of ambiguity in his work, Kooij (1971:6) says:
Page -11-
Finally I wish to point out that the term 'ambiguity' will be used for
sentences, and not, if it can be avoided, for all kinds of individual linguistic
elements. In the literature, the same term 'ambiguous' and the related
terms 'homonymous', 'homophonous' and 'polysemous' are sometimes
used both for sentences and phrases, and also for words and morphemes
taken as isolated elements, or studied as members of a grammatical
paradigm.
1.4.2 A Glance at the Concept 'Ambiguity'
"The English word ambiguous", says Hoffman (1989:205), " derives most immediately
from the French ambiguite, which comes from the Latin word ambiguus. This word
combined the stems ambi- ('on both sides') and agere ('travel' or 'drive'), which taken
together mean to 'wander about' or to 'drive on both sides' (Mish, 1984; Patridge, 1966).
The metaphor in operation here is that of someone who is traveling and reaches a
choice point - there are two or more different ways to go, and the traveler has some
reason to go each of the various ways."
To further unravel Hoffman's metaphor, the following Northern Sotho proverb will be
scrutinised:
5. Phiri ya mekoka mebedi e phatioga noka.
'A hyena with two pathways breaks its waist.'
'One cannot serve two masters at the same time.'
Page -12-
A hyena, being a carnivore, preys on other (wild) animals. It always follows animals'
pathways leading to the drinking pool - in case it meets one of its preys. Sometimes it
"wanders about" until it "reaches a choice point", that is where the pathway turns into
a Y-junction. There are two ways to choose from, but it does not know which one to
choose. It is in a dilemma. It ends up taking both ways at the same time. Mission
impossible, hence it breaks its waist.
When one reads or hears a sentence which is ambiguous, one finds oneself at a Y-
junction. It is not easy to choose the correct "pathway", that is, the intended meaning.
1.4.2.1 Linguistic Ambiguity
In an attempt to define ambiguity, Peck & Coyle (1984:129) say it "refers to the fact that
words can often have several meanings, thus making us uncertain what is meant". On
a similar note, Barnet (1992:274) defines ambiguity as "multiplicity of meaning, often
deliberate, that leaves the reader uncertain about the intended significance".
The key word in the above definitions is 'uncertainty' - one is uncertain of which
meaning is intended. Katz (1972:49) also has the same view. He defines ambiguity as
"a case where there is a problem telling one thing from another". What appears to be
common to all these definitions is the simultaneous presentation of two or more
meanings. Therefore, one would rightly have the confidence to say that ambiguity is
a form of polysemy or multiple meaning. Gray's (1992:18) definition which is concise
and precise, seems to be a summary of all the above definitions:
Page -13-
The capacity of words and sentences to have double, multiple or
uncertain meanings.
Gray's definition does not only refer to words as that which could bring about ambiguity,
but also to sentences. When one word is responsible for the ambiguity of a sentence,
we talk of lexical ambiguity, that is, ambiguity which is due to lexical factors. Sometimes
ambiguity is "due to the different structures which are permitted by the rules of syntax,
rather than to any ambiguous word" (Fromkin & Rodman,1993:77). This is what is
referred to as grammatical ambiguity. In differentiating lexical ambiguity from
grammatical ambiguity, Edlow (1975:427) says:
A sentence is lexically ambiguous if its ambiguity results from at least one
of its words having two meanings (admitting of paraphrases that are not
paraphrases of one another), even if that word is isolated from its
containing sentence ... On the other hand, a sentence is syntactically
ambiguous if its ambiguity is due to its structure or syntax, rather than to
one of its words having more than one sense.
A plausible distinction between lexical and grammatical ambiguity is given by Stanford
(1939:10) who maintains that grammatical ambiguity differs from lexical ambiguity in
that in the former the ambiguity resides not in the meanings of the words themselves
but in the syntactic relations among them. Stanford goes on to say:
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In practice, the two types often (though not always) overlap, for on the
one hand lexical ambiguity is made possible by the structure of the
sentence, and on the other hand many grammatical ambiguities would be
nonexistent without the individual words giving rise to mutually exclusive
meanings.
Aristotle, in his De Sophisticis Elenchis (in Kooij, 1971:2) mentions six "ways of
producing the false appearance of an argument which depend on language". He
distinguishes among others:
Lexical ambiguity of words, that is, ambiguity caused by an expression
with two or more meanings.
A sentence like Batho ba a tsoga is ambiguous due to the fact that the verb stem
-tsoga has various nuances of meaning. Lexical ambiguity is of two 'types':
homographs, that is, two or more words that are spelled identical and with the
same pronunciation but have different origins, hence different meanings, and
polysemes, that is, one word with two or more related meanings. Consider the
examples below:
Polysemes
6. Batho ba a tsoga.
Sentence 6 includes all of the following interpretations (and others).
people practice witchcraft
people are well health-wise
people wake up early in the morning
people are waking up
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- people become wise
Homographs
7. 0 He a kata mosadi wa gagwe
Sentence 7 could mean either of the two (though other meanings brought about
by the possessive word-group wa gagwe are inevitable):
he raped his wife
he guarded his wife
Wrong division of elements, that is, a case of ambiguity where a sequence
of elements represents two different 'sentences'.
Take, for example, sentence 8 below which means 'the nations are surprised',
but could also be taken to mean 'they are running away whilst being surprised',
if one overlooks the division between Di and thaba.
8. Dit§haba di maket§e.
Grammatical ambiguity where the structure of the sentence is solely
responsible for double meanings, and not because of the presence of an
ambiguous lexical item.
Consider the following example:
9. Maphodisa a swere moS'emane wa go utswa maabane.
It is the positioning of the adverb maabane which ambiguates the sentence.
One wonders whether the arrest took place yesterday or whether the stealing
occurred yesterday.
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When a considering a definition for the concept "ambiguity", it is deemed fit to
reconsider Hoffman's (1989:206) journey metaphor. He furnishes various reasons as
to why a path or a journey might involve wandering or 'driving on both sides', that is,
uncertainty. Among others, he says:
- Although the alternative paths may be clear, one may lack directions and
therefore be uncertain about which path to choose.
The director is deliberately misleading the traveller 'down the garden
path'. The directions make no sense, and the traveller has to backtrack.
- The path itself becomes obscure or indistinct, and one does not know
where to go.
- The path itself is actually a trap or maze. There's no way out. The
traveller has been set up, and winds up going in circles.
The director goofed. The directions explicitly convey something other
than what they were intended to.
The directions are not sufficient or coherent. The traveller is forced to
make deductions or other inferences to avoid getting lost.
Like a traveller who can get lost, one who comprehends a word or a sentence may lose
sight of its meaning. A traveller may, wittingly, choose to wander; choose to lose his
way and get lost. On the same note, as Hoffman (1989:207) says, one may deliberately
choose to utter ambiguous sentences, 'perhaps for the sake of irony and humor'.
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Let this subsection be concluded by reiterating Tomasulo's (1986:112) views on the
complexity of the concept ambiguity:
Ambiguity has been used in a variety of contexts and senses. The sheer
number of terms used to denote or connote ambiguity suggests a
multiplicity of approaches to this complex modem phenomenon. It has
come to mean uncertainty and doubt, looseness of signification, mystery
and vagueness, as well as multiple meaning, inconsistency, and the
contrapositioning of two or more logically incompatible beliefs.
Tomasulo's view above, reveals that ambiguity is not only a complex phenomenon but
also an 'ambiguous' concept. Ambiguity is itself ambiguous, as Empson (1930:7) points
out:
'Ambiguity' itself means an indecision as to what you mean, an intention
to mean several things, a probability that one or other or both of two
things has been meant, and the fact that a statement has several
meanings. It is useful to be able to separate these if you wish, but it is not
obvious that in separating them at any particular point you will not be
raising more problems than you solve. Thus I shall often use the
ambiguity of 'ambiguity' and pronouns like 'one', to make statements
covering both reader and author of a poem, when I want to avoid raising
irrelevant problems as to communication.
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1.4.2.2 Literary Ambiguity
Literary ambiguity, unlike other types of ambiguity explained in the previous paragraphs,
namely, lexical ambiguity and grammatical ambiguity, is concerned with "both
deliberate or unintentional ambiguities created by the author and confusion in the mind
of a reader, whether literal, logical, or psychological" (McArthur & McArthur, 1992:33).
With the presence of multiple and irresolvable levels of meaning in some works of art,
it is not surprising that literary critics have turned their attention to defining ambiguity
and developing taxonomies of ambiguity (Tomasulo, 1986:135). In the following
paragraphs, some definitions of literary ambiguity are examined.
• Empson, William
Ever since the publication of Seven Types of Ambiguity in 1930, the name William
Empson became synonymous with the concept ambiguity. In fact, as Su (1994:6) puts
it, it is reasonable to claim that interest in the phenomenon of ambiguity as central to
literature has largely been generated by,this book. However, as will be seen later,
Empson's use of the term is rather wide-ranging, for "he extended the concept to cover
any verbal nuance which gives room for alternative readings" (Peck & Coyle, 1984:129).
In his own words, Empson (1961:1) says:
I propose to use the word in an extended sense, and shall think relevant
to my subject any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for
alternative reactions to the same piece of language. Sometimes,
especially in the first chapter, the word may be stretched absurdly far, but
it is descriptive because it suggests the analytical mode of approach, and
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with that I am concerned.
In this book, Empson first begins by differentiating true ambiguity from other figural
constructions, for example, the pun. According to him, a pun is not considered
ambiguous though it often says two things at the same time, "because its essence is
conciseness of expression, rather than puzzlement" (Tomasulo,1986:136). On the
other hand, he declares irony ambiguous if it is calculated to deceive a portion of its
audience. In brief, as Cuddon (1992:32) concludes, Empson's theory is that things are
often not what they seem, that words connote at least as much as they denote - and
very often more. The crux of Empson's book revolves around enumerating and
categorising the 'seven types of ambiguity' as they manifest themselves in classical and
modernist poetry (Tomasulo, 1986:136). These "seven types of ambiguity' as summed
up on pages v - vi of Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity, (1961) may be epitomized
as follows:
A detail is effective in several ways simultaneously. This type is so broad that
it covers almost everything of literary importance, "thus rendering 'ambiguity' too
vague and general as an umbrella term for many different phenomena" (Su,
1994:7).
Two or more alternative meanings are fully resolved into one.
Two ostensibly unconnected meanings are given simultaneously, for example,
puns.
Page -20-
4. Alternative meanings combine to make clear a complicated state of mind in the
author.
A kind of confusion when a writer discovers his idea while actually writing. In
other words, he has not apparently preconceived the idea but came upon it
during the act of creation (Cuddon, 1992:33).
What is said is contradictory, irrelevant, or tautological so that the reader is
forced to invent (possibly conflicting) interpretations (Tomasulo, 1986:137).
A complete contradiction which shows that the author was unclear as to what he
was saying. (It is this type of ambiguity which Empson considers the most
ambiguous of all the categories.)
The most plausible summary of these 'seven types of ambiguity' is given by McArthur
& McArthur (1992:33). They differentiate them as follows:
ambiguity of reference the result of metaphoric manipulation
ambiguity of referent the grammatical running of alternative
meanings into one
ambiguity of sense including puns, allusions and allegories
ambiguity of intent in which the author's purpose is unclear
ambiguity of transition marked by a change in the author's
perspective of his or her subject
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ambiguity of contradiction - in which the author confuses image owing to
tautology, contradiction, or irrelevancy
ambiguity of meaning as in words like let ('allow' or 'hinder') and
cleave ('split asunder' or 'embrace')
Although Empson (1961:viii) tries to fend off criticism by offering the caveat "I claimed
at the start that I would use the term 'ambiguity' to mean anything I liked, and
repeatedly told the reader that the distinctions between the Seven Types which he was
asked to study would not be worth the attention of a profounder thinker", he has been
criticised on many levels (Tomasulo, 1986:137). One of his critics, Rimmon (1977:22),
is of the idea that the title of Empson's pioneer book is misleading. He argues that
while the book purports to be about ambiguity, "the work actually analyses the
conjunction or 'synthesis' or 'fusion' (in the best Eliot-Richards-Graves tradition) of
double or multiple meanings". Rimmon (ibid) continues to say that Empson (1961:5-6)
extends the term so much that "the ambiguity of 'ambiguity'" threatens to become a
stumbling block rather than a convenience.
On the other hand, Wheelwright (1967:252) criticises Empson's treatment of ambiguity
and plurisignation, (a concept coined by Wheelwright himself) as interchangeable:
Mr. William Empson in Seven Types of Ambiguity has made a survey of
prominent types of plurisignation; unfortunately he has confused the
matter by his misconception of ambiguity, which differs from plurisignation
as "neither-or" differs from "both-and".
Page -22-
Notwithstanding all these criticisms, Empson's book is, "nevertheless, important in
initiating a heightened awareness and interest in the phenomenon in the twentieth
century" (Su, 1994:9). As highlighted earlier, Empson (1961:57) considered ambiguity
as a literary device and classified it into categories 'intended as stages of advancing
logical disorder'. As mentioned earlier, he allows for both deliberate and unintentional
ambiguities created by the author and confusion in the mind of a reader, whether literal,
logical, or psychological. He continues to point out two important facets of readership:
that "the pleasure belongs to the act of working out and understanding, which must at
each reading be repeated" and that "the ambiguity works best if it is never discovered".
• Kaplan, Abraham & Kris, Ernst
As Su (1994:9) puts it, the most obvious difference which distinguishes the treatment
of ambiguity by Empson (1930) from that of Kaplan & Kris (1948) is a theory that is
found in the latter but lacking in the former. Empson uncovers ambiguities by the
method of close analysis of poems, but ,what the underlying principles are for such
identification are not clear. On the contrary, Kaplan & Kris base their argument on the
response theory of meaning. The meaning of words is determined by the reader's
responses, "a set of which constitutes a 'cluster'" (Su, 1994:9). Unlike Empson who
classifies seven types of ambiguity, Kaplan & Kris differentiate between five types of
ambiguity, namely, "disjunctive and conjunctive, which have clusters that are sharply
distinct; projective, in which responses are diffused and not grouped in distinct clusters;
additive and integrative, where multiple clusters are evoked simultaneously" (Su,
1994:10). It is, at this stage, deemed fit to quote Kaplan & Kris' (1948:417-421)
definitions of these types:
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Disjunctive ambiguity: "We call an ambiguity disjunctive when the separate
meanings function in the process of interpretation as alternatives, excluding and
inhibiting each other", for example, "The Duke yet lives that Henry shall depose".
Additive ambiguity: "the separate meanings, though still alternative, are no longer
fully exclusive but are to some extent included one in the other. Rather than
several distinct clusters, we have a set of clusters of varying range and with a
common centre. Thus a symbol is additively ambiguous when it has several
meanings differing only in the degree of specificity, or in what they add to the
common core of meaning." For example, a word like 'rich' is ambiguous in this
sense for it has different nuance-meanings which are "not fully distinct and
exclusive, but overlap and merge into one another".
Conjunctive ambiguity: "the separate meanings are jointly effective in the
interpretation. Rather than overlapping of clusters, there is but a single cluster
consisting of paired (or multiple linked) responses, each member of a pair (or
n-tuple) corresponding to a different partial meaning".
Integrative ambiguity: "its manifold meanings evoke and support one another.
There is a stimulus-response relation between the clusters as well as within
them. They interact to produce a complex and shifting pattern; though multiple,
the meaning is unified". The example given is 'shrunken' in 'the shrunken seas'
from T. S. Eliot's 'Sweeney among the Nightingales'.
Page -24-
Projective ambiguity: "Clustering is minimal, so that responses vary altogether
with the interpreter. The term is in such cases said to be 'hopelessly' vague, the
meaning found being in fact imposed - projected - by the interpreter". The
authors themselves are not sure that this can legitimately be called a type of
ambiguity (Rimmon, 1977: 26).
Kaplan & Kris (1948:417) argue that in poetry all of the above may be included as
types of ambiguity because in terms of multiplicity, they "can be treated as generically
identical". They-regard ambiguity "as a form of multiple meaning, different from, but
capable of being evoked by, other forms of multiple meaning such as irony, paradox,
allegory, and so on" (Su, 1994:12).
• Rimmon, Shlomith
Kaplan & Kris' classification is parallel to Rimmon's (1977). Rimmon (1977:26) says:
The parallels between this classification and my own set of distinctions
are easy to establish. Kaplan and Kris's 'projective ambiguity'
corresponds to 'the subjectivity of reading' and to extreme instances of
'vagueness' in the logical sense of the word. 'Conjunctive ambiguity'
corresponds to some types of 'double meaning', 'multiple meaning',
'plurisignation', and 'complexity', while 'integrative ambiguity' corresponds
to other instances of the same phenomena (depending on whether the
various meanings are simply conjoined or also integrated in a larger unit
of meaning) ... 'Disjunctive ambiguity' is the one type which corresponds
Page -25-
to my strict definition of 'ambiguity', and the reader who prefers Kaplan-
Kris' classification can read 'disjunctive ambiguity' wherever I say
'ambiguity' tout court, provided that he bears in mind the "conjunction" of
exclusive disjuncts in this type of ambiguity.
In her book entitled The Concept of Ambiguity - the Example of James, Rimmon (1977)
provides, as Su (1994:12) calls it, the most clear-cut view of the concept ambiguity.
She defines ambiguity as 'a conjunction of exclusive disjuncts', which is a definition
which depends on operations in logic (Su, ibid). The formula she gives is: a A b, where
a and b are propositions, and the symbol A
... is not simply a connector, but a relational sign which combines an
exclusion disjunction and a conjunction in the following way: The
exclusive disjunction is taken in its strict logical sense, while the
conjunction is given the sense of copresence in the literary text. The 'A'
sign implies that if the disjunction is true, the relation between a and b is
such that if a is true b must be false and vice versa (Rimmon, 1977:8).
As seen in the comparison between Rimmon's set of definitions and Kaplan & Kris
classification, Rimmon only considers one type, namely, Kaplan & Kris disjunctive
ambiguity, to be strictly ambiguous. This is one of the aspects which forces Miller
(1980:112) to conclude thus:
Page -26-
Rimmon's definition of ambiguity, however, is too rational, too 'canny', too
much an attempt to reduce the mise en abyme of any literary work, for
example the novels and stories of James, to a logical scheme....
Rimmon's concept of ambiguity, in spite of its linguistic sophistication, is
a misleading logical schematization of the alogical in literature ...
1.5 The Aim and Scope of the Study
1.5.1 The Aim
The main aim of this thesis is to study ambiguity in Northern Sotho. Ambiguity, often
referred to as 'double or multiple meaning', is, as Scheffler (1979:i) observes,
"deserving of systematic study" in its own right. In this study, an attempt is made to give
it the attention it deserves insofar as research is concerned. It is the primary aim of this
thesis to provide some theoretical clarity about the concept of ambiguity.
As the title of this enquiry indicates, this investigation focusses on linguistic ambiguity.
Ambiguity in ordinary speech, as seen in the previous paragraphs, is viewed as an
obstacle to clear communication. This is evident in Kaplan's (1950:1) view:
Ambiguity is the common cold of the pathology of language. The logician
recognises equivocation as a frequent source of fallacious reasoning. The
student of propaganda and public opinion sees in ambiguity an enormous
obstacle to successful communication.
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Another aim of this thesis is to reveal the good as well as the bad sides of ambiguity.
Ambiguity, whether visual or narrative, has its ups and downs.
1.5.2 Scope
The scope of the term ambiguity is rather wide, but may be narrowed down for certain
purposes (Kooij, 1971:1). To restrict the scope of the term ambiguity as much as
possible, ambiguity can be defined as 'that property of a sentence that can be
interpreted in more than one way.' A sentence should be understood to mean a
sequence of words to which at least one grammatical structure can be assigned and
which has at least one meaning (Kooij 1971:5). Just as it is the task of a semanticist
to explain that a sentence has a meaning, it is also his task to explain the fact that some
sentences have more than one meaning.
In the following paragraphs, sources of ambiguity are highlighted. Cann (1993:8) has
this to say about causes of ambiguity:
Ambiguity can arise in a sentence for a number of reasons: through the
ascription of multiple meanings to single words, ... through the
assignment of different syntactic structures to a sentence, ... or through
the use of certain expressions that may have different semantic scope.
Ambiguity is caused by, among other things, the sounds of the language, that is, "the
phonetic structure of the sentence" (Ullman 1970:156). Two quite different words may
sound the same (for instance, mob meaning 'cry' and mob° meaning 'fire') and due
Page -28-
to this a serious misunderstanding may arise. Equally, two distinct phrases or
sentences may sound very similar but have totally different meanings. Consider the
following sentences:
Lea rata na?
`Are you willing?'
Le a ratana?
Do you love one another?'
"In practice," says Kahn & Ilson (1985:40), " most apparent ambiguities in English
speech are avoided, because intonation and word-breaks distinguish one sense from
another." The same holds true for Northern Sotho: rata na? and ratana? do not in fact
sound identical when spoken. Again the sentence `le a ratana' can be pronounced as
a question or as a statement. Here it is a question of punctuation if it is on paper, and
a question of intonation if it is in speech. Although tone in many cases disambiguates
ambiguity in Northern Sotho, this is not discussed in this thesis. Practical orthography
does not allow the excessive use of diacritic marks.
Word-order is another cause of ambiguity. It is important to structure sentences in
such a way that the intended relationship between words or phrases is clear, and that
no unintended relationship is inadvertently set up (Kahn & Ilson, ibid). Consider the
following example:
Monna, mosadi o a mmetha.
`A man, a woman he/she beats.'
Page -29-
The problem in the above sentence is brought about by the positioning of the object.
One wonders what the subject of the above sentence is. Who is beating who? Is it a
man who beats a woman, or vice versa? The subject concord which is o- and the object
concord (m < mo) in the above example could refer to
monna 'The man'
mosadi 'The woman'
someone else (if monna is used vocatively.)
The major causes of ambiguity in the above sentence are the concords; the subect
concord as well as the object concord. These concords could easily be coreferential
to any of the nouns. Sentence number 9 on page 16 also exemplifies ambiguities
caused by word order:
9. Maphodisa a swere maemane wa go utswa maabane.
'The police have arrested the boy who stole yesterday.'
To which event does maabane (yesterday) relate? To a swere (have arrested) or to go
utswa (to steal)? The reader/hearer may not be certain of the intended meaning.
Ideally, the sentence should be reworded or the dubiously placed adverb should be
repositioned. Sentence 9 could be rewritten as follows:
Maabane maphodisa a swere motemane wa go utswa.
'Yesterday the police arrested the boy who stole.'
or
Maemane wa go utswa maabane o swerve ke maphodisa.
The boy who stole yesterday was arrested by the police.'
Page -30-
"A word can be quite unambiguous in itself and yet create ambiguity in a sentence by
failing to make clear what part of the sentence it refers to. This is especially true of
pronouns" (Kahn & Ilson, 1985:43). Pronouns, which are basically anaphoric, can
cause ambiguities in sentences as the above assertion maintains. In Northern Sotho,
such ambiguities are often caused by the agreement morpheme which partly serves the
function of a pronoun. Consider the following sentence:
15. 0 mo hwedit§e a le bjalo.
'You/He/she found him/her like that.'
To whom does the subject concord 0 refer? To the second or third person? If it refers
to the third person, is it a 'he' or a 'she'? (The Northern Sotho agreement morphemes
and pronouns do not mark gender.) The above sentence could be interpreted as
follows:
You found him like that.
You found her like that.
He found him like that.
- He found her like that.
She found him like that.
She found her like that.
One other cause of ambiguity is uncertainty over the range of a word's reference. That
is what Ullman (1970:158) calls "equivocal phrasing ('amphibology'). The following
sentence exemplifies this uncertainty:
Page -31-
Re lebeleae diswant§ho tsa monna le mosadi.
'We are looking at the photos of a man and a woman.'
Do these photos belong to a couple or do these two people each appear on a separate
photo? Or do some photos belong to the man and others to the woman? Or does it
imply that some photos bear a man alone whilst others bear a woman alone? The main
cause of ambiguity in this sentence is the uncertainty about the range of reference for
the possessive particle ffia. To disambiguate this sentence, another possessive particle
should be added. The sentence will then read:
Re lebeleae diswanaho tta monna le aa mosadi.
'We are looking at the man's and the woman's photos.'
Although the above sentence is still ambiguous, its range of ambiguity is narrowed.
Unlike before where there were several hidden meanings, there is only one hidden
meaning in this sentence. An explicit meaning here is that some photos belong to the
man and others to the woman. Then follows the hidden meaning: who is on the photos
- a man on some and a woman on others, or both of them on one photo?
Another common cause of ambiguity is brevity. In Northern Sotho, like in many other
languages, there is provision for ellipsis, provided that the omitted words are alluded to
in the context. Referring to English sentences, Radford (1988:82) says:
Under certain discourse conditions, it is possible in English (and
other languages) for some part of the sentence to undergo ellipsis
(i.e. to be omitted), provided that the missing part of the sentence can be
Page -32-
'understood' from the context.
Though in the following example the omitted words are 'understood', one is not sure of
the exact words which are implied. It is this uncertainty which causes ambiguity.
0 nthata go go feta.
'He/she likes me more than you.'
The above sentence has two possible meanings. Ambiguity in this case can only be
eliminated by the addition of the 'implied' words. The two possible meanings can be
paraphrased as in 19 and 20 below:
0 nthata go feta ka moo o nthatago ka gona.
'He/she likes me more than you do.'
0 nthata go feta ka moo a go ratago ka gona.
'He/she likes me more than he/she likes you.'
Punctuation is also a major cause of ambiguity. A sentence which is not punctuated
properly could cause some problems for interpreters. Consider the following
unpunctuated sentence:
Moruti Taudi ke kgai ya rena
'Pastor Taudi is our king'
If it is a statement, we, the readers, are being told about moruti Taudi (pastor Taudi),
but what if a comma is put after moruti? Are we still being told of pastor Taudi, or is
Page -33-
moruti (pastor) now being addressed? This will be discussed in detail in chapter two.
To conclude this subsection Fromkin & Rodman's (1993:12) words will suffice:
When we speak we usually have a certain message to convey. At some
stage in the act of producing speech we must organize our thoughts into
strings of words. But sometimes the message gets garbled. We may
stammer, or pause, or produce "slips of the tongue".
Aggravating this problem of misunderstanding and misinterpretation, Lutz (1996:x) says:
We may think we know what we're saying to one another, but as I hope
I show in this book, too often we don't. Worse, we continue on our way
believing that we really do know what we're saying.
1.6 Research Method and Procedures .
1.6.1 Research Method
Data for the purpose of analysis was accumulated by engaging oneself in discussions
with people of various ages and genders. By just listening to people talking the
researcher was able to collect phrases and sentences with multiple meanings. The
researcher interacted randomly but purposely with Native Northern Sotho speakers
(students, teachers and lecturers), and took note of their responses.
This research involved an extensive search for ambiguous sentences by the researcher,
and an intensive search for two interpretations of each of these ambiguous sentences
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by subjects. Due to the lack of appropriate theoretical sources dealing with ambiguity
in Northern Sotho, theories and principles initially applied to other languages are used
in this enquiry.
Sources on linguistics, especially those treating semantics in general and ambiguity in
particular, served as guidance and references for this research. Some earlier and
contemporary Northern Sotho works of art were investigated into with the aim of
selecting sentences which include words with multiple meanings, metaphorical
language, proverbs, idiomatic expressions and ambiguous sentences.
1.6.2 Procedure
"Almost all fields of study have abbreviations for terms that are often repeated" (Liles,
1971:11), and this study is no exception. Instead of repeating the term 'sentence', for
example, the abbreviation S is used. Hereunder follows a comprehensive list of
abbreviations used in this enquiry:
1.6.2.1 Abbreviations
ADJ - Adjective
ADJ.N Adjectival Noun
ADJP Adjectival Phrase
ADV Adverb
ADVP - Adverb Phrase
DS Dominant Meaning, Strong Bias
DW Dominant Meaning, Weak Bias
FA Fully Ambiguous
IC Immediate Constituent
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Noun
NP - Noun Phrase
NPs - Noun Phrases
Poss.Part - Possessive Particle
Poss.Pro Possessive Pronoun
PossP Possessive Phrase
Pro - Pronoun
Qual.P - Qualificative Particle
Qual Qualificative
- Sentence
SS Subordinate Meaning, Strong Bias
SW Subordinate Meaning, Weak Bias
TGG - Transformational Generative Grammar
V Verb
VP - Verb Phrase
1.6.2.2 Special Symbols
Sharp transition (juncture) as in chapter 2
Plus (and) as in chapter 4
-, May be of the form I I Half inverted commas are used to mark the English
translation of example sentences.
Syntactically or semantically deviant, that is, a non- .
permitted sequence of sounds or words in the language
concerned. In other words, no native speaker of the
language would intentionally utter such a sequence of
words, mainly due to its unacceptability.
High tone (indicated on vowels)
Low tone (indicated on vowels)
Page -36-
Lastly, the concept 'rule' in this enquiry does not mean "what a grammatical sentence
must look like, but in the sense that it says what a grammatical sentence can look like"
(Culicover, 1982:10).
1.7 Exposition of Chapters
In the introductory chapter various theories and approaches of linguistics in general
and semantics in particular are discussed with a view to choosing the most appropriate
ones. Some relevant concepts to this research are also introduced and defined.
The second chapter treats mostly the problem of orthography which results in writing
what one does not mean.
The third chapter treats lexical ambiguity where one word or phrase is responsible for
the ambiguity of the sentence as a whole.
The fourth chapter dwells on structural ambiguity which arises in sentences. A
sentence becomes ambiguous due to the syntactic structure.
The fifth chapter dispels the confusion likely to arise when ambiguity and vagueness are
unwittingly regarded as synonymous and therefore interchangeable.
The sixth chapter, which is the last in this enquiry, is a general assessment of the
previous chapters. Conclusions are drawn and some suggestions are made in this
chapter.
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CHAPTER TWO
ORTHOGRAPHIC AMBIGUITY: WRITING THE UNMEANT Words are important. They can be a matter of life or death, so we need to pay attention to words, all of us, all the
time - Lutz (1996:12).
2.1 Preliminary Remarks
As the title of this chapter suggests, the focus is on the ambiguity which arises due to
orthographic errors. The word 'orthography' is derived from the Greek word
`orthographein' which comprises two words, namely, 'ortho' meaning `right/correct' and
`graphein' meaning 'to write'. In simple terms, 'orthography' means 'the correct/right
way of writing', that is, the acceptable way of representing speech by means of writing.
What do we write? Words and sentences - these are the units of a language that form
the basis for verbal communication. Without words there would be no sentences, and
without sentences there would be no verbal communication. To use Lyons' (1968:194)
words:
... the word is the unit par excellence of traditional grammatical theory.
It is the basis of the distinction which is frequently drawn between
morphology and syntax and it is the principal unit of lexicography (or
`dictionary-making).
Since this enquiry covers the area of grammar called semantics, which according to
(Pei & Gaynor, 1954:193), is "a science dealing with the relations between referents and
referends - linguistic symbols (words, expressions, phrases) and the objects or
concepts to which they refer", it is imperative to consider the study of linguistic symbols
Page -38-
(sememes) which are involved. A word, as one of the linguistic symbols, is in most
cases taken for granted by researchers and thus not properly defined. This is observed
by Palmer (1984:41) who says:
In literate societies, at least, the word is so much a part of everyday
knowledge that it is completely taken for granted. Grammar books often
make no attempt to give a definition of the word though they happily
define other grammatical elements in terms of it. The sentence, for
instance, is a 'combination of words' and the parts of speech are
'classes of words'. But what a word is and how it can be defined is often
not considered.
On the contrary, in this chapter, the word is scrutinised. The following hierarchy of units
of linguistic description is observed: morphemes function as constituents of words,
words function as constituents of phrases, and phrases as constituents of sentences
(Aarts & Aarts, 1988:12). This hierarchy, as Aarts & Aarts (ibid) maintain, is called a
rankscale and is illustrated as in Figure 2.1 below:
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Sentence
Monna yo mogolo o swere patla.
Phrase
Monna yo mogolo
Word
Monna
Morphemes
Mo-nna
Figure 2.1
This leads to the definition of a word in Northern Sotho. But one may, as Aarts & Aarts,
(1988:11) observe, have to leave all other fields and enter that of morphology by
investigating the constituents of which words are composed. Studying morphology
poses a problem in terms of selecting the appropriate starting point. ' As Posthumus
(1994:29) observes, it is like opening the door to linguistic problems:
The morphologist is faced with a number of philological problems. The
first of these philological problems is that of deciding whether to describe
morphemes in terms of the word or the word in terms of its constituent
parts - morphemes.
This problem seems to form part of Lyons' (1968:180) vision of morphology, for he
asserts:
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In the discussion of the two 'primary' units of grammatical analysis, the
word and the morpheme, we are faced with the difficulty that, whichever
one we take first, we must presuppose some knowledge of the other.
Most modern treatments of grammatical theory have glossed over this
difficulty by defining the morpheme as the minimal unit of grammatical
analysis (which is the definition we will provisionally adopt) and then
failing to point out that the general practice of linguists is not always
consistent with this definition, but is conditioned equally by some explicit
and implicit reference to the word as a grammatical unit.
2.2 The Word in Northern Sotho
2.2.1 The Concept 'Word'
A word is, according to Pei & Gaynor (1954:233)
A spoken or written symbol of an idea, usually regarded as the smallest
independent sense-unit. Variously defined as "the smallest significant
unit of speech and language" (Ullman), "a minimum free form"
(Bloomfield), "the smallest speech unit capable of functioning as a
complete utterance" (Palmer), etc.
Pei's definition, together with his quoted excerpts revolve around one description - the
smallest independently meaningful unit of a language. Indeed, the word is the only
minimal meaningful unit of a language whose meaning is independent. One may argue
that a free morpheme is independently meaningful, but what is a free morpheme if not
Page -41-
a word?
Pei's definition is strongly backed by Fowler & Fowler (1964:1505) who say a word is
... any sound or combination of sounds (or its written or printed
symbol) recognised as PART of speech, conveying an idea or
alternative ideas, and capable of serving as a member of, the whole of,
or a substitute for, a sentence.
Fowler & Fowler's definition describes the word from a structural point of view.
Attacking various definitions of a word, Crystal (1991:380) remarks:
Regular definitions of words as 'units of meaning', or as 'ideas' are of no
help, because of the vagueness of such notions as 'idea'.
After scrutinising the definition for a word from various viewpoints, Palmer (1984:48)
worryingly concludes:
In conclusion, sadly, we have to say that the word is not a clearly
definable linguistic unit ... But what the word is or is not depended
ultimately on our total view of grammar.
These words, consequently, also serve as our concluding remarks on the definition of
a word.
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2.2.2 Northern Sotho Word Categories
Words can be grouped together into "word classes" (Aarts & Aarts, 1988) or "classes
of words" (Fromkin & Rodman, 1983) or "parts of speech" (Cole, 1955; Ziervogel et al.,
1977; and Doke & Mofokeng, 1985) or "word categories" (Lombard et al., 1985) or
"syntactic categories" (Culicover, 1982). Doke was the first Bantuist to try and justify
his classification of words and according to him, as Kosch (1991:42) puts it:
... the function of a word in a sentence (presumably syntactical
characteristics) took precedence over its formal (presumably
morphological characteristics) to determine to which part of speech a
word belonged.
His classification, however, was not fully acceptable since some scholars like Lestrade
(1936) "found it difficult to see the full theoretical justification for grouping together, as
one fundamental part of speech, words which showed such semantic, functional and
morphological differences as did some of Doke's divisions" (Kosch, 1991:43). The most
acceptable classification is that of Van Wyk (1967:230-261) though he "does not
distinguish 'conjunctions' as a word category" (Lombard et al., 1985:28). Van Wyk
identified eight parts of speech, videlicet:
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I Words with normal phonological structure
A. Substantives
1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
B Predicatives
3. Verbs
4. Copulative demonstratives-
C Morphologically heterogeneous words
5. Adverbs
6. Particles
II Words with paranormal phonological structure
7. Ideophones
8. Interjections
Figure 2.2
2.2.3 Word Structure
Words comprise morphemes. A morpheme, according to Pei & Gaynor (1954:140), is
... a distinct linguistic form, semantically different from other phonetically
similar or identical linguistic forms, and not divisible or analyzable into
smaller forms. The morpheme is the minimal meaningful unit of a
language.
In Northern Sotho, the following morphemes are distinguished:
Roots (ultimate irreducible elements of words, generally speaking immutable,
except in extreme cases of phonetic mutation, as in nasalization (Doke
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& Mofokeng, 1985:56))
Prefixes (those affixes which are attached before the root)
Suffixes (affixes which are attached after the root)
Stems (parts of a word which are not analysed exhaustively)
Coming to the distinction between the terms 'root' and 'stem', Posthumus (1994:30) has
this to say:
The root is described as the lexical morpheme while the stem is described
as the root plus any affixes (not suffixes).
This comes as a response to the earlier grammarians such as Doke (1981), Doke &
Mofokeng (1985), Cole (1955), Ziervogel et al. (1977), et cetera, who maintain that a
stem is the combination of a root and a suffix, that is, the prefix excluded. This
discrepancy prompts Posthumus (1994:31) to plausibly redefine the root and the stem
as follows:
The root should be defined as the lexical morpheme of the word
(which is morphologically unanalyzable) to which any affixes can be
affixed. The stem, on the other hand, may include in addition to the
root, one or more affixes. The stem has a word correlate in the
lexicon.
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2.3 Orthography
2.3.1 Introduction
The written history of the African languages spoken in the Republic of South Africa in
general, and Northern Sotho in particular, dates back to the early part of the nineteenth
century "when European missionaries first started with the arduous task of recording the
native languages of the various communities they served" (Louwrens, 1991:1). In
Northern Sotho, a special gratitude goes to a Berlin missionary, Karl Endemann with his
well-planned Northern Sotho grammar published in 1876. Though "sporadic instances
of Northern Sotho had been recorded before 1876" (Kosch, 1991:2), the year 1876
marks the beginning of writing in the Northern Sotho language.
When one compares the early writings with the contemporary ones, one realises that
words were divided differently. In Louwrens' (1991:1) words, "it seems as if no two
writers divided words in exactly the same way".
In their attempt to develop an efficient orthography for the African languages, the
missionaries "touched upon a problem that was later to become a major issue in Bantu
linguistic circles, namely, that of words and word-division" (Louwrens, ibid). This
problem gave birth to two different methods of word-division used initially; namely,
conjunctivism (practised mostly in Nguni languages) and disjunctivism (practised in the
Sotho languages), and later semi-conjunctivism (practised by both the Nguni and Sotho
languages).
Page -46-
2.3.2 Doke's Viewpoint
Doke's approach to the word in the African languages was influenced by the English
School of Daniel Jones (Kosch, 1991:41) who adopted a prosodic approach. Doke
(1935:220) describes the word as follows:
The Bantu word is dependent upon the Bantu law of stress and may be
defined as that sound or group of sounds which is subject to one main
stress and only one.
This definition forms the cornerstone of Doke's approach to the definition and division
of a word in the African languages. He concludes that word division should be based
on pronunciation and that every word has one main stress which falls on the
penultimate syllable. In his own words, this conclusion "records what the native says -
not what the European believes he should have as concepts in his mind" (Doke,
1921:14). He lashed out at those who used the disjunctive method of writing in trying
to describe a word in African languages. He says the early missionaries who based
their approach to an African word on their knowledge of European languages "divided
the words according to a non-Bantu conception - according to a disjunctive method,
separating each grammatical conception without realizing the great difference existing
in Bantu between what are word forming 'parts of speech' and what are non-isolatable
formatives" ( Doke, 1981:46 ). Kosch (1991:41), on the other hand, sees it differently.
She criticises Doke's viewpoint that the conjunctive way of writing is the correct one for
the African languages. She vehemently retorts that "this viewpoint favoured the Nguni
languages rather than the Sotho languages which have a marked absence of
Page -47-
coalescence across word and morpheme boundaries."
Doke's prosodic approach has been criticised by scholars of African languages such
as Ziervogel and Cope who "rejected the phonetic principle on which he based this
method, namely that stress (i.e. length) should be regarded as the sole marker of word
boundaries" (Louwrens, 1991:4). Ziervogel (1964:212) developed his own linguistic
theory regarding the word, and based it on morphological, functional, prosodical and
semantic principles.
As other scholars of African languages have observed, it is not stress that falls on the
penultimate syllable of a word, but length. So Doke's definition has a fallacy which
makes it partially unacceptable. According to Lestrade (1936:61), a definition
... must consider not merely one phase of the thing defined, however
fundamental that phase may be, to the exclusion of other equally
and perhaps even more fundamental phases.
Despite these shortcomings, Doke's contribution deserves credit and recognition, since
he was the first scholar to attempt a study of the word in the African languages not
basing his method on European approaches.
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2.3.3 Van Wyk's Viewpoint
With the completion of a doctoral thesis entitled Woordverdeling in Noord-Sotho en Zulu
in 1958, Van Wyk "became the first South African to make a scientific investigation and
assessment of all the existing approaches to the problem of word division in the Bantu
languages, as well as of the different theories on which these approaches were based"
(Louwrens, 1991:6). He emphasises the important distinction between word
identification on one hand, which is a pure linguistic problem, and word division, which
is an orthographic problem, on the other.
2.3.3.1 Word Identification
Van Wyk bases his word identification tests on two scientific principles, namely,
isolatability and mobility (Lombard et al., 1985:11).
lsolatability
By isolatability is meant the ability of a unit of language to convey a complete meaning
in isolation, that is, not being attached to the other units of a language. For example,
in sentence 1 below, monna and o a ja constitute words for they give meaning in
isolation.
1. Monne o a ja.
'The man is eating.'
Each of them can constitute a complete sentence on its own. Consider the following
examples:
Page -49-
1a. Monna o dirang?
'What is the man doing?'
1 b. Oaja.
'He is eating.'
lc. Ke mang yo a jago?
'Who is eating?'
1 d. Monna.
'The man.'
0-, -a- and -ja cannot constitute words or complete sentences when used alone, so they
are not words. They cannot occur unattached.
Mobility
By mobility is meant the ability of units of a language to change their mutual positions
and relationship in sentences. Words, within a sentence, are mobile in various ways
and this implies various mobility features.
Separability
"When two language units can be separated from each other by means of other words
or another word (i.e. not parts of words), it may be concluded that the two language
units are words if they are inherently stable" (Lombard et al., 1985:13). Consider the
following example:
2. Monna o a ja.
'The man is eating.'
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This sentence comprises the two words, namely, Monne and o a ja. Another word can
be inserted between these two words without them losing their word status. The
following serves as an example:
Monna yola o a ja.
'That man is eating.'
Transposability
If a unit of a language can change positions within a sentence, that is, can be
transposed, then such a unit is regarded as a word. Consider examples 4 and 5 below:
Kgarebe e botsana.
'The lady is beautiful.'
E botsana, kgarebe.
'She is beautiful, the lady.'
Note that word groups are also transposable. The word, therefore, is the smallest unit
which is transposable.
Replaceability
When a linguistic unit can be replaced by an autonomous word, such replaceability
proves the word autonomy of that part. When one unit of a language can be substituted
by another, such a unit is called a word. Take an example such as 6 below in which the
noun monna can be replaced by the pronoun such as in sentence 7 which leads us to
the conclusion that monna and yena are autonomous words.
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6. Monna o betha mosadi.
'A man beats a woman.'
7 Yena o betha mosadi.
'He beats a woman.'
Conclusion
In conclusion, it must be noted that not all words can display all these word features.
Therefore, if a unit of a language adheres to one or more of these tests, such a unit
should be regarded as a linguistic word. An exhaustive discussion of the word tests falls
outside the scope of this enquiry (for more information on word tests see Van Wyk,
(1958), Lombard et al., (1985:11-15) and Louwrens (1991:6-8).
2.3.3.2 Modes of Writing
When he was satisfied with his word identification in African languages, Van Wyk began
considering word division. He was not satisfied with the existing modes of writing; to
him none of them "were scientifically verifiable" (Louwrens, 1991:6). He, as Louwrens
(ibid:9) puts it, "concluded that disjunctivism as adhered to by scholars of Northern
Sotho represented an unacceptable extreme, and that conjunctivism as advocated by
scholars such as Doke and Ziervogel in reaction to disjunctivism, constituted an equally
unacceptable extreme in the opposite direction". Van Wyk wanted to close the gap
between these two extremities. He adopted a mode of writing which he called semi-
conjunctivism or semi-disjunctivism. In his approach, as Louwrens (ibid) observes, he
"obviously supported conjunctivism in certain respects and disjunctivism in others". His
mode of writing could be recognised by hyphenation. A unit of a language which cannot
stand on its own is written semi-conjunctively. Example 8a is rewritten semi-
Page -52-
conjunctively in 8b.
8a. Ke a go rata.
'I love you.'
*8b. Ke-a-go-rata.
Though Van Wyk's suggested semi-conjunctive orthography was not practised, his word
classes and his word identification was widely accepted by the majority of scholars.
2.4 The Problem of Word Division
Northern Sotho as a written language has experienced, and is still experiencing serious
problems insofar as word division is concerned. Like the other Sotho languages,
Northern Sotho is written disjunctively. To the linguist, what is disturbing is the
inconsistency that prevails within this mode of writing, that is, some units of speech are
written disjunctively as if they are autonomous words while others are not. This
inconsistency is discernible in Poulos & Louwrens' (1994:7) warning:
In carrying out a linguistic analysis of a language such as Northern Sotho,
one has to be careful not to be completely influenced by the orthography
of the language. This is because Northern Sotho adopts the so-called
"disjunctive" system in its writing, whereby certain elements that may
belong to one and the same word category are written as separate
"words".
Page -53-
Some of the inconsistency referred to above is illustrated in the following paragraphs.
(For a more detailed essay on the problem of word division in Northern Sotho and Zulu,
see Van Wyk's (1958) thesis.)
2.4.1 Concords
Concords are not words, but parts of words. In Northern Sotho concords are written
separately (disjunctively) from their root morphemes as if they are independently
meaningful. For example, the object concords for all noun classes (except class 1) and
grammatical persons (except for the first person singular and third person singular,
which is equivalent to class 1) are always written disjunctively.
Class 2 Monna o a ba betha.
'The man beats them.'
Class 7 Monna o a se betha.
'The man beats it.'
Class 9 Monna o a e betha.
'The man beats it.'
2nd Per.s. Monna o a go betha.
The man beats you.'
1St Per.pl Monna o a re betha.
'The man beats us.'
However, the object concord for the first person singular n-, is written conjunctively as
in the following examples:
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Monna o a ntseba.
'The man knows me.'
Monna o a mpetha.
'The man beats me.'
Monna o a ntthaba.
'The man fears me.'
Monna o a nkuka.
'The man lifts me up.'
The object concord for the third person singular (class 1) mo-, is always written
disjunctively except when the first consonant of the root morpheme is a voiced bilabial
fricative b-. Consider the following examples:
Monna o a mo raga
'The man kicks her/him.'
Monna o a mo ngwapa.
'The man scratches her/him.'
*Monna o a mo bona.
'Supposed to mean that the man sees him/her.'
Monna o a mmona.
'A man sees him/her.'
21a. *Monna o a mo bala.
'Supposed to mean that the man counts/reads her/him.'
Page -55-
21b. Monna o a mmala.
'The man counts/reads him/her.'
The reflexive prefix, i-, which more or less serves the same function as the object
concord, is always written conjunctively. Consider the following examples:
22. Mosadi o a itseba.
'The woman knows herself.'
Let this subsection be concluded in the words of Ziervogel et al. (1977:3) when they
pertinently say:
Some concords are written as separate words, others are joined to the
next word. They are, however, not independent words, and make sense
only in conjunction with a following word, and can therefore not be used
in actual speech.
2.4.2 Adverbial Prefixes
As the subheading suggests, these are prefixes, that is, units of speech that are always
attached to the left of the root in order to convey meaning. In Northern Sotho, these
affixes are supposed to be written disjunctively as in the following examples:
- ga gagwe 'at his/her place'
go tate 'to my father'
ga lesome 'ten times'
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But in some cases they are written conjunctively:
- gampe 'badly'
- gagolo 'too much'
- gane 'four times'
Another fascinating thing about the adverbial prefix ga- is its usage with place names.
Terminology and Orthography No 4 (1988:20) gives the following examples:
Ba ya GaNchabeleng. (They go to GaNchabeleng.)
Ba ya gaModjadji. (They go to the place where Modjadji reigns/rules.)
Ba ya ga Modjadji. (They are going to Modjadji's house, i.e. place where
Modjadji is to be found.)
2.4.3 Noun Class Prefixes
Noun class prefixes in Northern Sotho are always written conjunctively with the
exception of class 15 whose class prefix Go- is always written separately from its root.
The following serve as examples:
Class 1 > Mo- as in mosadi 'a woman'
- Class 7 > Se- as in sebata 'a carnivore'
Class 15 > Go- as in Go ja 'Eating'
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2.4.4 Résumé
The Northern Sotho Language Board (1988:17) made some concessions insofar as the
disjunctive mode of writing is concerned which could not be satisfactorily accepted.
Among others, special provision was made in the following:
erile and e rile can be written as one or two words.
Scrutinising the above words, erile (conjunctively) undoubtedly acts as a conjunction
(when) whereas e rile (disjunctively) serves the function of a predicate (it said), the past
tense of -re (say).
In the same terminology list, the Northern Sotho Language Board contradicts itself. On
page 17 it is said that yaka and ya ka could be written as one or two words, that is,
conjunctively or disjunctively, but on page 19 only the disjunctive form (ya ka) is
recognised.
The problem of word division in Sotho languages in general, and Northern Sotho in
particular, still needs to be solved. Which parts of words are to be written separately
(disjunctively) and which parts are to be written conjunctively (that is, together forming
a single word ) is still a question which needs a thorough investigation. To amicably
solve this problem, both The Transvaal Sotho District Committee (1927-30:9) and The
Central Orthographic Committee (1937-8:148) recommend "the retention of the
disjunctive system of word-division" and that "special problems in this connection should
be legislated for as occasion arises." To summarise the whole problem, Cole's
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(1955:xxix) words are inevitable:
The crux of the whole matter is of course, the question of word-division -
whether certain groups of syllables should be written conjunctively, i.e.
together, forming a single word, or disjunctively, i.e. apart from one
another, as two or more separate `words'.
2.5 Writing the Unmeant
2.5.1 Preliminary Remarks
As seen in the previous paragraphs, misspelling of words can lead to confusion -
feeding the reader with wrong (unintended) information. To cite an example: The
researcher was in a minibus (taxi) travelling from the city of Pietersburg to the University
of the North when he saw a sticker on the left window of the taxi. On the sticker were
written the following words:
23a. A go folwe.
`Let there be smoking.'
Being a non-smoker himself, he found it difficult and surprising that a taximan would
command people to smoke, especially in his minibus: 'Does he not know that smoking
is a health-hazard?', he asked himself. He swore to himself that come what may, he
was not in any way going to risk his health by smoking, or permit anyone to smoke next
to him. On the opposite window, there was another sticker written in English:
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No Smoking!
He started wondering which command conveyed the intended meaning, the English one
or the Northern Sotho one. He requested one fellow passenger to come to his rescue.
That passenger indeed came to the researcher's rescue for he (the fellow passenger)
read the Northern Sotho version as transcribed below:
23b. Ga go folwe.
'No smoking.'
The two sentences, namely, A go folwe and Ga go folwe, are not in anyway
synonymous. 'A' as used in example 23a is a hortative particle whose function is "to
transmit commands indirectly through the mediation of the addressee" (Louwrens,
1991:41). In actual fact, the taximan wanted to stop passengers from smoking in his
minibus, but unfortunately he ordered them to smoke, and had thus written what he had
not meant. He should have used the negative morpheme Ga- instead of the hortative
particle A-. A- in Northern Sotho cannot be used interchangeably with Ga-. The former
brings about a directive (command) whereas the latter brings about negation.
It is this confusion, that is, feeding the reader with wrong (unmeant) ) information that
inspired the researcher to caution speakers and scholars of Northern Sotho in particular
to guard against what in this chapter is called orthographic ambiguity. This type of
ambiguity is due to orthographic errors, that is, writing what one does not mean, what
one does not intend conveying to the reader. The writer has a message in mind which
he would like to deliver to the reader(s), but he inadvertently writes that which is not in
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his mind (that is, a wrong transcription of one's mind). The writer sees his mind in the
written text whereas the reader sees a different meaning altogether.
It is not only the misspelling of words (as indicated above) that causes orthographic
ambiguity, but also wrong word division (juncture) and wrong punctuation.
2.5.2 Wrong Punctuation
Careless punctuation is another source of ambiguity. If one, for example, writes a
paragraph without punctuation, it will be impossible for the reader to comprehend what
is meant. Consider the following paragraph sent to Dr Jameson during the 'Jameson
Raid' in 1895. The text, without being punctuated, was written as follows:
It is under these circumstances that we feel constrained to call upon you
to come to our aid should a disturbance arise here the circumstances
are so extreme that we cannot but believe that you and the men under
you will not fail to come to the rescue of people who are so situated (Kahn
& Ilson, 1985:45).
Looking at the text, where was the first full stop intended to go? Those who sent the
telegram, as Kahn & Ilson (ibid) say, " meant it to come after should a disturbance arise
here - thereby simply putting Jameson on the alert, in case his help should be needed.
But when the text was wired to The Times in London, the full stop was placed after
come to our aid instead - thus creating the impression of a firm and urgent invitation,
and 'justifying' Dr Jameson's unauthorised invasion of the Transvaal."
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The use of capital letters could also cause ambiguity when applied carelessly. In his
detective novel, Chokoe (1994:86) advertently or inadvertently used a capital L in the
following sentence:
T§e ka moka go nna ga se selo, selo ke Lerato.
'All these are nothing to me, but Love.'
It is not known to what Lerato refers. It may be referring to love or a person whose
name is Lerato. In this novel, the main character is in love with a lady called Lerato -
and the novel is characterised by hatred, which the main character is against; he is for
lerato (love). The whole confusion is caused by the capital L.
In Northern Sotho, it is the tone that distinguishes a statement from a question (apart
from the optional use of interrogative particles (question words)). An unpunctuated
sentence like the following could be a statement or a question, depending on the
intonation of the speaker:
Motho yo ke mosadi wa gago
'This person is your wife/woman.'
'Is this person your wife/woman?'
With a full stop at the end, the sentence turns out to be a statement translated as 'this
person is your wife/woman', but with a question mark, it turns into a question: Is this
person your wife/woman?
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A wrong placement of a comma can cause confusion in meaning. A comma, being
placed anywhere in the sentence, affects the meaning of that particular sentence.
Consider the following sentences (examples 26a - e):
Morutgi Maake ke mootledi wa sefatanaga sa malome.
'Teacher Maake is the driver of my uncle's car.'
The above sentence, being a statement, addresses the second person (the addressee
is unspecified) and refers to a third person, Maake, who is a teacher. The second
person is being told about this person whose other duty is to drive the speaker's
(addresser's) uncle's car. What if a comma is placed after Moruti§i?
Morutgi, Maake ke mootledi wa sefatanaga sa malome.
'Teacher, Maake is the driver of my uncle's car.'
In this example, the second person is known. He is addressed only as teacher. This
second person, the teacher, is told by the speaker, the first person, that a person known
as Maake is the driver of his (speaker's) uncle's car.
Morutgi Maake, ke mootledi wa sefatanaga sa malome.
'Teacher Maake, I am the driver of my uncle's car.'
'Teacher Maake, he/she is the driver of my uncle's car.'
With a comma after Maake, the second person now turns out to be teacher Maake
(note that in sentence 26b Maake's profession is unknown). He (teacher Maake) is
being told about someone (an unknown third person) who is the driver of the speaker's
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uncle's car. If tone is to be considered, sentence 26c is ambiguous in the sense that
the copulative particle ke could either refer to the third person singular as stated above,
or to the first person singular, that is, the speaker. If it is taken as referring to the first
person, the sentence is a statement directed to teacher Maake, informing him that the
speaker (addresser) is a driver of his own uncle's car.
Morutgi Maake ke mootledi, wa sefatanaga sa malome.
'Teacher Maake is the driver, and nothing else, of my uncle's car.'
In the above sentence, with a comma after mootledi, the meaning is slightly similar to
the one in sentence 26a though the emphasis in sentence 26d is on the driving
profession. It implies that Maake does nothing else to the speaker's uncle's car, but
driving. In other words, he (Maake) is a chauffeur.
Morutgi Maake ke mootledi wa sefatanaga, sa malome.
'Teacher Maake is the driver of a car, and nothing else, which belongs to
my uncle.'
In sentence 26e the emphasis falls on the type of a vehicle which is being driven.
Teacher Maake drives nothing but a car, that is, he does not drive a train or anything
else belonging to the speaker's uncle.
A comma (and of course word division) in the following pair of sentences does not only
affect the clause, but also the meaning of the whole sentence.
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Monna o bolet§e go re a sepele.
'The man spoke and said that he/she should go.'
versus
Monna o bolet§e, gore a sepele.
'A man spoke in order to leave.'
In the first example, the subordinate clause, go re a sepele, which is a nominal clause
(object) comes in the form of an indirect speech. In the direct speech, the sentence
would read:
28. Monna o bolet§e a re: "Sepela!"
'The man spoke and said: "Go!'
In example 27b the comma has the effect of turning the nominal clause into an
adverbial clause of purpose. Here the man has given his talk with the purpose of
leaving (perhaps a bit earlier). The deficient verb stem -re always needs a
complementary verb, hence in example 27a it has a sepele as its complement.
In all these examples what the 'faulty' punctuation has generated, is an unintended
meaning in each case. The sentence gives a meaning which was not intended by the
writer. Take for instance, the following pair of English sentences taken from Kahn &
llson (1985:45):
Frederick says Voltaire is an ass.
vs
Frederick, says Voltaire, is an ass.
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Who is an ass? Is it Voltaire as in the first sentence, or Frederick as in the second
sentence? This example illustrates the power of punctuation.
2.5.3 Word Division
2.5.3.1 Introduction
As an introduction to what is going to follow, it may be deemed fit to cite a joke from
Ruwe's (1985:35) book entitled Have a Good Laugh! She writes:
A matron in a hospital suggested that doors leading to certain rooms
should be labelled. This was carried out, but later, while inspecting the
work done, she was shocked to see what appeared on the door of the
Therapist. It read: The rapist at work. (Emphasis added).
Ambiguity, as defined by Crystal (1991:17), refers to a word or a sentence which
expresses more than one meaning. In this subsection, ambiguity is not taken along the
same sense, but it stems from the difference between the spoken language and the
written language. As seen in Ruwe's joke, the secretary or whoever wrote the label
read it as 'Therapist at work', but she actually wrote 'The rapist at work'.
To further exemplify what is meant by ambiguity in this subsection, the researcher's
experience needs to be shared.
The researcher was in his office one day, busy on this thesis when one of his friends
came to his office. Seeing that the researcher was very busy and did not want to be
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disturbed, the friend left him a note on a piece of paper. It was a neatly written note
written in simple Northern Sotho. The note read:
0 sa kata na?
'Are you still raping?'
The researcher took time trying to glean meaning out of this simple sentence. He
decoded its deep structure in an endeavour to get its basic meaning. After all the efforts
he still could not get the intended meaning, because obviously he was not raping
anybody at that moment (as the sentence denotes) and had never raped anyone, ever.
Fortunately, the very same person came to the researchers rescue, for he came back
and articulated what he wrote. He uttered the following sentence:
0 sa katana?
'Are you still working hard, that is, are you still busy?'
Indeed, the researcher was still very busy.
This is the type of misunderstandings brought about by the interface between the
spoken language (the meaning that the speaker intends conveying) and the written
language (the actual meaning of the written sentence). Due to wrong word division,
one writes what one does not intend writing. One writes what one does not mean.
Findlay (in City Press, 14/06/1998) also capitalises on the misspelling of words, which
leads to misunderstanding, in his cartoons. When Bafana Bafana (South Africa's
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National Soccer team) were to play against Denmark after losing dismally to France, he
came up with an excellent cartoon - the coach telling his players that they were going
to play in Toulouse, not to lose as the name of the place is pronounced, but to win.
(Consider figure 2.3 below):
( City Press, 14 / 06 / 1998 )
Figure 2.3
Makaringe (in the Sowetan, 24/06/1998:23) also saw the wisdom of using the name of
this place to put his message across. Referring to the English hooligans in France, he
says:
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You see, no one goes and pick fights in Toulouse - pronounced to lose -
and expect to win. Just like their team, these soccer louts knew they would
be going to Toulouse on Monday tou louse. And lose they did.
2.5.3.2 Uncertainty Due to Faulty Word Division
Due to the inconsistency that prevails in the Northern Sotho mode of writing, namely,
disjunctivism, it has become the tendency of the Northern Sotho native speakers to
divide their "words into ultimate entities, beyond which no further sub-division is possible
in meaningful speech" (Doke & Mofokeng, 1985:50). This tendency causes
misunderstandings between the reader and the writer, for two distinct phrases may
sound very similar, as in sentences 29a and 29b - 0 sa kata na and 0 sa katana
respectively. Such sameness of sound is one of the main sources of puns. Hockett
(1958:55) ascribes such sameness of sound and difference of meaning to the presence
or absence of juncture. Juncture, as Crystal (1991:188) explains, refers to the phonetic
boundary features which may demarcate grammatical units such as morphemes, words
or clauses. This explanation is enhanced by Kooij (1971:14) who assumes, quite
plausibly, that juncture is regarded as any manifestation of those features which has
been claimed to distinguish utterances that are equivocal as to the division of sequence
into morphemes. For example, in 30a and 30b a distinction is made by marking the
transitions at the crucial boundaries.
30a. Le se ke la lebala.
Do not forget'
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30b. Le se ke la le bala.
'Do not read/count it.'
Suppose a speaker reads example 30b. There will be a junctural feature silence, and
this way of getting from one vowel or consonant to the next may be described as "sharp
transition" (Hockett, 1958:55). This 'sharp transition' is not present in example 30a.
The presence of sharp transition (juncture) will henceforth be marked by the + sign.
Thus examples 30a & 30b are represented as follows:
31a. /... leaala 1
31 b. / ... le+sala /
The following paragraphs further exemplify ambiguities and confusions brought about
by juncture. The intended meaning is represented in (b) and the actual meaning, that
which the author has written, is in (a). Instead of writing the object concord disjunctively,
the author has written it conjunctively - conveying a different meaning altogether, that
is, the unintended meaning.
The Object Concord
The OC, as seen in paragraph 2.4.1, is, with some exceptions, always written
disjunctively in Northern Sotho. The writer may (perhaps due to a slip of the pen)
instead of writing the OC disjunctively, write it conjunctively, thus conveying the wrong
message. Consider the following pairs of sentences which are differentiated by the
presence or absence of juncture:
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Ke bone lefofa godimo ga mohlare.
'I saw a feather on the tree.'
versus
Ke bone le+fofa godimo ga mohlare.
'I saw you/it jumping from the tree.'
0 mpethile ka seroba.
'He/she beat me with a stick.'
versus
0 mpethile ka se+roba.
'He beat me and I broke it.'
Ke bone sehlaga nageng.
'I saw a nest in the field.'
versus
Ke bone se+hlaga nageng.
'I saw it emerging from the field.'
"Bana ba ka", gwa realo hlog o ya sekolo, "!e re lerete+la mang?"
"My pupils", says the school principal, "you say whose testicle?"'
versus
"Bana ba ka", gwa realo hlogo ya sekolo, "le re le+retela mang?"
"My pupils", says the school principal, "you say for whom are you
reciting?"'
Imagine being among these poor pupils, what does one expect to be the answer to
sentence 35a? Is that not confusing?
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The Subject Concord
Like the object concord, the subject concord is also written disjunctively in Northern
Sotho. The slip of the pen results in the following unintended meanings:
Digare di fapakana mologong wa seaparo.
'Threads interweave on the fabric.'
versus
Di+gare di fapakana mologong wa seaparo.
'They are interweaving on the fabric.'
37a Diphuthego geo di fihlilego.
'The congregations that have irrived.'
versus
37b Di+phuthe go ge o di fihlilego.
'Lump them where you hid the others.'
38a Eba monna.
'Be a man.'
versus
38b E+ba monna.
'He/she/it becomes a man.'
39a Setimela se kitima kudu.
'A train moves fast.'
versus
39b Se+timela se kitima kudu.
'It gets lost while running fast.'
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The Interrogative Particle na
The interrogative particles in Northern Sotho are always written disjunctively, but
consider what the 'slip of the pen' can do to readers.
Le a ratana?
'Do you love one another?'
versus
Lea rata+na?
'Are you willing?'
Nke o mpot§e, maaaai a le a bonana?
'Please tell me, do you see each other these days?'
versus
Nke o mpot§e, mat§at§i a le a bona+na?
'Please tell me, are you able to see these days?'
Le a jana?
'Are you eating one another, that is, are you having sexual intercourse?'
versus
Le a ja+na?
'Are you eating?'
Suppose a man was with a lady he adored very much, and she was still hesitating to
reveal her love to him! What would be her reaction after hearing question number 42a?
Is that not disturbing?
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The Interrogative enumerative -fe
The interrogative or radical pronoun (Lombard et al., 1985:91) consists of the prefix
(which is the same as the class concord) and the pronominal root (which is -fe). The
two are always written conjunctively. Consider the following 'slips':
Se ke se+fe?
'Should I give/feed this one?'
versus
Se ke sefe?
'Which one is this?'
T§e ke di+fe?
'Should I give/feed these ones?'
versus
The ke dife?
'Which ones are these?'
The Qualificative Particle Position Two
The qualificative particle, which could be mistaken for a demonstrative pronoun, is
always written disjunctively from the other words forming the qualificative word group.
Consider the following examples:
Ke bone se+o se bonego.
'I saw the one you have seen.'
versus
Ke bone seo se bonego.
'I saw that which has seen.'
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In example 45a se is a demonstrative pronoun and -o- a subject concord, whereas in
45b seo functions as a qualificative particle.
Go hwa ba+o ba ratago.
'Only those you love, die.'
versus
Go hwa bao ba ratago.
'Only those who want to die, die.'
0 tla hwet§a makgarebe a+o a nyakago.
'You will get the ladies whom you admire.'
versus
0 tla hwet§a makgarebe ao a nyakago.
'You will get the ladies who are interested.'
The Demonstrative Pronoun 1$t Position
The demonstrative pronoun first position is written disjunctively in Northern Sotho.
Consider the following misunderstandings and misinterpretations:
0 mo lese.
'Leave him/her alone.'
versus
0 mo le+se.
'He/she is here with this one.'
49a. Ke lefela.
'It is maze.'
versus
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49b. Ke le+fela.
'It is only this one.'
Go na le lehumo tseleng.
'There is wealth on the road.'
versus
Go na le lehu+mo tseleng.
'There is death on the road.'
The Adverbial Prefix go-
This prefix is written disjunctively, but the following sentences bring a different meaning
from the intended one:
Ke ya gae gomme ke yo robala.
'I am going home to sleep.'
versus
Ke ya gae go+mme ke yo robala.
'I am going home to my mother to sleep.'
The Auxiliary Verb Stem -tta
The auxiliary verb in Northern Sotho is always written disjunctively. Consider the
differences between the following sentences:
Setlade seo!
'That idiot!'
versus
Se tla+tla seo.
'That one will come.'
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The Progressive Morpheme
The progressive morpheme -sa-, which is always written disjunctively in Northern Sotho,
indicates that an action is still continuing/progressing. However, is the action/process
still continuing in sentence 53a?
Ke tla Ha gosasa.
`I will come tomorrow.'
versus
Ke tla tla go+sa+sa.
`I will come when dawn breaks.'
2.5.3.3 Résumé
From the examples furnished above, it is abundantly clear that word division has a great
influence on the semantics of the Northern Sotho language. This leads to the
conclusion that a change in the written structure of a word (that is, its mode of writing)
entails a change in meaning.
2.6 Conclusion
In her doctoral thesis, Kosch (1991:32) rightly observes the confusion brought about by
the usage of the European approach to the study of a word in African languages. She
avers:
The concept of the European word clearly influenced the early Bantuists
in their approach to Bantu word division. In the Sotho languages, as well
as in Venda and Tsonga, this led to the adoption of a disjunctive method
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of writing. In the Nguni languages, owing particularly to their structure
which is characterised by vowel coalescence, vowel elision and
consonantalisation - features which are to a great extent absent in the
Sotho languages - a conjunctive writing system was adopted.
These two methods of writing, videlicet, disjunctivism and conjunctivism, as Van Wyk
have (1958) observed, (as discussed in the previous paragraphs) were not based on
scientific data. Having identified that, Van Wyk (1958) proposed a method of writing
which was scientifically based. He called such a method semi-conjunctivism or semi-
disjunctivism, because it appeared to be a bridge between these two extremely different
modes of writing.
Viewing the two methods critically, one is obliged to conclude that both are
morphologically and semantically functional. A word, or part of a word written
disjunctively does not give the same meaning as that which is written conjunctively. It
must be borne in mind that a change in the morphology of a word (including the manner
of writing) may entail a change in the meaning of that particular word.
This chapter is all about ambiguities which are "of the nature of Freudian slips"
(Newmark, 1995:77). It has been seen how the slip of a pen derails meaning. An
orthographic error affects the intended meaning, hence (un)consciously writing the
unmeant. In conclusion, O'Connell's (1988:135) observations concerning the ambiguity
of written sentences in German will suffice:
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In such cases, the linguistic importance of a comma in the German
becomes quite evident. The sentence had been ambiguated in the first
instance by being written ... by having its prosodic and temporal
organization stripped away. Then, by a reversal of the process of
ambiguation - disambiguation - the sentence had to be clarified by use of
punctuation. Some semantic potentialities are thereby eliminated.
Page -79-
CHAPTER 3
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY: THE MAGIC OF ONE WORD Where there is a will, there are relatives - Goldstein-Jackson et al. (1995:227).
3.1 Preliminary Remarks
Are Goldstein-Jackson, Ford and Newman (1995:227) in the above joke trying to
encourage people who regard themselves as orphans not to despair, but to have hope
that someone somewhere is their relative - so they should not lose that will to have
relatives? Or do people have relatives all because they have drawn a will? The given
sentence is ambiguous, not because there is a word in it which is written/spelt
incorrectly (as in the case of orthographic ambiguity), or due to the arrangement of
words in the sentence (that is, grammatical ambiguity as will be discussed in chapter
4), but all because of a single word, namely, 'will'. Does it refer to a testament, that is,
a legal document in which a person states how he wants his property and money to be
disposed of after his death (Hornby, 1989:1461) or to a strong desire?
It is this type of ambiguity that will be discussed in this chapter, that is, the ambiguity
which arises due to lexical factors. The meanings of individual words are represented
at the lexical level, hence lexical ambiguity. Mackay & Bever (1967:193) emphasise this
point when they say
... a sentence is lexically ambiguous if a word or sequence of words has
two distinct meanings and no differences at the other grammatical levels.
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To add to Mackay & Bever's view, Katz (1972:49) says ambiguity is ...
... a case where there is a problem of telling one thing from another, and,
accordingly, a semantic ambiguity is a case where there are (at least) the
two senses required to pose this problem. Furthermore, given that
readings represent senses of constituents and that the number of senses
of a constituent is its degree of ambiguity, it follows that the number of
readings assigned to a constituent should correctly reflect its degree of
ambiguity.
Katz (1972:49) goes on to define semantic ambiguity as follows:
A constituent of C is semantically ambiguous just in case the set of
readings assigned to C contains two or more members. (C's degree of
ambiguity is given by the number of readings in the set).
In countless cases more than one sense will be connected with the same word or
phrase. One word or lexeme may have various nuances of meaning, and on the other
hand, two etymologically different lexemes which happen to be written and pronounced
the same, differ in meaning. For the sake of clarification, consider the following
illustrations:
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Figure 3.1
Figure 3.1 represents two different kinds of lexical ambiguity, "one of which depends on
homonymy" (B) "and the other on polysemy" (A) (Lyons, 1977:550). According to
Ullmann (1970:159) this "polyvalency" of words is the common source of lexical
ambiguity, and may, as illustrated above, take two different forms, namely:
• The same word may have two or more different meanings (polysemy).
The noun leleme, for example, may mean 'the tongue, a language or
telling lies'. Under normal circumstances, only one of these senses will
fit into a given context, "but occasionally there may be some confusion in
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people's minds".
• Two or more different words may be identical in sound (homonymy). The
nouns lewa 'the spread of divining bones', lewa 'cooked corn' and lewa
'a cave' are written and pronounced the same but their meanings are
unrelated.
Bever & Rosenbaum in MacKay & Bever (1967:196) share the same sentiment when
they say:
It is intuitively clear that lexical ambiguities can be divided into two types
based on the nature of the relation between the two meanings of the
ambiguous lexical item ... Some lexical ambiguities have two meanings
which seem to bear no relation to each other ... For other lexical
ambiguities, the two meanings appear to be related.
However, many scholars of Northern Sotho semantics find it difficult to make a clear
distinction between polysemy and homonymy. This problem is not only limited to
Northen Sotho, or even to the African languages, but goes beyond the boundaries of
Africa. This is testified by Lehrer (1974:8) who says:
A traditional problem for the dictionary approach is that of distinguishing
between homonymy - different lexical items with the same form - and
polysemy - several senses of the same item.
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The illustration in figure 3.1 above shows the distinction between these two different
forms. Polysemy is inclusive whereas homonymy is exclusive. Consider the following
diagrams:
A
B
Polysemy
Homonymy
Figure 3.2
We use leleme (tongue) to speak a leleme (language) and we also use it (leleme -
tongue) to tell lies. These three senses are related, all included in leleme (tongue). The
three words as illustrated in B are different but are by chance spelt and pronounced the
same. There is no relationship whatsoever - they are all separate words. This enhances
Ullmann's (1957:122) standpoint on polysemy and homonymy, for he says:
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With regard to polysemy, then, a pathological situation arises whenever
two or more incompatible senses capable of figuring meaningfully in the
same context develop around the same name. The difference between
this and homonymy is that the two or more conflicting senses are
synchronistically apprehended as belonging to one word, whereas in
homonymy two or more separate words are in action against each other.
Ullmann still maintains his standpoint in his other book entitled Semantics: An
Introduction to the Science of Meaning (1970:159). He says though the border-line
between polysemy and homonymy is somehow fluid, the two types are so distinct that
they will have to be considered separately.
3.2 Polysemy
By polysemy is meant a phenomenon whereby a given word has two or more senses
or meanings. Polysemes are, according to Mokgokong (1975:31) different senses of
one lexical item. Whenever polysemy is postulated it should be possible to identify one
sense as basic and the other one as derived. Although the meanings may differ
considerably from the basic meaning of the word, the variants are always related to a
common origin (Mokgokong 1975:31). A word is said to be polysemous if and only if
there are two or more senses emanating from it. For the mere fact that such a word
has several senses, it is said to be ambiguous; and if one investigates the meaning, one
may determine another facet of meaning depending on the context within which that
particular word is used. Ullmann (in Mokgokong, 1975:21) adds to this by saying:
Page -85-
Our words are never completely homogeneous; even the simplest and the
most monolithic have a number of different facets depending on the
context and situation in which they are used, and also on the personality
of the speaker using them.
A verb stem like -ja, for example, has the basic meaning of 'eat', but depending on the
context and the situation in which the speaker finds him/herself, the meaning may differ.
Consider the following sentences:
1. Go thwe koko yo ge a ratite o ja laela.
'It is said that this old lady dresses expensively when in the mood.'
The meaning of -ja in the above sentence has undergone some shift, it does not refer
to 'eat' anymore, but to 'dressing expensively'. Due to the polysemous nature of the
verb stem -ja, the sentence is ambiguous, though its ambiguity is only in theory. Le§ela
(a piece of cloth) is not edible.
Is it possible for a person to eat another? Is it really impossible? What about the
deverbative noun babuane (that is, those who flay others)? Does it refer only to those
people who kill others for sehlare purposes and nothing more? Do such people not
taste their sehlare, and by so doing tasting/eating human flesh? If the answer to all
these questions is positive, then the sentence below is ambiguous, and the ambiguity
is due to literal and figurative interpretations.
Page -86-
2. Re hwedit§e lesogana leo le sa ja kgarebe.
'We found that young man still eating the lady.'
'We found that young man still having sex with the lady.'
As Mokgokong (1975:31) puts it, the most important vehicle for polysemy is metaphor
which is based on the connection between the primary referent and the secondary
referent to which the word is applied. Go ja (to eat) is an enjoyable undertaking - after
the action (that of eating), one gets satisfied. The same applies to the two sentences
above: go ja lesela (dressing expensively) leaves the wearer as well as the admirers
satisfied (though some might be envious) and he who enjoys sex gets satisfied. The
shift in both cases is metaphorical.
3.2.1 Sources of Polysemy
In his study of ambiguity, Ullmann (1970,159-167) identifies five sources of polysemy.
These sources are examined in the following paragraphs with a view to how they
activate ambiguity in the Northern Sotho language.
3.2.1.1 Shifts in Application
In Mokgokong's (1975:26) view, semantic shift is "the phenomenon whereby a word
has the basic or principal meaning but that meaning has now undergone some
modification, although it is still related to the basic meaning". As seen in the above
examples, "our words have a number of different aspects according to the contexts in
which they are used" (Ullmann, 1970:160). Some changes in meaning are due to a
shift in meaning over a period of time. Mokgokong (1975:26-7) gives the following
illustration:
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For example, mokgwahlana used to mean a goat-skin jacket but today it
means a lumber-jacket; ramphat'ane used to be a dried-skin cut into the
size of a foot and fastened with strings but today it refers to any type of
sandals.
Such words are sometimes forgotten and thus become archaic. Words (and their
shifted meanings) such as the ones quoted by Mokgokong in the above illustration, are
unknown to the younger generation. Their shifts of meaning were purely ephemeral.
Take, for example, the verb stem tswala whose meanings differ in application. When
applied to animals the verb stem tswala means giving birth; and its use is restricted to
mammals which bear a maximum of three young ones. With mammals bearing young
ones in excess of three, it is said e a hlaga (lit. it is vomiting, that is, it bears many
offsprings). When applied to human beings, it brings another connotation, that of
`begetting, generating' for it is only a man who is likely to `tswala'; a man 'helps' a
woman to bear children, hence the idiomatic expression `ntswale' meaning 'help me'.
Nonetheless, the latter shift of meaning has faded over time.
A word may be unambiguous in isolation, but have its meaning shifted as soon as it is
applied within a certain context, and its meaning becomes context-specific. Hill
(1967:9) supports this by saying:
The influence of context and situation as determinative factors is such to
make all other aspects of meaning of a word vanish completely. Only
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those called up, are 'activated', which are at that moment intended by the
speaker or the writer. The other aspects of meaning simply do not occur
to us, neither to the speaker or hearer.
To illustrate this, Mokgokong's (1973:178) example is appropriate. He writes:
A story is told of how a father accosted his sons who had arrived back
late from school and asked why they had been late. The sons replied: Re
be re ngwala moleko (we were still writing a test), whereupon their father
retorted: Moleko, moleko, motho a ka le leka le ka phela! (You talk of a
test, if a person tests you, can you live!) Clearly the boys thought of
moleko in terms of schooling; but their father understood moleko in terms
of his own cultural background, i.e. in terms of witchcraft. Go leka to him
meant 'to bewitch someone'.
In terms of the new dispensation, go leka has everything to do with education, or trying;
but traditionally, as the old man remarked, it referred to nothing else but witchcraft.
Context and of course the situation in which one finds oneself plays a significant role
here. The same applies to the following sentence:
3. Mosadi ge a hlapa ga a nyake go bona monna.
`The woman does not want to see a man when she is washing herself.'
At a glance, the sentence seems unambiguous, but in essence, it is ambiguous. The
ambiguity is due to the polysemous nature of the verb stem -hlapa. In its simplest
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sense, -hlapa means to wash, but culturally it means more than just 'washing'. If a
woman 'hlapa', it means she purifies herself; she is `dirty' and thus deserves 'cleansing'.
Go hlapa in this sense means 'menstruating', so she has to cleanse herself.
Apart from the cultural context, the semotactic context also plays an important role in
the shifting of the meaning of words. A word may have various shades of meaning
depending on the semotactic context within which it is being used. This notion is also
supported by Nida (1960:77) who says:
A word in isolation (i.e. without context) begins with a very wide area of
meaning, for it may occur in many hundreds of situations and may be
used for scores of objects; but by means of practical and linguistic
contexts in which it is used we can 'whittle it down' to precisely that sub-
area of meaning which it must have in any specific utterance.
To stress the same point further, Mokgokong (1973:184) quotes Strawson:
... we must acknowledge, as two complementary truths, first, that the
meaning of a sentence in general depends, in some systematic way, on
the meanings of the words that make it up and, second, that for any word
to have a particular meaning is a matter of its making a particular
systematic contribution to the meanings of the sentences in which it
occurs.
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To illustrate the above views, the following sentences will suffice:
Go tloga Tshwane go ya Polokwane ke dikhilomithara tse makgolotharo.
`From Tshwane (Pretoria) to Polokwane (Pietersburg) is three hundred
kilometres.'
Tshwane e itokget§a monyanya wa mafelelo a ngwaga.
'Tshwane prepares for the end of the year festival.'
Tshwane e tsenet§e dipoleditano le Thekwini.
'Tshwane is negotiating with Thekwini (Durban).'
In the first sentence, Tshwane is the name of a place; in the second sentence it refers
to residents whereas in the last sentence it refers to local government or city council.
The meaning has shifted from being just a name of the place to people and city council
respectively.
3.2.1.2 Specialization in a Social Milieu
Michel Brial ( in Ullmann, 1970:161) is of the opinion that each and every word has a
specialized meaning depending on the situation within which it is being used. In his
own words:
In every situation, in every trade or profession, there is a certain idea
which is so much present to one's mind, so clearly implied, that it seems
unnecessary to state it when speaking.
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For an assistant school teacher, for example, hlogo naturally means 'the principal'; for
the owner of a butcher, the same word will refer to the head as part of the body of an
animal. The two meanings will obviously not feature in the mind of an author of a
collection of short-stories. He/she will undoubtedly take it to mean the title of a short
story, whereas the Northern Sotho language expert who teaches morphology takes it
to mean the prefix.
Similarly, an adoptive galase can refer not only to the material in general but to a variety
of other things: window panes for a builder; drinking glasses for a house wife;
spectacles for an optometrist; windscreen for the motorist; et cetera.
Makhura, as in the above examples, has a general meaning in ordinary language and
specialised senses in a more restricted sphere. Sentence 5 below provokes different
senses of meaning in different specialised contexts.
5. Ke felet§we ke makhura
'My oil is finished.'
In the motor industry, it refers to fuel (petrol or diesel, depending on the make and the
model of the vehicle). To someone with a cracked skin, it definitely refers to vaseline
or another skin ointment. If it is in the evening at an area which is not electrified and
there is no light in the house, the above sentence suggests a blackout, for the owner
of the house is without paraffin. To a cook whose food is dry, it will mean she/he has
run out of cooking oil.
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3.2.1.3 Figurative Language
As seen in the foregoing discussion, metaphor and other figures of speech play a
significant role insofar as shift of meaning is concerned. As Ullmann(1970:162) puts
it "a word can be given one or more figurative senses without losing its original
meaning: old and new will live on side by side as long as there is no possibility of
confusion between them. In this way a number of metaphors may, as a pioneer of
modern semantics puts it, 'radiate' from the central sense."
The word male (intestines) has another figurative sense in the following sentence:
Re be re le maleng a naga.
'We were in the intestines of the country.'
'We were in the wilderness.'
Naga does not have intestines - but because of the mingled and twisted condition of the
intestines in the stomach, one feels thatone would get lost if one were to go into the
'intestines'. The metaphor here is that of a long, thin and twisted road, far from the
'mouth' (home) and 'anus' (destination).
Mokokotlo also has an unusual sense in the following utterance:
Re mo hwedit§e a le mokotlong wa thaba.
'We found him in the middle of the mountain.'
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Thaba (a mountain) like other non-living natural things, does not have a backbone. But
in the above sentence, it is said to have one. The middle of the mountain is likened to
the backbone of a person who is lying down. Apart from this connotation, mokokotlo
may also mean strength; having a standpoint; having self-confidence, et cetera.
Consider the following sentence:
Ga o na mokokotlo.
`You don't have a backbone.'
There is no person without a backbone - he who is without a backbone is obviously
lacking a supporting bone - and such a person does not confine in himself, and thus
does not have a fixed standpoint.
Thaba (a mountain) is also a victim of figurative meaning in the following sentence:
Ke thaba ya taba.
'It is a mountain of a matter.'
'It is a difficult/complex matter.'
The problematic nature of the matter under discussion is likened to the size of a
mountain. To sum up the effect of the figures of speech on language, Urban
(1939:112) says:
The fact that a sign can intend one thing without ceasing to intend
another, that, indeed, the very condition of its being an expressive sign for
the second is that it is also a sign for the first, is precisely what makes
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language an instrument of knowing. This 'accumulated intension' of
words is the fruitful source of ambiguity, but it is also the source of that
analogous prediction, through which alone the symbolic power of
languages comes into being.
3.2.1.4 Homonyms Reinterpreted
"When two words are identical in sound and the difference in meaning is not very great,"
says Ullmann (1970:164), "we are apt to regard them as one word with two senses.
Historically these are cases of homonymy since the two terms come from different
sources; but the modem speaker, unaware of etymologies, will establish a link between
them on purely psychological grounds." This type of polysemy is rare and somewhat
confusing since the examples are more homonymous than polysemous. Consider the
stem lalela.
Is go lalela one word with two senses (polysemous), or two words, each with its own
sense (homonymy)? Firstly, go lalela means to eat an evening meal before going to
bed (that is, before going to lie down and sleep), and secondly, it means to waylay, that
is, to lie in ambush. The two senses are related insofar as the manner of execution is
concerned. In both cases, the subject lies down. We cannot conclude that this is an
example of polysemy because "the degree of nearness of the meanings is not subject
to precise measurement" (Bloomfield, 1933:436). To use Leech's words, "two
meanings are historically related if they can be traced back to the same source, or if the
one meaning can be derived from the other" (1981:227). The question remains: are the
meanings of lalela historically related or not; can they be traced back to the same
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source or is one meaning derived from the other? In order to answer these questions
adequately, an independent study, which falls outside the scope of the present study,
is necessary.
3.2.1.5 Foreign Influence
When two cultures come into contact, there ought to be some form of acculturation, that
is, the fusion of two or more cultures. During this process, one culture becomes
dominant over the other, and thus the dominated culture acquires more from the
dominant one. It is during this process that even language is transferred from the
dominant culture to the dominated culture. We will, in this investigation, refer to the
language in the dominant culture as the donor language, and to the dominated culture
as the host language.
When the host language acquires a word or a phrase from the donor language, it
acquires it with its meaning. The problem of polysemy starts when the meaning of the
acquired word is tempered with. For example, from an Afrikaans word 'werk' which
refers to 'working', derives a Northern Sotho adoptive - bereka. Though the original
meaning (that of the donor language) is retained, additional meanings are in
abundance. Care of the following example:
10. Ba mmerekile ka go se tie.
'They disappointed him by not coming.'
In sentence 10, bereka means to disappoint. Apart from the given meanings, bereka
has other meanings such as `to cheat', `to rape', `to beat', et cetera, depending on the
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context in which it is being used. In the following riddle, the basic meaning of bereka,
that of working (for remuneration) is enhanced:
Thaii! Mperekeng ke tla le patela ka dinalete.
'Thaii! Work for me and I will pay you with needles.'
The answer to this riddle is `a prickle pear'. Does the prickle pear not pay its
`employees' with 'needles', that is, its thorns?
The adoptive misisi, which is derived from an English abbreviation `Mrs', is in Northern
Sotho not only used to address a married woman, but also used to address "a white
lady employer or a white employer's wife" (Mokgokong, 1975:141) as if all white lady
employers are married. Of course being an employer deserves respect, and to a
traditional Northern Sotho person marriage is a symbol of respect. She who is
addressed as a married person is a person of high status - a well respected person in
the community. A sentence like the following is ambiguous:
Le re ke misisi wa mang yo?
`You say whose Mrs is this one?'
Firstly it may refer to someone's white lady employer (and of late, any white lady), and
secondly, to the wife of another man.
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3.3 Homonymy
One other cause of ambiguity in languages is homonymy. Homonymy is defined by
Crystal (1991:167) as a
... term used in SEMANTIC analysis to refer to LEXICAL ITEMS which
have the same FORM but differ in MEANING.
On the same note, Pei & Gaynor (1954:92) define a homonym as
... a word identical in written form and in sound with another word of the
same language, but different in origin and meaning.
These two definitions revolve around one sense - there must be at least two distinct
words which are identical in structure. These words must be the same phonetically but
-'different in origin and meaning'. Fromkin & Rodman (1993:129) share the same
sentiments:
If two "words" differ in pronunciation but have the same meaning, such
as sofa and couch, they are different words. Likewise, two "words" with
identical pronunciation but significantly different meanings, such as tale
and tail, are also considered different words. Spelling is not relevant, only
pronunciation. Thus, bat the animal and bat for hitting baseballs are also
different words.
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In the above assertion, Fromkin & Rodman try to clear the confusion prevalent between
synonymy (two different words with one meaning) and ambiguity (two or more
structurally similar words with different meanings). This confusion is also noticed by
Scheffler (1979:21) who in his attempt to clarify the problem says:
Now the general problem of likeness of meaning (or synonymy) is the
converse of the problem of ambiguity. The former concerns the
conditions under which different words have the same meaning, while the
latter concerns the conditions under which the same word has different
meanings. While the first asks when two words have the same meaning,
the second (we may say) asks when two meanings have the same word.
Ambiguity would rather be viewed as a case of structurally similar words with different
meanings. Elgin (1979:19) describes the relation between synonymy and ambiguity in
more or less the same way:
When two sequences are synonymous, they have a different form but
share a single meaning. Ambiguity is the opposite of synonymy; an
ambiguous sequence is one with a single form which represents more
than one meaning.
Homonyms, as Fromkin & Rodman (1993:129) have observed, are good candidates for
humour and confusion. Consider the following dialogue:
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Ke kwa go thwe monna wa ge go o rata lewa kudu. A ke nnete?
Ke nnete, ge a le hwedit§e ga a sa nyaka selo.
0 le hwet§a kae ka gore gageno ga go na dithaba?
A go thwe lewa le hwettwa dithabeng fela?
Aretse, mogongwe go na le mo gongwe mo le le hwet§ago.
0 le rata kudu, kudu ge a swerwe ke tlala.
0 ra gore o rata go jela ka moo?
Ga a ne taba gore o le jela kae.
(A: I have heard that your husband likes the cave (too much). Is it true?
B: It's true. If he gets it, he doesn't need anything else.
Where does he find it because there are no mountains in your village?
Is it being said that cooked corn is only found at the mountains?
I don't know, perhaps there is another place where you find it.
He likes it too much, especially when he is hungry.
Do you mean he enjoys eating in there?
He doesn't care where he eats it.)
The humour in this passage is due to a set of homonyms: lewa (cooked corn) and lewa
(a cave). A is talking about a cave whereas B is interpreting lewa to mean 'cooked
corn'. However, ambiguity here exists only in written form, for if it is to be spoken, tone
would disambiguate the two words. Lewa (cooked corn) is pronounced with a low-low
tone while lewa (cave) is pronounced with a low-high tone.
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Cooked corn - lewd
Cave lewd
These two forms are heterotonyms, that is, to quote words from Mokgokong's
(1975:43) thesis "words which correspond segmentally (i.e. the same speech sounds
without the tones) but differ in meaning and tonal pattern. In other words, they can be
distinguished only in terms of a difference in tonal pattern."
Written or spoken, the following remains humourously ambiguous:
Ke kwa ba re le be le na le monna yo motala, a go bjalo?
Ke yo motalatala ka nnete.
Ge o mo lebelege o bona eng fela?
Botala, botala fela.
0 nagana gore ba gabo ba. bjang? A le bona ke ba batala?
E swanege go ba le bona ba le ba batala.
Ao bathong, gwa hloka le wa lebalanyana!
Le ge o ka ba le lebalanyana, ge o le yo motala, o yo motala.
(A: I have heard that you were with a pitch-black man, is it true?
B: He is raw indeed.
Looking at him, what do you see?
Unculteredness, only unculturedness.
A: What do you think of his family? Are they also so dark?
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B: I think they are also raw.
Shame! Not even a single one who is brighter in colour!
Even if you are brighter in colour, if you are uncultured you will remain
uncultured.)
The colour tala (green or blue) refers to a shiny black (that is, a pitch-black) person.
The colour tala is associated with crudeness - unculturedness, that is, rawness as well
as 'shiny black' in this dialogue. These two speakers are not aware that they are not
referring to the same thing - hence an uninterrupted continuation of the conversation.
There occurred what Crystal (1991:167) and Ullmann (1970:180) call 'homonymic clash
or conflict' because there is confusion between the two homonyms tala (colour) and tala
(behaviour).
In their analysis of lexical ambiguity, Bouwer & Janeke (1989:196) assert that a
... sentence is lexically ambiguous if any part of it can be taken as the
realisation of one or more homonyms. This is because homonyms have
different meanings and it may not be clear which of these meanings is
intended if the context of the sentence is not sufficiently explicit.
Perhaps context in the above conversation is 'not sufficiently explicit', hence the
prevailing ambiguity. Another factor which brings about ambiguity due to homonymy
is the influence of foreign languages. When a word is adopted it is made to suit the
linguistic pattern of the host language. In Ullmann's (1970:180) words:
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When a loan-word becomes firmly established in its new surroundings it
will be adapted to the local phonetic system and will thenceforth take part
in the normal sound-changes; it may thus come to coincide with other
words in the receiving language.
Take, for example, the adoptives, reipa from 'rape' (English) and theipa from 'tape'
(English). If one has to add the object prefix first person singular, which is In-/ in
Northern Sotho, then the two adoptives become the same in form. The following
sentence illustrates precisely that:
13. Mogemane yo o re o nyaka go ntheipa.
'This boy says he wants to rape me.'
'This boys says he wants to tape me.'
Does he need to record me with his tape recorder? Or is it his wish to rape me?
Ntheipa is homonymous, meaning to record ( as in o a theipa - he is recording) and to
rape (as in o a reipa - he rapes). Apart from these two senses, is yet another, namely,
`go theipa' meaning to take measurements. 0 a ntheipa would mean 'he/she is
measuring me.' All these three English expressions, videlicet, he is raping me, he is
taping me, and is measuring me have converged into one Northen Sotho word - o a
ntheipa.
This confusion is not prevalent in borrowed words and expressions from European
languages only, but also in cases of borrowing from other African languages. Consider
the following sentence:
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14. Ge a t§haga re a makala.
'We become surprised when he/she knocks off.'
`We become surprised when he/she hits something with his/her car.'
Is he/she not like other workers? Or rather, is he/she a slave? Why wonder when
he/she knocks off when it is time to? Do we expect him/her to work forever, without
knocking off? That is firstly what the sentence entails. Secondly, it means that this
person is a perfect driver who is without a mistake, hence our being surprised when
he/she hits something with his/her car, or when he/she collides with another car. The
ambiguity in the above sentence is due to the dual meaning of t§haita, namely, `to
kno .ck off from work' or to 'bump/crash' which is amazingly prevalent in most if not all
African languages in South Africa.
3.4 Metaphor
Brook & Warren (1976:206) define metaphor as "any replacement of one thing, concept
or person with any other." In the same breath, Pei & Gaynor (1954:135) define it as
A figure of speech in which one word is employed for another - a method
of description which likens one thing to another by referring to it as if it
were the other one.
To be exact, in metaphor the comparison is implicit and indirect, and to use the words
of Serudu et al. (1989:98), "it does not liken the two elements but equates them."
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A fully-fledged definition is that of Mokgokong (1975:31-2) who maintains that
... a metaphor is a transference of a particular notion into a new sphere
where it will glow with a new radiance of meaning. This transfer on the
part of the speaker, and the understanding on the part of the hearer,
came about as a result of the resemblance between the new thing and
the old, but the new is a separate thing from the old. The resemblance
must be apparent to the mind - that is to say, it must be affective and
functional as well as objective.
This definition clearly indicates that the metaphor is the most important vehicle for
ambiguity - for in ambiguity we speak of two words resembling one another in form but
with different senses (homonymy) or one word with different but related referents of
which one is primary (synonymy).
Some sentences in Northern Sotho and other languages are ambiguous because they
or some of their words/lexemes "have both a literal meaning and a nonliteral or
metaphorical meaning" (Fromkin & Rodman, 1983:171). Fromkin & Rodman (ibid)
further say that the literal meaning is based on the normal semantic properties of the
words in the sentence and the metaphorical meaning is based on semantic properties
that are inferred or that provide some kind of a resemblance, for example, the literal
meaning of the sentence below:
Page -105-
Matome o sa fahla magotlo?
'Is Matome still blinding the mice?'
'Is Matome still urinating?'
Metaphorically, the sentence has nothing to do with mice and their eyes, but with
Matome answering to the call of nature. Without knowledge of the traditional setting of
the African people, where the call of nature was usually answered in the bushes, one
will not quite understand the relevance of the metaphor employed in the above
sentence. When a man urinates in the bushes, he is said to blind the rats which are
hiding in those bushes. This idiom is applicable to the situation where one urinates in
the bushes, and not to someone who uses a modern toilet. Again the saying is only
applicable to men for they urinate whilst standing.
The same metaphor is evident in the following sentence:
Mokgaet§i o ithomile. •
`Mokgaet§i has sent herself.'
'Mokgaelti has relieved herself.'
Literally the sentence means that Mokgaetti has sent herself somewhere, that is she
did not want to or did not have someone to send, so she went there herself. The
figurative meaning is that of relieving oneself. Does that need a messenger? One has
to do it oneself. The same can be said of the following sentence:
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0 fapogile.
'You have gone astray.'
'You have relieved yourself.'
literally meaning that one is out of the way, that is, one has turned off the road; one has
deviated, one has gone astray. But on a euphemistic note, it means one has relieved
oneself. Relieving oneself with one's clothes on is not acceptable behaviour; it is not
like being on the right path; it is like 'going astray': that is where the metaphor lies.
When one relieves oneself, one has to get out of the way, and do it where no one sees
him/her.
Sentence 18 below seems anomalous, but if one analyses the semantic properties of
the word tau, one could come up with some plausible literal as well as figurative
meanings of the given sentence.
Monna yo ke tau.
'This man is a lion.'
The literal meaning being that he (monna) is a lion (strong/brave) as in oral narratives
or that he has a hoarse voice or red eyes. A lion is perceived to be brave, strong and
vicious. So figuratively the above sentence means that the man is not only strong and
brave, but also fearsome. It is all because the word tau has been used metaphorically.
It is this type of a metaphor as a figure of speech in which a name or quality is attributed
to something which it is not literally applicable.
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3.5 Grammatical Forms
Many grammatical forms, known as morphemes, are ambiguous in nature. Some
prefixes and suffixes "have more than one meaning, and this may, on occasion, create
misunderstandings" (Ullmann, 1970:156). The paragraphs which follow hereafter serve
as illustrations.
3.5.1 Prefixes
3.5.1.1 The Prefix for Class 2a (Bo-)
The class prefix Bo-, which for reasons which fall outside of the scope of this
investigation, (for more details see Van Wyk, 1980:130-156) is ambiguous in various
dimensions. Firstly, to traditional Northern Sotho speakers, it is a sign of respect. One
person is addressed in the plural as if he/she is 'many'. Consider the following
sentence:
19. Ke na le bomma ka kua ntlong.
'I am with my mother in the house.'
'I am with mother and company in the house.'
'I am with mothers in the house.'
The term bomma may denote an associative plural - 'mother and company'; again the
term may merely refer to my mother, addressing her in the plural form. Bomma may,
furthermore, denote 'mothers'. To sum up the various meanings of the prefix Bo-,
Lombard et al. (1985:36) say:
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The 'class prefix' bo- thus indicates distributive and/or associative plurality
and respect (plural or singular).
3.5.1.2 The Subject Morpheme of 2n d Person Plural (le-)
As already said above, typical Northern Sotho speakers are known for paying respect -
they value respect highly. This is also discernible in their usage of the subject prefix le-,
which is in plural form to refer to a single elderly person. The following sentence bears
witness:
20. Le tla ba le rena gosasa?
'Will you (singular or plural) be with us tomorrow?'
Le is responsible for the ambiguity of the above sentence. It is not clear whether the
invitation is directed to a number of people (plural) or to a single person (as a sign of
respect). Ullmann (1970:157-158) reflects on the confusion caused by the second
person singular pronoun 'you' which is identical to that of second person plural in
English:
When a married man is invited to a semi-official function in these terms:
yo_ u join us for dinner tomorrow?', he often has to ask the awkward
question: Do you mean you in the singular or in the plural?'
This ambiguity does not prevail in Northern Sotho, however, there may be ambiguity
due to the le denoting plural or used to refer to a singular subject.
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3.5.2 Suffixes
3.5.2.1 The Diminutive Suffix (-ana)
Many, though not all, nouns in Northern Sotho are susceptible to the diminutive
formation by the employment of the suffix -ana. As Lombard et al. (1985:82) put it,
"diminutives are used to describe objects which are smaller than normal," though in
some instances there is no reference to diminution at all. It is this latter aspect that
makes this nominal suffix to be ambiguous. The diminutive suffix is associated with
various senses of meaning in Northern Sotho, namely, it signifies
small size e.g. leswikana (a small stone)
youth or immaturity e.g. puttane (kid)
derogation or disparagement (depending on the attitude of the speaker)
e.g. mosattana (disliked woman)
love (also depending on the speakers feelings) e.g. mosattana (a lovely
woman)
colour gender e.g. naswana (a blackish- coffee coloured lovely woman)
degree of comparison e.g. talana (greenish)
With all these significations, the diminutive suffix is undoubtedly ambiguous. A
sentence such as the following has a multiplicity of meanings:
21. Tawana ye le yona e tom.
`This cub or small lion is vicious/cruel/violent.'
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Tawana, which is derived from tau, refers to a cub, that is, young of a lion. It may also
refer to a lion which is "smaller than normal" (Lombard et al. 1985:82). Tawana may,
furthermore, bring a feeling of disgust, implying that it is a useless animal - and thus
rendering the sentence derogatory.
3.5.2.2 The Applied Verbal Extension (-el-)
The applied verbal extension in Northern Sotho, as Lombard et at (1985:110) also
confirm, is used to indicate that the action or the process takes place:
for something/someone e.g. Mosadi o rekela bana malekere.
on behalf of something/someone e.g. Mokgekolo o ela banenyana
nokeng.
to the disadvantage of something/someone e.g. Dikgomo di jela monna
mabele.
in the direction of something/someone e.g. 0 theogela nokeng.
However, sentence 22 below is ambiguous in the sense that mokgalabje may be buying
sweets for the boys who might not even be aware, that is, he (mokgalabje) just feels like
surprising these boys by buying them sweets.
22. Mokgalabje o rekela baemane malekere.
'The old man buys sweets for the boys.'
'The old man buys sweets on behalf of the boys.'
Secondly, it might have happened that batemane gave mokgalabje some money to go
and buy sweets on their behalf. That is, they are unable or unwilling to go there, so they
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deem it fit to send the old man for reasons only known to them. The following sentence
also shows some meanings embedded in the applied verbal extension:
MokgaetS'i o a ntshepelela.
`Mokgaet§i is walking on my behalf.'
`Mokgaet§i visits witchdoctors to my disadvantage.'
`Mokgaethi looks beautiful.'
Is it possible for someone to walk for or on behalf of another? Yes, only in theory. Then
what does the sentence mean? Firstly, it implies that Mokgaegi is a sign of beauty in
the eyes of the speaker. In other words, the speaker loves Mokgaet§i. Secondly,
Mokgaeldi is doing something which is to the disadvantage of the speaker - she visits
witchdoctors with the intention of bewitching the speaker.
Apart from the given meanings, the applied verbal extension is embedded with an
additional meaning, that of doing something by oneself or unintentionally or without aim.
To use Doke & Mofokeng's (1985:158) words:
When used with the reflexive prefix, the applied form may have the added
significance of acting 'by oneself.
The following sentence means the speaker will remain by him/herself.
Nna ke tla itS"halela.
`I will remain by myself.'
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The emotion of sulkiness is also discernible. It seems those who have left did so
without the consent of the speaker, hence his/her resentfulness. He/she was left by
him/herself.
3.5.2.3 The Causative Verbal Extension (-is-)
This verbal extension carries with it two potential meanings, namely: the subject
"causes or brings about the action signified by the stem" (Cole, 1955:203), and "the
grammatical subject is of assistance in the performing of the action or process by the
grammatical object" (Lombard et al. 1985:113). These two meanings can be
summarised as 'cause to do the action' and 'help in doing the action'. This is discernible
in the following sentence:
25. Monna o lemita mosadi ghemo.
'The man helps the woman to plough the field.'
'The man makes the woman to plough the field.'
In the above sentence, monna, who is the grammatical subject, helps mosadi (the
grammatical object) to plough. It is the woman who is supposed to execute the action
of ploughing, but luckily enough, she has a helper - monna - he who lends a hand in the
execution of the action. On the other hand, the reading may be that the woman is
forced into executing the action by the man. Monna causes/makes her to plough. This
ambiguity is brought about by the causative suffix. The same holds true for the
following sentence:
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26. Lesogana le bethita mosadi monna.
'The young man helps the woman to beat the man.'
`The young man causes the man to beat the woman.'
The above sentence is explicitly ambiguous. Who beats who? Which word serves as
the subject of the sentence? The answer is, without hesitation, lesogana. But what
about monna? Is he (monna) not beating the woman? If lesogana is the subject , what
is it that he does? 0 a betha or o a bethga (Is he beating or causing/helping in the
beating?) This is where the crux of ambiguity lies. In the first instance, lesogana helps
the mosadi (the woman) in beating monna (the man), that is, the woman beats the man
with the help of lesogana (the young man). On the other hand, lesogana may be
causing monna to beat mosadi, that is, maybe due to his (lesogana) love involvement
with this mosadi, monna beats his mosadi. ( Monna has found out that the two ( that is,
lesogana and mosadi) are in love).
3.6 Context: the Determinant of (Dominant) Meaning
As an introduction to this subsection, the following superficially simple but not so easy
to answer questions are posed:
`My pen is in my hand.'
What is it that directs the readers to read the above sentence as 'My pen is in my hand',
that is, in English rather than the Afrikaans' version 'My pen is in my hand? How does
one know that the statement `o senyegile' usually means that one is spoilt rather than
that one is rotten or is out of order? Or that in a boxing arena the statement `o lahlett'e
Page -114-
toulo' means to surrender rather than literally throwing the towel? Or that to a cook
makhura refers to a cooking oil rather than petrol or paraffin (vide paragraph 3.2.1.2
above)?
In each of the above examples, "only one conscious interpretation comes to mind"
(Bubka & Gorfein, 1989:3). Though inherent in natural language, ambiguity "should not
be overrated as an actual obstacle in communication: most ambiguities will
automatically be resolved by the verbal context or by the situation in which
communication takes place" ( Kooij 1971:4). Bubka & Gorfein (1989:3) seem to be of
the same idea:
Since ambiguities are comprehended in such a way that the intended
meaning is chosen, it would seem that under the appropriate
circumstances, there is no ambiguity.
On the contrary, Abrams (1988:9) regards ambiguity as an impediment to
communication. He avers:
In ordinary usage 'ambiguity' is commonly applied to a fault in style; that
is, the use of a vague or equivocal expression when what is wanted is
precision and particularity of reference.
In support to Abrams, Fowler (1987:7) says that if ambiguity was to be opposed to
clarity, it would be considered a fault. On the other hand, Kahn & Ilson (1985:40) come
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up with a plea that since ambiguity in ordinary speech is an obstacle to clear
communication, care needs to be taken to avoid it. To sum up these views, it may be
argued that under strong biassed contextual conditions, an ambiguous word always acts
like an unambiguous word. This idea is also cherished by Du Plooy (1989) who in his
illustration says that
... a clenched fist in a boxing programme may symbolise victory, whereas
in an anti-apartheid documentary it may symbolise freedom.
The above views illustrate that context has an important influence on resolving
ambiguities - it sometimes detours one from recognising ambiguity.
3.6.1 Models for Processing Lexical Ambiguity
As Simpson (1979:43) has plausibly observed, "there appear to be two separate factors
that influence the processing of an ambiguous word: context and dominance." There are
several models which have been formulated to account for the role of context in
processing lexical ambiguity, and these, as Simpson (1979:43) has observed, can be
divided into two general classes, namely, context-dependent models (pioneered by
Schvaneveldt, Meyer & Becker, 1976; and Swinney and Hakes, 1976), and context-
independent models (pioneered by Cairns & Kamerman, 1975; Conrad, 1974; Foss &
Jenkins, 1973; Holmes, Arwas & Garrett, 1977; and Hogaboam & Perfetti, 1975).
The context-dependent models hold that "prior semantic context exerts its influence
even before the ambiguous word is encountered" (Simpson, 1979:43). This means that
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only one meaning of the ambiguous word that is or seems appropriate to the prior
context is activated, "other meanings are never noticed because they simply never enter
the picture" (Simpson, ibid). For instance, serapa only means 'a garden' if it follows a
word to which it is related, for example, letabbana (a flower), unlike if it follows an
unrelated word, e.g sefatanaga (a car). Or it (serapa) will only refer to a grave if it is
said at a funeral; or to a game reserve if it is said to pupils who are about to undertake
a trip to the zoo. On the basis of the above illustration, Schvaneveldt et al. (in Simpson,
1979:12) conclude that the context provided by the first word restricted the processing
of the ambiguous word to the meaning that was consistent with that context. However,
this model has been criticised on the grounds that the method of context presentation,
single words, may not lead to the same kind of processing as normal ongoing speech
(Swinney & Hakes in Simpson, 1979:12).
The context-independent models, on the other hand, hold "that the context does not
influence the retrieval of the meanings of ambiguous words, but rather has its effects
at a later, post-access stage" (Simpson 1979:3). This implies that context is only used
to select among a variety of meanings after they have been retrieved. The exhaustive-
context independent model (propagated by Foss & Jenkins, 1973; Conrad, 1974; Cairns
& Kamerman, 1975; Holmes, Arwas & Garrett, 1977) "contends that when an
ambiguous word is encountered, all of its meanings are activated. These are then
checked against the context, and all but the appropriate one are discarded" (Simpson,
1979:3). On the other hand, the ordered search model, another context-independent
model, contends that "only the most frequent meaning is retrieved and checked with
context. If a match occurs, no further processing will take place. If a match does not
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occur, however, the next most frequent meaning is retrieved and its appropriateness is
assessed. This process continues until a match is found" (Simpson, 1979:3). With their
ordered search model, Hogaboam & Perfetti (in Simpson, ibid) argue that whether one
or more meanings are activated depends on which meaning is appropriate to the
context - they advocate for the context-free ordering of the meanings. No wonder they
criticise much of the previous literature in ambiguity on the grounds that a potentially
relevant variable, that is, the dominance of the different meanings of an ambiguous
word, is ignored. That is, as Simpson (1979) says, not all meanings occur with equal
frequency. When one hears or sees an ambiguous word, one first retrieves the
dominant meaning, depending on the situation and context in which one finds that
particular word. The remaining meanings are just subordinate.
3.6.2 The Problem
The models discussed above bring about two fundamental questions regarding lexical
ambiguity - firstly, the fate of the different meanings of ambiguous words in the absence
of context; and lastly, the choice of the dominant meaning - how it happens that one
meaning becomes dominant over the other(s).
As said in the introductory chapter, linguists who are concerned with describing all
grammatically acceptable sentences of a language through phrase structure rules and
transformations, that is, transformational-generative grammarians, "make a fundamental
distinction between competence (i.e. the speaker-hearer' knowledge of his language)
and performance (i.e. the actual use of language in concrete situations" (Chomsky,
1965:4). As part of the competence model, mother-tongue speakers are assumed to
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have the ability to understand, among other aspects, the phenomenon of semantic
ambiguity.
To test the competence model, two experiments were undertaken, including 25
participants:
3.6.3 Experiments
In an endeavour to answer all questions posed in the introduction to this subsection, the
researcher deemed it fit to conduct a research which would give him direction and as
a result, two experiments were conducted. The first experiment was based on the
native Northen Sotho speakers' knowledge of selected Northen Sotho words and their
meanings. The researcher chose to follow that path mainly because of Chomsky's
(1965:3) view of linguistic theory:
Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in
a completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its language
perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as
memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors
(random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in
actual performance.
Each of the given words had at least two meanings and the participants were requested
to give the first meaning of the word, and if possible, followed by other meanings. The
words were given to the participants in print, and no attempt was made to read (aloud)
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or utter them by the researcher. It was expected of each participant to read each word
silently and give meaning(s). The most frequent meaning, that is, the meaning found
first by most participants, was regarded as the dominant meaning. The main aim of this
first experiment was to determine the dominant meaning and the subordinate
meaning(s) of each of the given words. Each participant's linguistic competence, that
is, "what he really knows, not necessarily what language he actually uses" (Brause,
1975:3) was measured. The study, like Brause's, was limited to:
a study of the ability of "native speakers" of a language, their native ability
being dependent on the fact that they have heard the language "spoken
in the community in which they were born and spent their early years"
(Lyons, 1970:118).
an individual's ability to understand ambiguity, not his ability to use
ambiguity.
lexical/semantic ambiguity only.
The participants comprised a total of 25 Northern Sotho mother tongue speakers Of
different ages and sexes. To be precise, there were 5 high school pupils (HP), 5
university undergraduates (UU), 5 university postgraduates (UP), 5 teachers ((T) 2 high
school & 3 university teachers) and 5 pensioners (P). The participants were tested
individually on various days. Each participant received the same treatment and data.
The following words/stems written on index cards were given (in alphabetic order):
bothata fola
Page -120-
ikgama ithoma kata makhura motala motala o-nyet§e o-a-kganya o-swaregile panka phala thapo serapa
When the researcher was certain that a participant had acquired at least two meanings
of each word, he started with his second experiment. The main aim of the second
experiment was to assess the role of context in determining the meaning(s) of words.
So each given word in the first experiment was put within the context of a sentence,
thereby biassing it towards a particular meaning. When the meaning of that particular
word was correctly given, another sentence being biassed towards the second meaning
was given. After the recognition of the second meaning, three other sentences, one
being weakly biassed towards one meaning, another being weakly biassed towards the
other meaning, and the last being fully ambiguous, were given. It was expected of the
informant to tell which sentence was biassed towards which meaning, and which of the
five sentences was fully ambiguous. The participants were asked to give reasons
backing their answers. Some of the reasons are included in the discussions that follow.
Page -121-
Words Meanings HP UU UP
makhura fat 5 5 5 fuel 0 0 0
o-nyetge defecated 4 4 3 married 1 1 2
o-a-kganya pride 5 5 3 colour 0 0 2
o-swaregile witchcraft 4 4 4 commitment 1 1 1
serapa game reserve 5 5 4 grave 0 0 1
T P Total
5 5 25 0 0 0
2 0 13 3 5 12
2 3 18 3 2 7
1 5 18 4 0 7
3 0 17 2 5 8
Figure 3.3
3.6.4 Summary of Results (5 Randomly Selected Words)
3.6.4.1 Words and Associates
3.6.4.2 Statistical Analysis
Dominant/Subordinate Meaning
Words Meaning HP UU UP T P Total
Makhura fat/fuel 100/0 100/0 100/0 100/0 100/0 100/0%
o-nyett'e defecated/married 80/20 80/20 60/40 40/60 0/100 52/48%
o-a-kganya pride/colour 100/0 100/0 60/40 40/60 60/40 72/28%
o swaregile witchcraft/commitment 80/20 80/20 80/20 20/80 100/0 72/28%
serapa game reserve/grave 100/0 100/0 80/20 60/40 0/100 68/32%
Figure 3.4
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3.6.5 Observations and Discussion
From the experiments undertaken, especially experiment number 1, one observes that
the ambiguity of some words is more easily detected than in the other words, and that
some meanings are 'more equal than others'. Taking makhura as an example, not even
a single informant hesitated to give 'fat' as its first (dominant) meaning. The reason
behind this choice is that 'fat' is the basic meaning whereas other meanings like 'fuel',
'skin lotion', 'cooking oil', et cetera, are just subordinate - implying that the ambiguity of
makhura is the result of polysemy.
Experiment number 1 again reveals that "the meanings of ambiguous words are ordered
in semantic memory according to their relative frequencies. Given a neutral context, or
no context at all, this order will determine which meaning is retrieved when an
ambiguous word is encountered" (Simpson, 1979:43).
It was also observed that age plays an important role in determining the first meaning.
People of different ages differ when it comes to the first meanings of some words.
Compare fly. et§e (answering the call of nature and getting married). High school pupils
sees in nyet§e 'defecated' (80%) whereas pensioners understand it to mean nothing
else but 'getting married' (100%). When asked to defend their first choice pensioners
said that guarding against vulgarism is one social norm that they will not violate. If they
chose 'defecated' as their first choice meaning of nyet§e, they would be violating that
social norm, but for the young ones, that unwanted meaning was the obvious one - they
are still exploring the 'other side' of the world - the unacceptable. Surprisingly enough,
'the unacceptable' meaning becomes the dominant meaning.
Page -123-
Though nyetge 'defecated' and nyetge 'married' are easily distinguished because of
tone, it is impossible to differentiate them when in written form, more so because
diacritic signs are no more used in non-scientific texts. In a neutral context or no
context at all, uttering nyetge with a low-low tone refers to the answering of the call of
nature, whereas nyette (high-low tone) refers to getting married. Within the sentential
context, there is no difference in articulation because they are both uttered with one
tone - a low-high tone. So there are some differences between words uttered in
isolation and those uttered within context insofar as pronunciation is concerned. A
word uttered out of sentential context might not be pronounced tonally the same as one
within the context of a sentence.
Experiment number two reveals that "one interpretation of a set of ambiguous words
may be much more obvious in one sentential context than in another" (MacKay & Bever,
1967:195). For instance, the interpretation of sentence 27 below as referring to 'milking
oneself is rather obscure, but this is not the case with sentence 28.
Ngwana wa gagwe o rile go hlokofala, Mosima a ikgama.
'After the death of her child, Mosima milked herself.'
'After the death of her child, Mosima strangled herself.'
Motswetgi ge a etgwa maeto o swanetge go ikgama pele ngwana a ka
nyanya.
'When the mother of a young baby is back from paying someone a visit,
she should milk herself first before breast feeding her child.'
Page -124-
Discovering such ambiguities involves reading the sentence several times,
understanding the first meaning, and then looking for the second meaning. The
experiment proved that "seeing the more obscure meaning for the particular context on
the first reading could make discovering the ambiguity easy since perception of the
second meaning is relatively probable. Seeing the more likely meaning on the first
reading should make discovering the ambiguity take more time since the perception of
the second meaning is less probable and presumably more difficult" (MacKay & Bever,
1967:195). During the interview, the bias for a meaning, defined as the percent of the
participants who reported seeing that meaning first, was calculated for each sentence.
For example, a sentence where 20 of the 25 participants report seeing one meaning first
and five report the other first, would have 80% bias for one meaning and a 20% bias for
the other.
It is one of the aims of this subsection to test the ambiguity of words in a sentence,
starting from the most dominant meaning to the most subordinate meaning. In this
respect, context plays a very important role. Hayakawa (1964:61) emphasises this idea
when he says that "the contexts of an utterance determine its meaning." When faced
with the following sentences, the participants reacted differently:
Matome o nyette ngwagola.
Go thwe Matome o nyette mosadi maabane.
Matome o nyette a sa rate.
Matome o nyette ka ga malome'agwe.
Matome o nyette ka pareng.
Page -125-
The participants all voted for sentence 29c above as the most ambiguous of them all.
The sentence which is strongly biassed towards the dominant meaning (52% - see table
on page 122), that is, towards the excreta, remained problematic until the researcher
discussed the role of some of the words within the sentence. Some opted for sentence
29a as the one with a strongly biassed meaning towards 'excreta' while others opted for
sentence 29e. In sentence 29a, the word ngwagola is the one which biasses the
meaning of the sentence towards 'marriage', for if he did it (defecating) last year he
would have died by now. To the indigenous Northern Sotho speakers, ngwagola does
not merely refer to last year (say today is the 1s1 of January and we refer to the previous
day as ngwagola), but to a date in the remote past. Those who argued that sentence
29e is strongly biassed towards the dominant meaning based their argument on the
adverb ka pareng (in the beer hall). Though it is not impossible to get a life partner in
the beer hall, it is rather queer and unusual. Pride and culture do not encourage such
a marriage. On the other hand, though embarrassing and of course, not acceptable,
it is highly possible for a drunk to answer the call of nature inside the beer hall.
Sentence 29a thus serves as the one which is strongly biassed towards the subordinate
meaning. Next to it, that is, the sentence which is weakly biassed towards the
subordinate meaning, namely, 'marriage' is sentence 29d, though some participants
opted for sentence 29b. Those who were against sentence 29b being biassed towards
marriage argued that the word `go thwe' changed the whole context to be biassed
against marriage - "for gossip is likened to a thorn - if not carefully considered, it can
sometimes prick" (Chokoe, 1993:49). The moment one says `go thwe' it implies that
one is not sure, and thereby 'untying the goat', and to put it boldly, 'goats' are always
Page -126-
the 'unacceptables'. Hence the interpretation of 'o nyetge mosadi' being that he spat
some vulgar words (that is, he insulted) on his wife or literally defecating on her.
This leaves one with the last sentence, which, if one knows the Northern Sotho culture,
will not hesitate to say it is weakly biassed towards the subordinate meaning - marriage.
It is customarily expected and of course acceptable in Northern Sotho for a man to
marry his maternal uncle's daughter so that 'dikgomo di boele gakeng'. He who instead
of marrying, defecates at malome's (uncle's) place is bad omen, and thus deserves to
die.
To round off the above discussion, it is deemed fit to rearrange the above sentences,
beginning with the one which is strongly biassed towards the dominant meaning and
ending with the one strongly biassed towards the subordinate meaning. The
abbreviations are as follows:
DS > Dominant meaning, Strong bias
DW > Dominant meaning, Weak bias
SS > Subordinate meaning, Strong bias
SW > Subordinate meaning, Weak bias
FA > Fully Ambiguous
The sentences are rearranged as follows:
DS Matome o nyetge ka pareng.
DW Go thwe Matome o nyetge mosadi maabane.
FA Matome o nyetge a sa rate.
SW Matome o nyetge ka ga malome'agwe.
Page -127-
SS Matome o nyette ngwagola.
The other group of sentences which the participants grappled with is the following:
Motho yo mogolo ga a ke a ithoma bane ba le gona.
Le ge pule e ena, go ithoma gona, ge nako e fihfile, o swanette.
0 ka se be wa ithoma mole lapa le tlette bane, roma yo mongwe.
Go ithoma, kudu ge motho a t ette a ttofette, go bohloko.
A re mo emeleng, o tla re ge a boa go ithoma, ra sepela.
Knowing which sentences are biassed towards either the dominant meaning (of ithoma)
which is 'relieving oneself' or subordinate meaning which is 'sending oneself was not
a mammoth task for the participants. They unanimously chose sentence 30e and 30c
to represent DS and SS respectively. Their argument for choosing sentence 30c to
position SS was because of its last clause, namely, roma yo mongwe, which is used in
that sentence to clarify the meaning of 'ithoma', that is, 'sending oneself. Sentence 30b
seems to be a bit biassed towards the dominant meaning, basing our argument on the
clause, o swanette, meaning it is a must. The implication here is that 'it is always a
must' for one who is pressed to literally 'send oneself, for it is impossible to send
another person to answer the call of nature on one's behalf.
This leaves one with two 'ambiguous' sentences, namely, sentences 30a and 30d.
Though both are fully ambiguous, it transpired during the interview that one is more
ambiguous than the other. The question remains which one? Sentence 30a has two
truthful senses in it; namely, it is inhumane to relieve oneself in front of or next to other
people; and it is culturally unacceptable for adults to 'send themselves' when children
Page -128-
could go on their behalf. Culturally, every child is taken as your child. It is the presence
of yo mogolo in the sentence which biases it, though weakly, towards the subordinate
meaning, for it is culturally unthinkable of an adult to relieve him/herself in front of or
next to children. This leaves sentence 30d to be the most ambiguous of them all.
Hereunder follows the rearrangement:
DS A re, !no emeleng, o tla re ge a boa go ithoma ra sepela.
DW Le ge pula e ena, go ithoma gona, ge nako e fihlile, o swanette.
FA Go ithoma, kudu ge motho a t ette a ttofette, go bohloko.
SW Motho yo mogolo ga a ke a ithoma bana ba le gona.
SS 0 ka se be wa ithoma mola lapa le tlette bana, roma yo mongwe.
3.7 Conclusion
In conclusion, like Simpson (1979:47) has observed, one is obliged to say that the
experiments undertaken support a model in which ambiguous word recognition is
governed by two independent factors. When context is sufficiently predicative of a
single meaning, it will lead to immediate retrieval of that meaning alone. In the absence
of context, or if it is less restrictive, the most frequent occurring meaning will be
activated. Nida (1960:77) embraces the same idea:
A word in isolation (i.e. without context) begins with a very wide area of
meaning, for it may occur in many hundreds of situations and may be
used for scores of objects; but by means of the practical and linguistic
contexts in which it is used we can 'whittle it down' to precisely that sub-
area of meaning which it must have in any specific utterance.
Page -129-
Sentential and situational contexts play a very vital role in determining the meaning of
ambiguous words. This is confirmed by Hayakawa (1964:61) who says that since no
two contexts are ever exactly the same, no two meanings can be exactly the same.
To this end, Steinberg's (1995:16) words are relevant, especially when used as a
concluding remark:
Communication is always situational and is influenced by factors such as
time, space, and physical properties of the meeting place, as well as
roles, status and relationship of the participants.
Page -130-
CHAPTER 4
STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY: SENTENCE STRUCTURE AND MEANING
Many of them had pointed out that the meaning of a sentence was determined partly by the meaning of the words it contained and partly by its syntactic structure - Lyons (1981:147).
4.1 Preliminary Remarks
As an introduction to this chapter, the following joke is deemed necessary:
After presenting a Northern Sotho lesson to matric pupils during winter school, the
researcher decided to test whether the objectives of the lesson had been achieved by
giving them an application exercise. It was a full class comprising boys and girls. While
they were busy writing, the researcher uttered the following Northern Sotho sentence
with the aim of improving the general performance of the class - an incentive sort of:
I a Motemane yo a ka le phalago ka moka ke tla mo fa R10.
And after realising his mistake of 'discriminating against women', that is, excluding the
female folk in his incentive, the researcher added le mosetsana to the sentence. So the
sentence was uttered as in 1 b below:
1 b Motemane yo a ka le phalago ka moka ke tla mo fa R10, le mosetsana.
The researcher was flabbergasted to realise that girls were not as committed to their
class work as the boys. After marking the work, the researcher found that one boy was
the overall winner, so he (the researcher) gave him (the boy) R10 as promised. To the
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researcher's surprise, the boy did not leave the stage at once; instead, he insisted that
the researcher give him 'mosetsana' (a girl) too. When the researcher retorted that he
never promised the winner 'a girl', the whole class booed him, requesting him to keep
his promise. They said that the promise was that of giving the boy who won R10 plus
a `mosetsana'. The researcher pleaded with them, and told them that he did not have
that meaning in his mind when he uttered that sentence. What he meant was that he
would give the winner, whether a boy or a girl, R10 as an incentive.
Of course these pupils were right - the sentence was ambiguous, and its ambiguity was
"due to the different structures which are permitted by rules of syntax, rather than to any
ambiguous word" (Fromkin & Rodman, 1993:77), as in lexical ambiguity which was
discussed in chapter three. This type of ambiguity is referred to as structural,
grammatical or 'syntactic' ambiguity (Fowler, 1987:7) because this "ambiguity has to do
with the grammatical structure of the sentence" (Jacobs & Rosenbaum, 1968:5).
Hurford & Heasley (1983:128) are of the same view:
A sentence which is ambiguous because its words relate to each other in
different ways, even though none of the individual words are ambiguous,
is STRUCTURALLY ( or GRAMMATICALLY) AMBIGUOUS.
Malmkjfflr (1991:395) shares the same sentiments when he says:
Some sentences, however, are syntactically ambiguous, and these are
not dependent for their ambiguity on any one word in them. Rather, it is
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their grammatical structure which causes the ambiguity.
To sum up the definition of structural ambiguity, Akmajian et al. (1984:530) say:
Structural ambiguity is the situation in which a sentence has two or more
different linguistic meanings even though none of the individual words is
ambiguous; the ambiguity of such sentences resides in their different
constituent structures.
The above definitions have one thing in common, namely, the ambiguity which is due
to sentence construction, that is, the arrangement of words within a sentence. It is the
sentence (and not the word) which is looked at in this type of ambiguity. This implies
that though we are still in the field of semantics, we should not overlook syntax
because "knowing a language includes the ability to put words together to form phrases
and sentences that express our thoughts" (Fromkin & Rodman, 1993:73). Syntax is
defined by Adams (1965:1016) as
... the part of grammar that treats of the construction of sentences and the
relationship of words to one another in a sentence.
It is against this background that Radford (1981:46) asserts that "syntax is essentially
concerned with the distribution of words and phrases - i.e. specifying which words or
phrases can appear in which positions in which types of sentence". Since syntax deals
with the acceptable arrangement of words within sentences, it "implies that words
Page -133-
cannot combine arbitrarily with one another to form larger units" (Louwrens, 1991:13),
thus not every torrent of words constitute a sentence. One's knowledge of Northern
Sotho syntactic rules accounts for one's ability to recognise the structurally ambiguous
expressions and sentences such as the following:
Bakgalabje le bakgekolo ba kgale ga ba rate dikgetho.
Yo motho, Modimo o a mo tseba.
The ambiguity of sentence 2 is undoubtedly not attributable to the fact that some
particular lexical item (word) has more than one meaning, that is, it is not the case that
bakgalabje or bakgekolo or ba kgale has more than one distinct meaning. Rather, the
ambiguity results from the fact that ba kgale can qualify bakgekolo (in which case
sentence 2 can be paraphrased as Bakgekolo ba kgale le bakgalabje ga ba rate
dikgetho) or it may qualify the phrase bakgalabje le bakgekolo (in which case sentence
2 can be rephrased as Bakgalabje ba kgale le bakgekolo ba kgale ga ba rate
dikgetho). This clearly indicates that the ambiguity involved is structural insofar as it
resides in the question of which part of the structure of sentence 2 is qualified by ba
kgale.
From the above discussion, it becomes clear that sentence 2 has two distinct
constituent structures, and in the words of Palmer (1984:125) "it can, for instance, show
that a certain type of ambiguity, a difference of meaning, is related to a difference in the
hierarchical structure of the IC analysis". On the same note, Lyons (1968:212) says
that the ambiguity of sentences such as sentence 2 "is to be accounted for, not in
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terms of the distributional classification of the elements, but in terms of a difference of
constituent-structure". The sentence may be disambiguated by the 'grouping' or
bracketing as follows:
(Bakgalabje le bakgekolo) ba kgale ga ba rate dikgetho.
'Old men of yore and old women of yore do not like elections.'
Bakgalabje le (bakgekolo ba kgale) ga ba rate dikgetho.
'Old men and old women of yore do not like elections.'
In sentence 2a it is only bakgekolo (old women) that are being qualified by ba kgale
whereas in sentence 2b ba kgale qualifies both bakgalabje (old men) and bakgekolo
(old women).
Sentence 3 (like sentence 2), is ambiguous not because there is any ambiguous word
in it, but its ambiguity involves a change in the logical relations between the words. To
this, MacKay & Bever (1967:193) add:
Ambiguities at the underlying structure level involve neither a change in
meaning of individual words, as in lexical ambiguity, nor a change in the
apparent grouping of words, as in the surface structure ambiguities, but
only a change in the logical relations between words.
Who knows (tseba) who in sentence 3? Is it motho (a person) who knows Modimo
(God) or vice versa? Sentence 3 may have two readings, it may either mean that
motho is the subject of the verb o tseba (cf.3a) or that motho is the object of the very
Page -135-
same verb o tseba (cf.3b). Sentence 3 may thus be paraphrased as follows:
Yo motho o tseba Modimo.
'This person knows God.'
Modimo o tseba motho yo.
'God knows this person.'
The above discussions make it undoubtedly clear that there are two syntactic
structures, namely, a surface structure and a deep structure. Though not entirely within
the scope of the present enquiry, it is however, necessary to briefly highlight and
illustrate the (dis)similarities between the two syntactic structures in order to be able to
understand the type of ambiguity under discussion.
4.2 Deep Structure Versus Surface Structure
• 4.2.1 Phrase Structure Rules
In Northern Sotho, like in any other language, there is an order in which constituents of
a sentence are arranged. Elgin (1979:44) calls the rule which determines what
constituents a sentence may consist of and what their basic ordering must be, Phrase
Structure Grammar Rules (PSG-rules). As Fromkin & Rodman (1983:205) observe,
a sentence can be divided into two or more groups, and within each group the words
can be divided into subgroups, and so on, until only single words remain. On the other
hand, Cook (1988:205) defines phrase structure rules as a way of capturing the
structural relationships of the sentence through the concept of 'consist of'. Like
Fromkin & Rodman, Cook maintains that a sentence or a phrase consists of one or
more constituents. Sentence 4 below, for example, consists of the NP and VP
Page -136-
illustrated in the following tree diagram (figure 4.1):
4. Monna yo mogolo o betha mosadi wa gagwe.
'The big man beats his wife.'
Monna yo mogolo o betha mosadi wa gagwe
/ \ Monna yo mogolo o betha mosadi wa gagwe
Figure 4.1
The above constituents may be divided further into subgroups as illustrated in figure
4.1a below:
Monna yo mogolo (N P)
o betha mosadi wa gagwe (VP)
monna (N) yo mogo/o(ADJP) o betha (V) mosadi wa gagwe (NP)
Figure 4.1a
Page -137-
wa gagwe (PossP)
Ata(Poss.part). gagwe (Poss.Pro)
The ADJP and the last NP may be subdivided into Qual.P (Qualificative Particle) plus
ADJ.N (Adjectival Noun), and N plus PossP (Possessive Phrase) respectively as in
figure 4.1b below:
mogolo (ADJP) mosadi wa gagwe (NP)
ysL(Qual.P) mogolo (ADJ.N) Mosadi (N) wa gagwe (PossP)
Figure 4.1b
And lastly, the PossP may be subdivided into Poss.Part (Possessive Particle) plus
Poss.Pro (Possessive Pronoun) as illustrated in figure 4.1c belovQ'
Figure 4.1c
The above diagrams can be converged into one full tree diagram as in figure 4.2 below:
Page -138-
ism N VP . 1:) ,
N ADJP V
Poss.Pro
NP2
/I N N Qual.P ADJ.N PossP
Poss.Part
I we Monna _y_o mogolo o betha inosadi wa gag
Figure 4.2
In other words, sentence 4 is divided into two major constituents, namely, Noun Phrase
(NP) and Verb Phrase (VP); the NP is further subdivided into Noun (N) and Adjectival
Phrase (ADJP); the ADJP is further subdivided into Qualificative Particle (Qual.P) and
Adjectival Noun (ADJ.N), and the VP into Verb (V) and NP 2; this last NP is further
subdivided into N and Possessive Phrase (PossP); the PossP being further subdivided
into Possessive Particle (Poss.Part) and Possessive Pronoun (PossPro). This is in
accordance .with Phrase Structure Rules.
On defining the phrase in Phrase Structure Rules, Radford (1988:85) says:
The term phrase is used to mean simply 'a set of elements which form a
constituent', with no restriction on the number of elements that the set
may or must contain. So, for example, 'Noun Phrase' can be taken as
meaning something like: 'an expression containing .a head noun', without
any implication that a noun phrase must necessarily. contain anything
Page -139-
•
other than the head noun.
So, any word or group of words can form a NP, as long as it serves either as the subject
or the object of a sentence. Some constituents of the sentence can be substituted for
one another without affecting the grammaticality of the sentence, and such constituents
form what Fromkin & Rodman (1983) and other linguists such as Culicover (1982) call
a syntactic category. There are syntactic categories such as NP, VP, et cetera; and
each syntactic category has its grammatical function. The syntactic category NP, for
example, can function as 'subject' or 'object' in a sentence.
4.2.2 Transformational Rules
The syntactic component consists of two parts, namely, the phrase structure level and
the transformational level (Koutsoudos, 1966:5). Transformational grammarians, as
Burt (1971:4) observe:
. assume that certain sentences are basic (they are called deep
structure strings) and that other sentences are derived from these basic
sentences by means of applying certain T-rules to the deep structure.
Derived sentences are called surface structure strings. ... Since
transformational rules operate on the phrase markers which underlie
sentences, the relationship between basic and derived sentences is
stated in terms of the rules which apply to these phrase markers.
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In Transformational Generative Grammar, the basic sentence is referred to as the
kernel sentence. According to Harcourt (1964:1) a kernel sentence is "the basic,
elementary sentence of the language, the stuff from which all else is made". Harcourt's
definition is enhanced by Lepschy (1970:128) who asserts that a kernel sentence is
... a set of 'simple, declarative, active sentences (in fact, probably a finite
number of these)' while all other sentences are consfriered transforms of
the kernel sentences; are derived from these through the application of
transformational rules.
The above assertion makes it clear that there are two types of sentences, namely,
kernel sentences (deep structure sentences) and transforms (surface structure
sentences). A transformational sentence is derived from a kernel sentence through
transformational rules. "The transformations," writes Hale (1969:61), "should not apply
in a such a way as to alter the meaning of the sentence, since transformations are the
rules which link meaning and pronunciation". This is also witnessed by Lester (1971:29)
when he says that
... the transformation rules apply to 'deep structure' and produce as their
output the 'surface structure' of the sentence. In other words, the deep
structure accounts for the meaning of the sentence, the surface structure
accounts for the form of the sentence.
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Lester's view is supported by Langendoen (1969:140) who maintains that the deep
structure of a sentence is a representation of the meaning of that sentence; and it is not
the deep structures which are spoken and written by the people, but rather the surface
structures. The derived structure, that is, the surface structure, is transformed according
to transformational rules, from the underlying structure, that is, the deep structure. It
is through the surface structure that we are able to access the deep structure, hence
Langendoen (1969:140) comments:
Surface Structures provide access to deep structures; ... deep structures
are ACCESSIBLE from surface Structures.
Horrocks, in his interpretation of Chomsky's model, also sees the relationship between
the surface structure and the deep structure the same way as the above linguists. He
(1987:36) states
Chomsky in fact proposed that the phrase structure rules (and lexicon)
generate the deep structures of sentences and that the rules of the
transformational component of the syntax map these into surface
structures. Thus each sentence has both a deep structure and a surface
structure representation.
As is evident from the above discussion, sentences have both a deep structure, which
gives the meaning of the sentence, and a surface structure, which gives the form of the
sentence as it is used in communication. Thus, as Jacobs & Rosebaum (1968:21)
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state, "a deep structure is an abstract object; it is a structure one assumes on the basis
of the meaning of a sentence and its syntax. A surface structure is closer to physical
reality in that it concretely specifies the syntactic structure necessary for spoken or
written communication."
The existence of two main syntactic structures, as stated in the above paragraphs,
implies the existence of two main types of structural ambiguity, namely, surface
structure ambiguity and deep structure ambiguity. On this point, Fromkin & Rodman
(1983:237) say:
It may appear that there are two different kinds of structural ambiguity,
one in which there are multiple surface-structure phrase markers, and the
other in which there is a single surface structure but multiple deep-
structure phrase markers.
These two types of structural ambiguity will be discussed individually.
4.3 Surface Structure Ambiguity
Surface structure ambiguity, as the name entails, is ambiguity which is due to the
structure of the sentence at the surface level, that is, it "corresponds to the overt,
physical form of sentences" (Langendoen, 1969:14). It involves "the possibility of two
distinct groupings of adjacent words" (MacKay & Bever, 1967:193). This is the type of
structural ambiguity, as Lyons (1977:400) puts it, "which can be explicated in terms of
phrase structure (with or without an associated difference of stress, intonation or
Page -143-
juncture)." Consider the following example:
5. Motsomi o swere matlalo, dingatha le manaka a ditlou.
That sentence 5, just like sentence 3 above, is ambiguous is an undisputable fact. Its
ambiguity is accounted for in terms of the notion of phrase structure. The question is:
Are the hides and hooves all from the elephant, or are they from other animals too?
This sentence may be paraphrased, unambiguously, as in 5a or 5b below:
Motsomi o swere matlalo a ditlou, dingatha tta ditlou, le manaka a ditlou.
'The hunter has elephants' hides, elephants' hooves and elephants'
tusks.'
Motsomi o swere matlalo le dingatha (tta diphoofolo tte dingwe), le
manaka a ditlou.
'The hunter has other animals' hides and hooves, and elephants' tusks.'
In other words, sentences 5a and 5b can be bracketed into their immediate
constituents as in 5c and 5d respectively.
Motsomi o swere (matlalo, dingatha le manaka) a ditlou.
Motsomi o swere matlalo, dingatha le (manaka a ditlou).
In sentence 5c, the qualificative, a ditlou, qualifies the antecedents, that is, pertaining
to matlalo, dingatha and manaka. However, a ditlou in sentence 5d does not qualify all
the antecedents, but qualifies only one, namely, manaka (tusks). In this instance, the
Page -144-
matlalo, dingatha manaka a ditlou.
Figure 4.3b
tusks are from the elephants whereas the other 'hunting trophies' are from other
animals. This is made clear by a ditlou being grouped with manaka, leaving the rest
to 'belong to other animals'. The disambiguation of sentence 5 may be made clear by
the following tree diagrams':
Figure 4.3a
'Though a fully fledged tree diagram has been drawn in figure 4.2 above, all other diagrams will not follow the standard principle as followed in the Phrase Structure Rules..The diagrams will be simplified as in Langacker (1973:105).
Page -145-
The tree diagrams clearly show that in sentence 5, it is the NP which serves the function
of an object which is responsible for its ambiguity. In figure 4.3a, the words matlalo,
dingatha, /e and manaka are grouped together, implying that they are all qualified by
a ditlou, whereas in figure 4.3b there are two groups, namely, one comprising the words
matlalo and dingatha, and another comprising the words manaka and a ditlou. The
connective particle le is not grouped with either of the two groups, that is, it is
inJependent.
Some Northern Sotho sentences with the Noun Phrases of the form N+N+Qual (N =
Noun, Qual = Qualificative) are ambiguous, "and their ambiguity can be resolved by
specifying their constituent structure" (Lyons, 1968:214), as either (N + N) + Qual or
N + (N + Qual). In Northern Sotho, if in a sentence the two or more nouns from the
same class which are conjoined by a connective particle are followed by a qualificative,
it being a possessive word-group, then the sentence becomes ambiguous. On this
point, Cann (1993:180) asserts:
Sentences containing more than one quantified NP are often ambiguous,
depending on how wide the relative scopes of the quantifiers contained
in the NPs are taken.
Cann's assertion is explicitly illustrated in the above examples. The following sentences
are ambiguous too, and their ambiguity is, as in the above examples, also embedded
in the surface structure:
Page -146-
Batswadi ba Matome le Lesiba ba ile toropong.
Mokgaet§i o bethilwe ke Matome goba Lesiba.
In sentence 6, the ambiguity is caused by the connective particle le and its influence on
the possible constituent structures. In the first interpretation batswadi is a noun which
is qualified by two nouns, namely, Matome and Lesiba jointly. In the second
interpretation, ie noun batswadi is qualified by one noun, namely, Matome. The
second noun, Lesiba, forms an NP on its own, and together with the first NP Batswadi
ba Matome serves as the subject of the sentence. This sentence can be bracketed
as follows:
Batswadi ba (Matome le Lesiba) ba ile toropong. —
'The parents of both Matome and Lesiba have gone to town.'
(Batswadi ba Matome) le Lesiba ba ile toropong.
'The parents of Matome have gone to town together with Lesiba.'
The two meanings brought about by the Noun Phrase(s) can be easily represented in
the following tree diagrams:
Batswadi ba Matome le Lesiba
Figure 4.4a
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Batswadi ba Matome le Lesiba
Figure 4.4b
It is evident from the above tree diagrams that the structure of NP in sentence 6 is N +
(N + N = Qual), a noun plus two nouns functioning as a qualificative (figure 4.4a), or (N
+ Qual) + NP, that is, a noun plus a noun qualifying it plus another NP comprising one
noun (figure 4.4b).
In sentence 7, the ambiguity is brought about by the conjunction goba. Nobody knows
who beat Mokgaegi. Was it the parents of Matome or the parents of Lesiba or Lesiba
himself? This sentence is multiply ambiguous, that is, it has more than two
paraphrases. Like the other sentences discussed above, its ambiguity is structural and
may be disambiguated by bracketing. Unlike other sentences already discussed,
sentence 7 is "grammatically ambiguous in terms both of grouping and of
categorisation" (Lyons, 1977:401). Using groupings, sentence 7 may, unambiguously,
be bracketed as follows:
7a. Mokgaegi o bethilwe ke batswadi ba (Matome goba Lesiba).
'Mokgaet§i was beaten by the parents of Matome or of Lesiba.'
Page -148-
7b. Mokgaegi o bethilwe ke batswadi ba Matome (goba Lesiba).
'Mokgaetti was beaten by the parents of Matome, or she was beaten by
Lesiba.'
In sentence 7a, the ambiguity still prevails despite bracketing. It is still not clear to
which noun the noun batswadi (parents) relates, to Matome or to Lesiba. Is it
Matome's parents or Lesiba's parents? Unlike the use of the connective particle, /e
(and), goba (or) will still leave room for doubt in example 7a above. One will keep on
guessing the correct or the intended meaning.
Sentence 7b makes it clear that batswadi is related to only one noun, Matome. In this
instance, ba Matome serves as the possessive qualifying batswadi, while Lesiba takes
the status of another NP which serves as the second agent. This second interpretation
of the given sentence is the result of the application of the deletion rule. To overtly give
the meaning as shown in sentence 7b above, the sentence has to be rewritten as
follows:
7b(i). Mokgaet§i o bethilwe ke batswadi ba Matome goba o bethilwe ke Lesiba.
`Mokgaelti was beaten by Matome's parents or she was beaten by
Lesiba.'
Sentence 7b(i), as it is, derives from the combination of two sentences, and through the
accepted transformational rules, in this case, deletion and passive rules, the two kernel
sentences combined into one. The following are the two kernel sentences forming
sentence 7b:
Page -149-
7b(ii). Batswadi ba Matome ba bethile Mokgaeta
'Matome's parents beat Mokgaetti!
7b(iii) Lesiba o bethile Mokgaeta
'Lesiba beat Mokgaet§i.'
The two distinct meanings of sentence 7b are represented in the tree diagrams below:
Figure 4.5a
Batswadi ba Matome goba Lesiba ba bethile Mokgaeta
Figure 4.5b
Page -150-
The ambiguity which is partly caused by the connective particles /e (and) and goba
(or), could be aggravated by the combination of the two. Consider the following related
but different sentences:
Ngwato goba Lesiba le Matome ba ile toropong.
Ngwato le Lesiba goba Matome ba ile toropong.
Just like the sentences discussed above, the ambiguity in sentences 8 and 9 is also
attributed to the grouping of ICs. Which immediate constituents go together, that is,
which constituents can be grouped together and which ones cannot? The connective
particle /e denotes togetherness or accompaniment, whereas the conjunction goba
denotes division, aloneness or individuality - it makes two words or ideas run parallel.
Sentence 8 may be paraphrased as in the following sentences:
8a. (Ngwato goba Lesiba) le Matome ba ile toropong.
Or rephrased as
8a(i). Matome o ile toropong le Ngwato goba Lesiba.
'Matome has gone to town (together) with Ngwato or Lesiba.'
This first interpretation implies that of the three people, Matome is the one we are sure
has gone to town, however, we are not sure as to who accompanied him, Ngwato or
Lesiba? The words grouped in the first interpretation are Ngwato goba Lesiba, though
there should be a choice between them, Ngwato and Lesiba are both not going. The
second interpretation of sentence 8 is as follows:
Page -151-
8b. Ke Ngwato yo a ilego a nnai toropong goba Lesiba le Matome ke bona
ba ba ilego toropong.
'It is Ngwato alone who went to town, or Lesiba and Matome who went
to town.'
Or rephrased as follows:
8b(i). Ngwato goba (Lesiba le Matome) ba ile toropong.
In this instance, nobody knows who went to town. It might be Ngwato alone, or Lesiba
and Matome. The brackets show that the two words which go together are Lesiba and
Matome, hence the option of them going to town together.
Sentence 9 also follows suit: though its ambiguity results from the use of the two
connective particles, goba and /e, this time le precedes goba, and this changes the
first interpretation to favour the combination (grouping) of Ngwato and Lesiba. The first
interpretation, that is, when Ngwato and Lesiba are grouped together, is that they
(Ngwato and Lesiba together) are the ones who went to town or it is Matome alone who
went to town. The second interpretation, that is, when Lesiba and Matome are
grouped together, but conjoined by goba, is that Ngwato and either of the two went to
town. In this interpretation, it is a sure case that Ngwato has gone to town, either with
Lesiba or with Matome. The following are the two paraphrases of sentence 9:
9a. (Ngwato le Lesiba) goba Matome ba lie toropong.
Ke Ngwato le Lesiba ba ba ilego toropong, goba ke Matome a nno§i yo
a ilego toropong.
'It is Ngwato and Lesiba who went to town, or Matome alone who went
there.'
Page -152-
9b. Ngwato le (Lesiba goba Matome) ba ile toropong.
Ngwato o ile toropong le Lesiba goba Matome.
'Ngwato went to town together with Lesiba or Matome.'
It has been seen how sentences whose ambiguity lies in the groupings of words within
them can be disambiguated through bracketing and tree diagrams. The ambiguity of
such sentences is on the surface structures since their disambiguation does not depend
on the deep structure analysis, that is, there is no need to investigate the deep structure
in order to decode the meanings embedded in them. Their meanings are just 'on their
sleeves'. To sum up the surface structure ambiguity, Hurford & Heasley's (1983:128)
assertion is inevitable:
Structural ambiguity is basically a question of 'what goes with what' in a
sentence, and this can be shown by diagrams of various sorts. We will
mention one such diagramming technique, constituency diagrams, which
we will present with square brackets around the relevant parts of the
sentence (or phrase).
Sentences 8 and 9 can be represented in tree diagrams as follows:
Page -153-
Ngwato goba Lesiba le Matome
ba ile toropong
Figure 4.6a
Ngwato goba Lesiba le Matome ba ile toropong
Figure 4.6b
Page -154-
Ngwato le Lesiba goba Matome ba ile toropong .4
Figure 4.7a
Ngwato le Lesiba goba Matome ba ile toropong
Figure 4.7b
Page - 155-
4.4 Deep Structure Ambiguity
It is deemed proper to introduce this subsection with a quotation from MacKay & Bever
(1967:199):
Notice that even the smallest surface structure ambiguities involve some
differences in the linguistically-analyzed underlying phrase structures. For
example, in "They fed her dog biscuits", the underlying structure either
contains "dog" as modifying "biscuits" or as being modified by "her". But
the subject-verb relation between "they" and "fed", and the verb-object
relation between "fed" and "biscuits" remains constant, whichever
interpretation of the sentence is made. These basic relations are
characteristically at issue with underlying structure ambiguities.
What Mackay & Bever mean in this assertion is that though surface structure ambiguity
is mostly concerned with the groupings of adjacent words, it is also evident in the
underlying structures. Not all structural ambiguities can be accounted for in terms of
groupings, some are accounted for in the underlying structural level. The underlying
structure ambiguity is concerned mostly with the logical relation between words and
phrases in sentences. Lyons (1968:249) supports this by saying:
One reason for introducing the notion of 'bracketing' (or constituent-
structure) into the theory of grammar is that it enables us to account
systematically for various kinds of grammatical ambiguity ... But there
are many other ambiguous constructions in different languages which
Page -156-
depend upon the 'deeper connexions' we have decided to call
transformational rattler than upon a difference of 'bracketing'.
Underlying structure ambiguity, or rather "transformational ambiguity" (Lyons, 1968:249)
involves neither a change in meaning of individual words or phrases, nor a change in
the groupings of words or phrases, but a change in the logical relations between words
and phrases. To add to this, MacKay & Bever (1967:199) in their experiment on the
ambiguity of English sentences, say that the underlying structure ambiguity involves
a change in the basic subject-verb and/or verb-object relations between words in the
main clause of the sentence, and has no surface structure differences. In the following
sentence, for example, a description of the surface syntactic units would not account
for the full set of properties of the sentence because "one surface is underlain by more
than one meaning" (Fowler, 1974:31).
10. Matome o timeffe.
`Matome is lost.'
'We lost Matome, i.e. he disappeared.'
Who is lost? Is it Matome who does not know where he is, or is it the interlocutors who
do not know Matome's whereabouts? In the first interpretation, namely, that Matome
does not know where he is, Matome is the agent whereas in the second interpretation,
namely, that some people do not know where Matome is, Matome is the patient. The
intransitive verb o timet§e, is associated with two senses in this context: firstly that he
cannot be seen, that is, we do not know his whereabouts, and secondly, that he himself
does not know his whereabouts. In traditional grammar, Matome would be referred to
Page -157-
as the object (because we lost him) in the first interpretation, and as the subject in the
second interpretation because `he does the action of not knowing where he is'. The
ambiguity here involves the subject-verb and the verb-object relations. The ambiguity
of the following sentence also involves word relations:
11. Mongwaledi o amoget§e mangwalo.
The two interpretations of the above sentence may be illustrated as follows:
Mongwaledi o amogette mangwalo
beneficiary process patient
agent process-action patient
This means 11a is the one which is perhaps more natural to sentence 11 because go
amogela (to receive) is felt to imply a beneficiary. One who `receives' is the one who
benefits. This implies that llb is also acceptable since go amogela (receiving) can,
as Fowler (1974:91) puts it, also "be regarded as a formal action (cf. The illegal act of
receiving stolen property)", hence this meaning picturing mongwaledi as someone who
sits in the office taking receipt of letters.
From the above discussions of ambiguity as embedded in the deep structure, it
becomes evident that "deep structure is the level at which an ambiguous sentence is
given two (or more) characterisations if the interpretations of the sentence have
different syntactic properties" (Kempson, 1977:180). Transformational ambiguity comes
Page -158-
in various forms, for example, "when word order is altered to make the headlines from
being too long"2 (Thome, 1997: 237). Consider the following English example as it
appears in the City Press, 23 January 2000, page 5:
Jozi stops to honour struggle stalwart Nzo.
Is Jozi the name of a person or an abbreviated form of thq city Johannesburg? That
is the first question one may ask. The second problem with the headline arises from
the verb 'stops'. In the first interpretation, it means that Jozi was in the past honouring
this stalwart, and it has now stopped honouring him. The second interpretation is that
Jozi stops doing everything in order to honour the struggle stalwart, and this is the
intended meaning - the correct interpretation of the above newspaper headline.
The following paragraphs illustrate the various forms of ambiguity embedded in the
underlying structure.
4.4.1 Word-Order
Monna yo o betha mosadi.
'This man beats the woman'
Mosadi o betha monna yo.
The woman beats this man.'
2There was not even a single newspaper written in Northern Sotho when this investigation was written. As such, the researcher resorted to an English example.
Page -159-
The two sentences above are both not only grammatical, but they also contain the
same words (lexical items); but due to their different word order, they have two distinct
meanings. Each and every language has its own rules pertaining to the order of words
within sentences. This idea is supported by Lyons (1970:49-50) who says:
However, following Chomsky, we will make it a matter of definition that
every different sequence of words (if it is well-formed) is a different
sentence. Under this definition, not only are 'The dog bit the man' and
'The man bit the dog' different sentences, but also are 'I had an idea on
my way home' and 'On my way home I had an idea'.
In this extract, Lyons emphasises the importance of word-order in a sentence. A
change in the order of words within a sentence implies a drastic change in meaning as
in the above examples (12a and 12b) or mild modification of meaning as will be seen
in the paragraphs that follow. Word order, according to Finegan (1994:127) is a
potential marker of meaning in all the world's languages. This point is also emphasised
by Aarts & Aarts (1988:7):
... one of the factors that determines the structure of a sentence is the
order in which the words are arranged. It is obvious that this order is
subject to strict rules.
Any deviation to the rule is not just done without purpose. Careless word-order is
regarded by many linguists as the commonest cause of ambiguity. Sentences 12a and
Page -160-
12b may be said to be paraphrases of sentence 12 below:
Yo monna, mosadi o a mmetha.
The above sentence may be said to be ambiguous mainly because "it has two (or
more) paraphrases which are not themselves paraphrases of each other" (Hurford &
Heasley, 1983:121), namely, sentences 12a & 12b above. It is not explicitly stated who.
between monna (man) and mosadi (woman), is executing the action of betha (beat).
Is it the man who beats the woman as in sentence 12a or the woman who beats a man
as in sentence 12b? It is being said that sometimes the word-order is tempered with
for the sake of emphasis - but is there emphasis in sentence 12? In the first
interpretation (sentence 12a), monna is the NP which serves as the subject (NP 1 ),
whereas in the second interpretation (sentence 12b), he (monna) is the NP which
serves as the object (NP 2). It is the subject-verb and/or verb-object relations that are
accountable for the ambiguity of sentence 12.
The rule-of-Thumb, as Kahn & Ilson (1985:40) suggest, is to place related words as near
to each other as possible. Take for example, the following five sentences which are all
ambiguous because of the positioning of an adverb of place:
Banna ba bethile mosadi wa go kgoga lebake ka kerekeng.
The men beat the woman who smoked dagga in the church.'
Banna ba bethile mosadi wa go nwa bjala ka pareng.
The men beat the woman who drank beer in the beer hall.'
Page -161-
Ba§emane ba bone mosadi wa go belega sepetlele.
'The boys saw the woman who gave birth in hospital.'
Makgema a bolaile mosadi wa go leta dinonyana maemong.
'The giants killed the woman who guarded the birds at the fields.'
Each of the above sentences has at least two possible meanings, and their ambiguity
is due to the positioning of the adverbial phrase. The reason for the ambiguity of such
sentences as those above is a reluctance to exploit the full resources of Northern
Sotho word-order. It is true that the normal Northern Sotho word-order after the subject
is the verb followed by the object, and finally the adverbial phrase; implying that the
ADVP is always at the end of the sentence, as in sentences 13 - 16 above. However,
that is not the only acceptable order in Northern Sotho. It is perfectly correct to have
the ADVP fore-fronted as in example 13a or 13b and 13c with the verb being
passivised:
Ka kerekeng banna ba bethile mosadi wa go kgoga lebake.
'In the church the men beat the woman who smoked dagga.'
Ka kerekeng mosadi wa go kgoga lebake o bethilwe ke banna.
`In the church the woman who smoked dagga was beaten by the men.'
Mosadi wa go kgoga lebake ka kerekeng o bethilwe ke banna.
'The woman who smoked dagga in the church was beaten by the men.'
In example 13c the adverbial phrase occurs after the verb wa go kgoga and describes
this verb and not both the verbs wa go kgoga and o bethile. However, as a warning
concerning sentences such as 13a and 13b above, Kahn & Ilson (1985:41) say:
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Unusual or 'marked' word-order of this kind should be used sparingly, of
course - as a rule, only when striving for emphasis or contrast - but it is
an essential resource for preventing ambiguity.
The above examples are all complex sentences, that is, they "are composed of more
than one predicative elements, one of them comprising the main predicate, the other
or others comprising subordinate predicates" (Doke & Mofokeng, 1985:387). The
trouble with these sentences is that it is not clear to which predicative element the
ADVP relates, the main or the subordinate. Take sentence 13 for example, the ADVP
ka kerekeng denotes a place where the action occurred, but which action? There are
two actions here, namely that of 'beating' (betha) which is the main action, and that of
'smoking' (kgoga) which is subordinate. The question remains which verb is modified
by this ADVP, that is, did the 'beating' occur in the church as in 13a, or did the 'smoking'
occur in the church as in 13c, or did 'the beating' and 'the smoking' occur in the church,
that is, 'simultaneously' as in sentence 13b?
The same holds true for the other sentences above. They can respectively be
paraphrased as follows:
Ka pareng banna ba bethile mosadi wa go nwa bjala.
'In the beer-hall the men beat the woman who drank beer.'
Ka pareng mosadi wa go nwa bjala o bethilwe ke banna.
'In the beer-hall the woman who drank beer was beaten by the men.'
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14c. Mosadi wa go nwa bjala ka pareng o bethilwe ke banna.
'The woman who drank beer in the beer-hall was beaten by the men.'
Sepetlele baS'emane ba bone mosadi wa go belega.
'In hospital the boys saw a woman who gave birth/ was giving birth.'
Sepetlele mosadi wa go belega o bonwe ke baS'emane.
'In hospital the woman who gave birth was seen by the boys.'
Mosadi wa go belega sepetlele o bonwe ke baS'emane.
'The woman who gave birth in hospital was seen by the boys.'
MaS'emong makgema a bolaile mosadi wa go leta dinonyana.
'In the fields the giants killed the woman who guarded the birds.'
Ma§emong mosadi wa go leta dinonyana o bolailwe ke makgema.
'In the fields the woman who guarded the birds was killed by the giants.'
Mosadi wa go leta dinonyana maS'emong o bolailwe ke makgema.
'The woman who guarded the birds in the fields was killed by the giants.'
As seen in these paraphrases, sentences 14 - 16 are all multiply ambiguous, that is they
have more than two paraphrases which are themselves not synonymous. The multiple
meaning is due to their having more than one predicative element each - and each
ADVP relating to the two predicative elements individually or to both. It is not only the
positioning of an adverb of place which creates ambiguity in complex sentences, but
also an adverb of time. Consider the following sentence:
17. Maphodisa a swere maemane wa go utswa maabane.
'The police arrested the boy who stole yesterday.'
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What does maabane (yesterday) relate to? To swere (arrested) or to utswa (steal)?
It is possible that the context would make it clear - if there was one boy who was known
for being a natural thief for example, then maabane would obviously be modifying
swere (arrested). But if it was a known fact that, for instance, all the police were on
strike yesterday, then maabane would be relating to utswa (steal). To disambiguate it,
the sentence should be rephrased as follows:
Maabane maphodisa a swere maemane wa go utswa.
'Yesterday the police arrested the boy who stole.'
Maabane mo§emane wa go utswa o swerwe ke maphodisa.
'Yesterday the boy who stole was arrested by the police.'
Mo§emane wa go utswa maabane o swerwe ke maphodisa.
The boy who stole yesterday was arrested by the police.'
Like the adverb of time, the placing of the adverb of manner can also lead to ambiguity.
Consider the following sentence:
18. Banna ba leka go lokga sefatanaga gape.
The men are trying to fix the car again.'
Was the car once fixed in the past or is it just that the previous attempts have been
made to fix it, that is, are they fixing it again (for the second/third time), or are they trying
again (that is, for the second time because the first time their trial was in vain) to fix it?
It is once more the final word which is responsible for the ambiguity of this sentence.
It is not clear to which verb gape (again) relates - to leka (try) or to loki§a (fix).
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If one ADVP leads to ambiguity, what happens if more adverbs are used in a sentence?
The following sentence illustrates the complexity which is caused by using two adverbs
in a sentence without taking their positioning into consideration:
19. Maphodisa a swere maemane wa go utswa pankeng maabane.
'The police have arrested the boy who stole at the bank yesterday.'
The only point about this sentence that is clear is that the police have arrested a boy
who stole. What is not clear about the remaining part is whether:
the boy who stole was arrested yesterday
the boy was arrested at the bank
- the boy stole at the bank
the boy stole yesterday
For the sake of clarity, the sentence may be paraphrased as follows:
Maabane ka pankeng maphodisa a swere maemane wa go utswa.
'Yesterday in the bank the police arrested the boy who stole.'
Maabane maphodisa a swere mo§emane wa go utswa ka gare ga panka.
'Yesterday the police arrested the boy who stole in the bank.'
Maabane maemane wa go utswa ka pankeng o swerwe ke maphodisa.
'Yesterday the boy who stole in the bank was arrested by the police.'
Maemane wa go utswa maabane ka pankeng o swerwe ke maphodisa.
'The boy who stole yesterday in the bank was arrested by the police.'
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19e. Ka pankeng maabane maphodisa a swere maemane wa go utswa.
'In the bank yesterday the police arrested the boy who stole.'
About sentences such as 19d and 19e above, Lyons (1981:150) has this to say:
Much such pairs of sentences, if not all, are truth-conditionally equivalent,
and therefore have the same propositional content. Arguably, however,
they differ in thematic meaning, in much the same way that 'I have not
read this book', 'This book I have not read', etc. differ from one another
in thematic meaning.
The above discussion illustrates that careless word-order is another cause of ambiguity.
It becomes clear that "it is important to structure sentences in such a way that the
intended relationship between words or phrases is clear, and that no unintended
relationship is inadvertently set up" ( Kahn & Ilson, 1985:40).
4.4.2 Range of a Word's Reference
Uncertainty over the range of a word's meaning is another cause of ambiguity. In
Northen Sotho, a word which is mostly associated with this uncertainty is the connective
particle /e (and). As seen in paragraph 4.3 above, when two or more nouns which are
combined by the connective particle le are to be quantified, confusion as to whether the
quantifier modifies all of them, or just one (the one which immediately succeeds this
connective particle) prevails. In this subsection, the connective particle /e, will be viewed
from another angle - being related not only to nouns as in paragraph 4.3 above, but also
to verbs, that is, the confusion it causes when it links Noun Phrases or Noun Phrases
Page -167-
where the predicate has been deleted in the second NP.
The connective particle /e does not have many meanings, but it is responsible for the
ambiguity of most sentences in Northern Sotho. Its English equivalent is also
problematic, hence Kahn & Ilson's comments:
As it happens, however, the word and is responsible for causing ambiguity
far more often than it is for relieving it. The and in the middle of a
sentence tends to generate doubts about the range of a word's references
(1985:44).
Consider the following ambiguous sentence:
20. Ge o fihla gae, o game dikgomo le mosadi wa gago.
'When you arrive at home, milk the cows together with your wife.'
The above sentence was uttered towards a man who was physically abused by his wife.
It was the wife's trend to beat him every day after sunset. So this man consulted the
diviner with the intention of getting a 'cure' for his abuse by his wife, that is, he wanted
the 'doctor' to prescribe 'medicine' which would stop his wife from assaulting him.
Indeed the diviner gave him some 'medicine' to take home and instructed him to mix it
with milk before using it. This family had a baby by then. The last instruction, given to
the man by the diviner is reflected in sentence 20 above.
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Upon arrival at home, the man unduly requested his wife to help him milk the cows. After
mixing 'the medicine' with milk, and executing the diviner's instructions, the wife started
assaulting him as usual. He went back to the diviner to lodge a complaint. The diviner
became doubtful as to whether his 'instructions' were carried out meticulously. As a
result, the diviner asked him again:
20(i). 0 re o gamile dikgomo le mosadi wa gago?
'You say you milked the cows together with your wife?'
'You say you milked the cows as well as your wife?'
The man answered positively. Still the diviner was doubtful. The man, angry as he
was, tormented the diviner, claiming that the diviner's muti was useless. He left the
diviner an angry man.
With this background, the ambiguity of sentence 20 above becomes indisputable. The
"doctor' gave the man instructions, but the man 'did not follow them'. What the diviner
wanted this man to do was to milk the cows and thereafter 'milk the wife', but the man
understood the instruction to mean milking the cows with the help of his wife, hence the
muti became ineffective. If the diviner had rephrased his instruction as in 20a below,
the man would not have done the wrong thing, that is, that of requesting his wife to help
him milk the cows. Perhaps the muti would not have been useless.
20a. Ge o fihia gae, o game mosadi wa gago le dikgomo.
When you arrive home, milk your wife and the cows.'
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The second paraphrase may be as follows:
20b. Ge o fihia gae wena le mosadi wa gago le game dikgomo.
'When you arrive home, you and your wife should milk the cows.'
The connective particle le in the above example elicits two functions, that of joining the
two nouns as objects (as in 20a), or as conjoined subjects (as in 20b). That is, it serves
the function of the English conjunction and, conjoining two NPs, as well as of an English
preposition with, one NP helping the other NP to perform an action. The following
sentences are also ambiguous due to the ambiguity of le:
Bomma ba rile ke hlapi§e ngwana le monna wa ka.
'My mother told me to wash my child as well as my husband.'
Batswadi ba lena ba rile le namele ditonki le basadi ba lena.
'Your parents said you should ride the donkeys and your wives'.
To which word does le in sentence 21 refer? Does it join the two NP 2's, ngwana and
monna wa ka, or does it mark the last NP as a co-subject, that is, does monna wa ka
also serve as the subject of the verb ke hlapi§e? If it relates to the two object NP 2's,
then the verb ke hlapi§e (I wash) takes both NPs, namely, ngwana and monna wa ka,
as objects. If it relates to the NP,, nna (implied in the subject concord first person
singular ke) and the second NP2, monna wa ka, then monna helps the speaker in
executing the action. The same applies to example 22. Le may be linking the two NPs,
namely, ditonki and basadi ba lena, where the action of riding occurs on the both, or it
may be linking the NI:), lena (you) and the last NP 2 (basadi ba lena), meaning that lena
Page -170-
(you) should together with basadi, ride the donkeys. The following paraphrases
disambiguate these two sentences:
Bomma ba rile ke hlapi§e ngwana ke be ke hlapi§e le monna wa ka.
'My mother told me to wash the child as well as my husband.'
Bomma ba rile nna le monna wa ka re hlapi§e ngwana.
`My mother said that I together with my husband should wash the child.'
Batswadi ba lena ba rile le namele ditonki le be le namele le basadi ba
lena.
'Your parents said that you should ride the donkeys as well as your wives.'
Batswadi ba lena ba rye lena le basadi ba lena le namele ditonki.
'Your parents said that you and your wives should ride the donkeys.'
The following sentence also shows the same signs of ambiguity brought about by the
use of the connective particle le:
23. Matome o tswet§e mo§emanyana le ngwanenyana.
`Matome begot a boy-child and a girl-child.'
It is not clear in example 23 whether le joins the two NPs, maemanyana and
ngwanenyana, meaning that both are the children of Matome, or whether it conjoins the
last NP ngwanenyana and the first NP, Matome, meaning mosetsana 'helped' Matome
in the creation of mo§emane. The most obvious meaning is the one in which le conjoins
the two last NPs forming one constituent. The other meaning, which is a bit covert, is
the one in which le gives the meaning of 'with' or 'help', implying that the subject,
Page -171-
Matome, with the help of this young girl (ngwanenyana), begot a boy-child. Hereunder
follow the unambiguous versions of sentence 23:
Matome o tswetS'e ngwaneyana le mo§emanyana.
`Matome begot a baby-girl and a baby-boy.'
Matome le ngwanenyana ba tswet§e mo§emanyana.
'Matome and a girl are blessed with a baby-boy.'
Version 23a is interesting in that the two last NPs just exchanged positions and the
sentence became unambiguous. The reason for its disambiguation is that the last NP,
moS'emanyana 'being a man himself cannot 'help' another man, Matome, in procreating
ngwanenyana.
Sentence 24 below also shows the ambiguity which is caused by the connective particle
le:
24. Lesiba o na le bana le basadi ba babedi.
Lesiba has children and two women (wives).'
In the above example (24), it is the second /e which renders the sentence ambiguous.
It is not clear whether bane and basadi ba babedi form one constituent, that is, one NP,
meaning that Lesiba has children and two wives, or basadi ba babedi go together with
Lesiba, meaning that Lesiba together with the two wives have children. Does it mean
that both these wives have children, or these children belong to one of them, or the
children belong to Lesiba alone, that is, children from extramarital affairs and his wives
do not have children? Again it is not clear whether the qualificative ba babedi refers to
Page -172-
basadi only or to basadi as well as bana, meaning the children are two and the women
are also two. This is a multiply ambiguous sentence. It is not only structurally
ambiguous, but also lexically ambiguous. As Lyons (1977:400) puts it, "there is nothing
in our definition of grammatical ambiguity which excludes the possibility that a sentence
may be both lexically and grammatically ambiguous". The copulative verb o na followed
by the associative particle le renders ambiguity. Firstly, it implies togetherness, that is,
Lesiba is together with children and his two wives. Secondly, it may imply possession,
that is, Lesiba possesses children and women, and lastly, procreation, meaning Lesiba
together with his wives procreated the children. Sentence 24 may be paraphrased as
follows:
Lesiba le basadi ba gagwe ba babedi ba na le bana.
Lesiba and his two wives have children.'
Lesiba o na le bana gape e bile o na le basadi ba babedi.
'Lesiba has children and he also has two wives.'
Lesiba o na le bana ba babedi gape o na le basadi ba babedi.
. 'Lesiba has two children and two wives.'
Lesiba o na le bana basading ba babedi ba go fapana.
'Lesiba has children with two different women.'
4.4.3 Ellipsis
Ellipsis is defined by Crystal (1991:120) as a
... term used in GRAMMATICAL analysis to refer to a SENTENCE where,
for reasons of economy, emphasis or style, a part of the STRUCTURE
Page -173-
has been omitted, which is recoverable from scrutiny of the CONTEXT.
This definition leaves one with one serious question: Is it always possible to recover all
omitted grammatical structures or are all omitted structures unambiguously specifiable?
If the answer to these two questions is no, then ellipsis can easily fall prey to ambiguity.
As Kahn & Ilson (1985:44) put it, "the lazy omission of words on the one hand, and the
overzealous attempt to pack too much meaning into too little space on the other - these
are responsible for many an awkward construction or outright blunder." Consider the
following example:
25. Matome o rata Mokgaelti go feta Lesiba.
`Matome loves Mokgaethi more than Lesiba.'
The ambiguity of the above sentence is due to the deletion of some words which were
identical with some of the remaining words. As Elgin (1979:54) puts it, "the deleted
word(s) must have an identical counterpart which is not deleted." This is proved in the
above sentence, though the ellipsis has caused the ambiguity. The first interpretation
of the sentence owes its existence to the deleted words - ka mokgwa woo a ratago -
which should be inserted immediately before Lesiba. The sentence would then read:
25a. Matome o rata Mokgaet§i go feta ka mokgwa woo a ratago Lesiba ka
gona.
`Matome likes Mokgaethi more than he likes Lesiba.'
This implies that Matome likes two people, namely, Mokgaethi and Lesiba, but his love
for Mokgaethi is more than his love for Lesiba. The second interpretation stems from
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the deletion of the words - ka mokgwa woo and a mo ratago ka gona - where the object
concord mo refers to Mokgaet§i. The first word-group, ka mokgwa woo should be
inserted immediately before Lesiba and the second group - a mo ratago ka gona, should
be inserted immediately after Lesiba. The sentence would then read:
25b. Matome o rata Mokgaegi go feta ka mokgwa woo Lesiba a mo ratago ka
gona.
`Matome likes Mokgaet§i more than the way Lesiba likes her.'
The implication in this case is that Mokgaethi is being liked by two people, namely,
Matome and Lesiba, but Matome's love of her is more than Lesiba's. In both
interpretations, the deleted words are recoverable, backing Crystal's warning that the
deleted parts of the sentence should be "recoverable from a scrutiny of the CONTEXT"
(1991:120). But the rules of deletion here fail to heed the warning that the omitted
parts of the sentence should "be unambiguously specifiable" ( Crystal, ibid). The same
can be said of the following sentence:
26. Matome o nagana kudu ka Mokgaeai go phala Lesiba.
Matome thinks too much of Mokgaetti more than Lesiba.'
The ambiguity of the two sentences, just like in sentence 25, is due to the deletion of
some words within them. In 26, one interpretation is that Matome thinks of two people,
Mokgaelti and Lesiba, but he thinks of Mokgaegi more than he thinks of Lesiba. The
other interpretation is that Mokgaethi is being thought of by two gentlemen, Matome and
Lesiba, but Matome thinks of her more often than Lesiba does. If the deleted words are
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to be recovered, the two interpretations would be as follows:
Matome o nagana ka Mokgaet§i go phala ka moo a naganago ka Lesiba.
`Matome thinks of Mokgaet§i more than he thinks of Lesiba.'
Matome o nagana ka Mokgaetti go feta ka mokgwa woo Lesiba a
naganago Mokgaet§i ka gona.
`Matome thinks of Mokgaetti more than Lesiba does.'
The same holds true for the sentence below:
27. Ke tseba basadi ba babotse go phala Raesibe.
1 know many beautiful women than Raesibe.'
Sentence 27 compares the beauty of different people, on one hand, of some people,
and on the other, of Raesibe. The fact that in one of the meanings Raesibe is seen as
a beauty is indisputable. On the contrary, the speaker confesses that he saw some
women who are more beautiful than Raesibe. This implies that the speaker knows two
groups of beauties, 'other women' and Raesibe, and he is convinced that these other
women are more beautiful than Raesibe. On the other hand, the sentence may have
the meaning that the speaker as well as Raesibe, know beautiful women, but the
speaker's knowledge of these people is more than Raesibe's knowledge. In other
words, Raesibe knows fewer beautiful women whereas the speaker knows many. In
paraphrases, the interpretations may be illustrated as follows:
27a. Ke tseba basadi ba go phala Raesibe ka bobotse.
`I know women who are more beautiful than Raesibe.'
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27b. Ke tseba basadi ba babotse go phala ka moo Raesibe a ba tsebago ka
gona.
'I know beautiful women more than Raesibe does.'
As seen in the above discussions, the omitted sentence fragment in each sentence is
"identical to the one which occurs elsewhere in the same sentence or discourse"
(Radford, 1981:66). This is illustrated in examples 25 and 26 above. Notwithstanding,
ellipsis also serves as fertile soil for ambiguity.
4.4.4 Nominalisation
Nominalization is, according to Jacobs & Rosenbaum (1968:225), one of the
commonest features of human languages which is still little understood. This view is
enhanced by Wonder (1970:254) who says:
A problem of recurring interest in English grammar and the grammar of
related and even non-related languages is that of the nominalization
process.
In Northern Sotho, this process is brought about, in the first instance, by the affixation
of the noun class prefix go- to verb stems. For example, go- + - thungha (shoot) = go
thunt§ha (the shooting). In the second instance, this process of nominalisation is
brought about by forming a deverbative noun. For example, the deverbative noun
thungho (the shooting) derives from the verb stem -thuntS"ha (shoot). Wonder
(1970:254) emphasiSes the same view when he says:
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It is here assumed a priori that nominalizations originate from their
corresponding verbals, which is in accord with most prevailing thought
regarding the matter.
The first example, go thungha, can function as a noun 'shooting' as well as a verb `to
shoot', whereas thungho can only function as a noun. However, it is the latter (single
functional word) which is capable of rendering a sentence ambiguous. Take, for
example, the following sentence which is ambiguous, as it is not certain whether batsomi
ba a thungha (the hunters are shooting) or someone is shooting the hunters.
28. Thunt§ho ya batsomi e bile gampe.
'The shooting of the hunters was bad.'
The above sentence is ambiguous because (a) thungha may be used both transitively
and intransitively or "pseudo-intransitively" (Lyons, 1968:251) and (b) batsomi may occur
in sentences containing the verb stem thunitha as either the subject of the 'intransitive'
verb (e.g. Batsomi ba a thungha 'The hunters shoot') or the object of the 'transitive' verb
(e.g. Maphodisa a thunt§hit§e batsomi The police shot the hunters'). It must be noted
that ambiguous sentences like example 28 are closely related to passive constructions,
for example, Batsomi ba thunt§higwe (ke maphodisa) (The hunters were shot (by the
police)). This is also stressed by Lyons (1968:251):
With a 'fully transitive' verb (i.e. with a verb which has an overt and
specific object) phrases of the form the V + ing of the NP do not normally
admit of a subjective interpretation: they cannot be extended with an
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objective of NP. ... Instead, the subjective NP takes the 'possessive' suffix
and the objective NP the preposition of: ...
In Northern Sotho, a sequence like the following is not acceptable perhaps because the
verb is 'fully transitive' and thus cannot admit a 'subjective interpretation':
28(i). *Thunt§ho ya batsomi ya ditau e bile gampe.
'The shooting of the hunters of the lions was bad.'
On the problem of transitivity, Whiteley (in Fortune,1973:112) concludes that
... verbs cannot usefully be classified in terms of a transitive/intransitive
distinction since a very large number of verbs may be transitive or
intransitive depending, not on the type of clause in which they occur, but
rather on the particular subject- and object- relationships which subtend.
The first interpretation of sentence 28, that in which batsomi is the subject of thunt§ha,
arises from the fact that "when verbals are intransitive, a nominalization may result in
which the positions of the subject and the verbal are reversed" (Jacobs & Rosenbaum,
1968:227). The subject 'batsomi' and the verbal 'ba a thunt§ha'were interchanged. The
deep structure was basically that of 28a below:
28a. Batsomi ba thunt§ha (se sengwe, mohiala, ditau).
'The hunters are shooting (something, for example, the lions).'
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The second interpretation, that in which batsomi is the object of thungha, arises from
the deep structure of an embedded sentence roughly equivalent to
28b. Motho yo mongwe o thungha batsomi.
'Somebody shoots the hunters.'
The problem of nominalisation in English, unlike in Northern Sotho, stems from the point
that there is a distinction between the 'participle' and the 'gerund'. Lyons (1968:250)
distinguishes them as follows:
A participle is a word which is derived from a verb and used as an
adjective.
A gerund 3 is a word which is derived from a verb and used as a noun.
In Northern Sotho, it is not a matter of a deverbative noun functioning as a noun or as
an adjective, but it is a problem of who is executing the action. In example 28 above,
it is not clear who shoots, is it the hunters themselves, or is it an unspecified 'someone'?
The same question holds for the following sentence:
29. Ketelo ya metswalle e a lapga.
'Visiting relatives is tiresome.'
3 In the study of Northern Sotho, the term deverbative is generally used for 'gerund'.
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Looking at the English translation, it can be argued that the sentence is unambiguous
given the fact that the verb 'is' is singular, and thus it is in agreement with its NP,
'visiting relatives', which functions as the subject. The nominal 'visiting' is a head and
'relatives' a modifier, hence the whole phrase being the subject. To this end, Lyons
(1968:250) concurs:
Traditional statements about the 'participle' and the 'gerund' are
transformational in nature. We can interpret them to mean that a particular
word ... may be 'verbal' in one • sentence and 'adjectival' in a
transformationally-related phrase, or 'verbal' in one sentence and
'nominal' in a transformationally-related phrase.
Contrary to the English equivalent, the Northern Sotho version (29) is ambiguous. The
transformational rules relate it to two non-ambiguous sentences, each of which can be
said to paraphrase sentence 29 under a particular interpretation:
29a: Metswalle yeo e etelago e a lapga.
'Relatives who visit are tiresome.'
29b. Go etela metswalle ga rena go a lapis a.
'Our visiting the relatives is tiresome.'
In 29a, it is metswalle (relatives) who perform the action of go etela (visiting) whereas
in 29b the action is executed by the speakers (rena - we). The other factor that is
responsible for the ambiguity of 29 above, is the possibility of using the verb stem etela
either transitively or intransitively. This factor is viewed critically by Lyons (1977:402):
Page -181-
If the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs is taken to be
criteria! for their classification as distinct lexemes (and this is perhaps
arguable), then (9) would be held to exhibit lexical as well as grammatical
ambiguity: for 'fly1' and 'fly2' would then be partial homonyms. The
sentence would also be lexically ambiguous if 'fly' were classified in the
lexicon as a single polysemous verb with two meanings.
As said and illustrated in the above sections, "the underlying structural level of
sentences represents the essential "logical" relations between words and phrases"
(MacKay, 1967:193). Take for instance, the following sentence:
30. Kgogi e laetge maphodisa go fediga go nwa.
'The king ordered the police to stop drinking.'
In this sentence are maphodisa (the police) doing go nwa (the drinking), or is it
somebody else who is doing this action? The sentence is ambiguous at the underlying
structure level since only the logical relations between maphodisa and go nwa is altered
in the two interpretations. The first proposition may be that maphodisa were drinking
and kgogi (the king) has ordered them to stop drinking. Hence here maphodisa is the
subject of the verb go nwa. The second proposition may be that people other than
maphodisa were drinking and kgogi ordered the maphodisa to stop those people from
drinking. The police in this instance cause other people to stop drinking, hence the verb
stem fedig a, meaning 'cause to finish'. Go nwa in this instance is an NP which functions
as the object of fediga. The ambiguity caused by the use of the causative verbal
extension is also evident in the following sentence:
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31. Batho ba kgopette thu§o ya go lwant§ha bosenyi maphodiseng.
'People requested help to combat crime from the police.'
Who is committing crime, is it the police or some people other than the police? The two
interpretations of sentence 31 may be rendered as follows:
Batho ba kgopege thu§o ya go lwant§ha bosenyi bjo bo dirwago ke
maphodisa.
'People requested help to combat crime which is being committed by the
police.'
Batho ba kgopege thu§o maphodiseng ya go lwangha bosenyi.
'People requested help from the police to combat crime.'
Still on the ambiguity which is due to nominalisation, the sentence below is ambiguous
though the English version remains unambiguous:
32. Go !want§ ha ditau go kotsi.
'Fighting lions is dangerous.'
In English, as in example 29b above, it is the copulative verb 'is' which makes the
sentence unambiguous, for it only refers to 'the fighting of the lions', and not 'someone
fighting the lions' as is the case in Northern Sotho. The first Northern Sotho
interpretation is that someone is fighting against the lions. The second interpretation is
that someone 'causes the lions to fight amongst themselves'. These two propositions
may be paraphrased as follows:
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Go lwa le ditau go kotsi.
'Fighting against the lions is dangerous.'
Go lwe§a ditau go kotsi.
`Causing the lions to fight is dangerous.'
As seen in the above paragraphs, nominalisation serves as another fertile soil for
ambiguity. The analysis of tne nominalised forms into nouns and verbs, or participle
and gerund as in English, is the solution to ambiguities brought about by nominalisation.
But, as Wonder (1970:267) observes, "such analysis does not, however, explicate the
problem of ambiguity, but merely paraphrases the difference."
4.4.5 Possession
Possession is defined by Trask (1993:212) as
A general name for any relation between two noun phrases by which the second
in some sense 'belongs to' the first. Possession is expressed in two main ways:
(1) by a possessive construction, in which both NPs involved typically form a
single larger NP,
This definition, viewed critically, is applicable to English and perhaps other languages,
but not to Northern Sotho, especially the part which says "the second in some sense
belongs to the first". In English, it is true that in an NP like 'Peter's pen', the second
which is 'pen' belongs to the first which is 'Peter'. On the contrary, (though even in
English there are NPs like 'the pen of Peter' for example) in Northern Sotho the opposite
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holds true; the first noun 'in a sense belongs' to the second noun, for example, in the
phrase Adp§a ya tate the 'first', mp§a, belongs to the 'second', tate. The second noun
is used to qualify the first noun, in other words, the first noun is the 'possessed' whilst
the second noun is the possessor. With the 'possessed - possessor' relations in mind,
consider the following sentence:
33. Lerato la Modimo le bohlokv•a.
`God's love is important.'
Lerato (love), the first noun of the NP, is the possessed, and Modimo (God) the second
noun of the phrase, is the possessor. It is the love 'that belongs to' God which is
important. In this sense, it is Modimo who has love; it is Modimo who loves, thus
making him (God) the subject of the sentence (cf.33a). Is Modimo still the possessor
in sentence 33b? Modimo in sentence 33b is not the one who has the love, but it is
mankind who has lerato (love) which should be given to Modimo. Modimo turns to be
the recipient, the one who receives lerato from mankind, thus making him (Modimo) the
object of the verb 'love'. The following are two Northern Sotho sentences which are
paraphrases of the ambiguous sentence (33) "which are not themselves paraphrases
of each other" (Hurford & Heasley, 1983:121):
Modimo o rata (batho).
'God loves (mankind).'
(Batho) ba rata Modimo.
`(Mankind) loves God.'
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The following sentence is also ambiguous, and its ambiguity is a bit complex, for it is not
clear whether the speaker's mistress and Lesiba share the book, or the speaker and
Lesiba share the lady. It is still a problem of possessed-possessor relationship. The
possessor is clear; what causes confusion is the possessed - is it the lady or the book?
34. Puku ye ke ya motlabo wa ka le Lesiba.
This book belongs to my mistress and Lesiba.'
In the first sense, puku (the book) is 'the possessed' which is owned by the speaker's
mistress and Lesiba, that is to say that the book belongs to them (Lesiba and the
mistress) together, implying that 'the possessor' comprises both motlabo wa ka (my
mistress) and Lesiba. The second sense has motlabo (the mistress) as 'the possessed'
and the speaker and Lesiba possessing this mistress. Thus the speaker and Lesiba act
in this sense as 'the possessor'. These senses may be simplified as follows:
Lesiba le motlabo wa ka ke beng ba puku ye.
'Lesiba and my mistress are the owners of this book.'
Puku ye ke ya motlabo wa ka yoo e bilego e le motlabo wa Lesiba.
'This book belongs to my mistress who is also Lesiba's mistress.'
In the above examples, it becomes evident that possession serves the function of a
qualificative, whether it indicates an animate or an inanimate object. On the contrary,
Ziervogel et al. (1977:50) argue that "when a possessive stem does not indicate a
person or a living object but an inanimate object, the possessive functions as an English
adjective". It seems they (Ziervogel et al.) have forgotten that an adjective always
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functions as a qualificative, and that is what the possessive stem in Northern Sotho
always does, irrespective of whether it refers to animate or inanimate objects. Consider
the following sentence:
35. Ke founo ya gago.
'It is your phone.'
Out of context, the above sentence is highly ambiguous. It is not clear-whether it is
referring to the phone as an equipment (instrument) or to the call. If the people are in
an office, and the phone rings, then founo will be referring to a call. If someone comes
from a phone shop, upon presenting a gift to someone else (s)he utters sentence 35
above, then founo refers to an instrument. Though structurally ambiguous, example 35
seems to be lexically ambiguous too, for the word founo refers to two things, namely,
an instrument as well as a call. On this point of 'mixed' ambiguities, Lyons (1977:400)
says:
The third point to which the reader's attention is drawn is that there is
nothing in our definition of grammatical ambiguity which excludes the
possibility that a sentence may be both lexically and grammatically
ambiguous.
As said in the previous paragraph, the possessive stem ya gago (yours) also qualifies
its antecedent in sentence 35. The following sentence is characterised by double
quantification, and there is an uncertainty over the range of reference for the second
quantifier. As Roberts (1964:245) puts it, "the more transformations a noun phrase
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contains, the more chances there are that it will be ambiguous".
36. Monna wa mosadi wa go nona o tlile.
The fat woman's husband has come.'
It is a clear case from the above sentence that monna (the man) is the possessed, and
mosadi (the woman) is the possessor. The noun monna has been qualified by another
noun, mosadi in this case. There follows another clause which serves the function of
an adjective, namely, wa go none (the fat one). It is not clear in this sentence whether
this clause relates to mosadi (the possessor) or to monna (the possessed). Who is fat,
mosadi or monna? In an attempt to answer that, Hawkes (1977:26) has this to say:
It has been pointed out that the mode of language is fundamentally one
of sequential movement through time. It follows from this that each word
will have a linear of 'horizontal' relationship with the words that precede
and succeed it, and a good deal of its capacity to 'mean' various things
derives from this pattern of positioning.
It is indeed its pattern of positioning which causes confusion in this sentence. The
adjectival clause may be related to the possessed, and thus qualifying him, or
alternatively, it may be related to the possessor, and thus qualifying her as the one who
is fat. To disambiguate sentence 36, the reshuffling of its words is necessary. Take
care of the following paraphrases:
Page -188-
Monna yoo mosadi wa gagwe a nonnego o tlile.
'The man whose wife is fat has come.'
Monna yo a nonnego wa mosadi o tlile.
'The fat man of a woman has come.'
'The fat married man has come.'
4.4.6 Unambiguous yet Ambiguous
37. Moisa yo wa lekgowa o ratana le mosetsana wa mosotho. 0 tsene sekolo
gona mo go rena. 4
'This white chap is in love with a black girl. He/she attended school here
at our place.'
Anything wrong with the sentence? Nothing, but its ambiguous meaning. The words
in the sentence above are not ambiguous, yet the sentence is ambiguous. The
sentence has two nouns, moisa (a chap) and mosetsana (girl) which both relate to the
verb stem ratana (love each other), but of the two, who has attended school at our
place? To whom does the subject concord o which is a class 1/1a noun refer in the
complementary sentence 0 tsene sekolo gona mo go rena; to moisa or mosetsana?
Is it 'this white guy' or 'this black girl' who attended school?
From the above discussion it becomes clear that though unambiguous, some words or
agreement morphemes may render the sentence ambiguous due to their failure to make
it clear to what part of the sentence they refer. In sentence 37 above, it is not clear to
which noun (moisa or mosetsana) the subject concord o refers. This point is also
realised by Caramazza & Grobler (in Simpson, 1979:2) who say that "even words that
4Thanks to Dr Sekgothe Mokgoat§aria for this example.
Page -189-
appear to have only one meaning are likely to have very fine nuances of meaning that
are sensitive to the contexts in which they might occur." This type of confusion is, as
some linguists have observed, peculiar to pronouns. In example 37, 0 "would be said
to stand in a relation of anaphora, it relates back (Greek ana 'above', phora 'a carrying')
to the antecedent word or phrase" (Matthews, 1981:43) and in this case moisa yo wa
lekgowa or mosetsana wa mosotho. In this instance, one would argue that the subject
morpheme, o, as an anaphoric marker, functions like a pronoun.
On the problem of anaphora and exophor, Brause (1975:44-45), in her experiment on
the multiplicity of pronoun referents, realised that the most frequent offered
interpretation was in accord with Carol Chomsky's findings (1969) of the Minimal
Distance Principle (MDP) wherein the closest noun was chosen most frequently as the
one to which the pronoun referred. In the following examples, the MDP applies:
38. Matome o kgokgoeditge Lesiba gore a tloge.
Matome convinced Lesiba that he should leave.'
39 Matome o bolege le Mokgaegi pele a neela moya.
`Matome talked to Mokgaet§i before (s)he died.'
40 Matome o bodige Lesiba gore mosadi wa gagwe o botse.
`Matome told Lesiba that his wife is pretty.'
The first, that is, the plausible interpretation to all of the above sentences is that the
agreement marker for the third person, namely, a in 38 and 39 relates to Lesiba and
Mokgaethi as the closest nouns in 38 and 39 respectively, and wa gagwe in 40 relates
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to Lesiba which is also the closest noun in 40. To be precise, in the first paraphrase,
the agreement marker a in 38 and 39 and the possessive word group wa gagwe in 40
relate anaphorically to Lesiba and Mokgaet§i, and Lesiba respectively. In the second
interpretation, they (the agreement markers) refer to Matome (38), Matome (39) and
Matome (40) respectively. And, thirdly, these agreement markers may also be referring
to the third subject. The above sentences may be paraphrased as follows:
38a Matome o kgokgoeditte Lesiba gore yena Lesiba a tloge.
'Matome convinced Lesiba that Lesiba should leave.'
38b Matome o kgokgoeditte Lesiba gore yena mong Matome a tloge.
'Matome convinced Lesiba that he (Matome) should leave.'
38c Matome o kgokgoeditte Lesiba gore motho yo mongwe a tloge.
`Matome convinced Lesiba that a third subject should leave.'
39a Matome o bolette le Mokgaetti pele yena Mokgaetti a neela moya.
`Matome spoke to Mokgaetsti before Mokgaet§i passed away.'
39b Matome o bolette le Mokgaetti pele yena mong Matome a neela moya.
'Matome spoke to Mokgaet§i before he (Matome) passed away.'
39c Matome o bolette le Mokgaetti pele motho yo mongwe a neela moya.
'Matome spoke to Mokgaelti before someone else passed away.'
40a Matome o boditte Lesiba gore mosadi wa yena Lesiba o botse.
'Matome told Lesiba that Lesiba's wife was pretty.'
40b Matome o boditte Lesiba gore mosadi wa gagwe (yena Matome) o botse.
`Matome told Lesiba that his (Matome's) wife was pretty.'
40c Matome o boditte Lesiba gore mosadi wa motho yo mongwe o botse.
`Matome told Lesiba that a third man's wife was pretty.'
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The above discussions seem to support Simpson (1989:15) who says
This 'single-meaning' word, then, presents the listener or reader with the
same problem faced with more obvious ambiguous words: selecting the
contextually appropriate interpretation.
4.5 Resumt
Structural ambiguity, as illustrated above, is the ambiguity which is the resultant of a
sentence which is characterised by alternative constituent structures or when semantic
representation is shown by relating a sentence to different structures. It is possible, as
shown in the previous paragraphs, that a sentence may be multiply ambiguous, that is,
it may have more than two structural interpretations.
Ambiguity at a surface structure level, as MacKay & Bever (1967:193) observe, involves
the possibility of two distinct groupings of adjacent words (cf. paragraph 4.3) whereas
the deep structure level of sentences represents the essential logical relations between
words and phrases (cf. paragraph 4.4). Structural ambiguity, unlike lexical ambiguity,
is complex in nature. This has been illustrated in the previous paragraphs.
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CHAPTER 5
AMBIGUITY VERSUS VAGUENESS: WHO IS FOOLING WHO? We are in the position where discovering exactly what we need to explain is itself a major problem - Moore &
Carling (1982:143).
5.1 Introduction
Ambiguity, as seen in the previous chapters, seems to be a clear-cut phenomenon: both
words and sentences can have more than one meaning. Though this assumption is not
incorrect, in Kempson's words (1977:123),
...it is entirely mistaken to think that there is little problem in deciding of
a given sentence whether or not it is ambiguous. The problem lies in
deciding what counts as ambiguity, ...
Though there are some clear cases of ambiguous sentences as seen in the previous
chapters, there are other several "cases where it is not at all clear whether the word, the
phrase or the sentence in question is ambiguous or not" (Kempson, 1977:123). A word,
as Scherler (1979:11- 12) worryingly puts it,
... may be said to be ambiguous in having different dictionary readings,
that is, in being correlated with different actual expressions in the
dictionary. But which dictionary is to be chosen and how has it been
composed? Are the principles by which its readings have been assigned
clearly formulable; are they unique; can we be confident that they
themselves make no appeal to the lexicographer's unanalysed judgement
Page -193-
of ambiguity?
Scheffler's argument is appropriate to Northern Sotho: the researcher knows no
monolingual dictionary which describes and explains Northern Sotho entries in Northern
Sotho. Though there are a number of multilingual dictionaries which includes Northern
Sotho as one of the languages, none is to be taken as comprehensive and thus without
mistakes. For example, Ziervogel & Mokgckong in their Groot Noord Sotho Woorde
Boek (1975:979) have the following two readings for the word pOnapona:
be naked
be without a tail
Is it clear that these two readings signify the ambiguity of pOnapona rather than mark
two regions of its general, and unambiguous, application? This criterion at best falls
short of providing a sufficient condition, since non-synonymous readings, however
construed, may signify generality rather than ambiguity (Scheffler, 1979:12). On the
meanings Of words, Hayakawa (in Fromkin & Rodman, 1983:167) has this to say:
... if John says "my typewriter' today, and again "my typewriter" tomorrow,
the ... meaning is different in the two cases, because the typewriter is not
exactly the same from one day to the next (nor from one minute to the
next): slow processes of wear, change and decay are going on
constantly.
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But such minute changes can hardly have any effect on the meaning of the word. As
Fromkin & Rodman (1983:168) observe,
...we have no trouble comprehending the meaning of typewriter. We
know that what is being talked about is an object readily recognized as a
"typewriter," and that the meaning of the word does not include the
materials of which it is made, how old it is, ... Such information is not
included among the semantic properties of the word.
Thus Hayakawa's view of "my typewriter" is rather vague, for he is referring to its
reference (that is, the object designated) rather than its sense (that is, the additional
meaning).
Frawley (1992:58) makes a very applausible contribution in differentiating ambiguity
from vagueness. He argues that:
An expression that has two or more meanings may be either ambiguous
or vague. It is ambiguous if there are at least two distinct semantic
specifications underlying a single overt form. An expression is vague if
it is unspecified for particular meanings and takes them from context.
To prove the validity of Frawley's assertion, Kempson's (1977:123) example is
unavoidable:
Page -195-
She has good legs.
Is the word 'good' ambiguous or is it just vague? The above sentence can mean that
she has healthy legs (no varicose veins, no broken bones, no weak ankles etc.), or
beautiful legs, or plain legs - if plain legs are considered morally superior to legs that are
not plain, et cetera. The sentence has several meanings as illustrated above, but does
it mean that the word 'good' is ambiguous, that is, having "double, multiple or uncertain
meanings" (Gray, 1992:18)? Looked at in isolation, the word 'good' seems to be "a
single item with a single interpretation, however hard that interpretation may be to state;
but if we think of sentences containing good then there is a conflicting tendency to see
the sentences as ambiguous" (Kempson, 1977:123-4). The same old question posed
by Lehrer (1974:91) remains: How do we decide whether we are dealing with several
senses of the same lexical item or a single item with a range of meaning? In order to
answer this question convincingly, ambiguity tests are necessary. According to Trask
(1993:14), an ambiguity test is "any criterion proposed for distinguishing true ambiguity
from instances of mere vagueness."
5.2 Ambiguity Tests
Lakoff (1970) proposed a test for distinguishing 'true ambiguity from instances of mere
vagueness' in English which involved adding 'and so did NP' to the sentence in
question. The test was later modified by Kempson (1977:129) with her `to do so too'
test. She argues that anaphoric processes, that is, "processes which refer back to an
earlier part of the sentence" (Kempson, ibid.) are the most helpful way of distinguishing
sentences which are ambiguous from those which are not. The `to do so too' test is
Page -196-
used where the action described has already been specified and is being referred to
again. In Northern Sotho, this test may be translated as 'le NP o dira/dirile bjalo'.
Sentence 1 below, for instance, only implies that Nkoko also beat Lesiba in some way -
it does not matter whether he beat him with his fist, with a stick, with the back of his
hand, or however.
Matome o bethile Lesiba, le Nkoko o dirile bjalo.
`Matome beat Lesiba and Nkoko did so too.'
Bethile (beat) is "therefore vague, but not polysemous, and the sentence is not
ambiguous. In contrast, if a word in a sentence is ambiguous and the sentence is
therefore also ambiguous, then it will matter which meaning is implied when we apply
the test" (Malmkjmr, 1991:294). Sentence 2, for example, is not acceptable if Matome
chose a whistle and Lesiba chose an animal (impala).
Matome o kgethile phala, le Lesiba o dirile blab.
`Matome chose the whistle and Lesiba did so too.'
0 dirile bjalo le yena means that he did the same thing that the NP in question did, thus
meaning in sentence 2, if Matome chose a whistle, then Lesiba also chose a whistle;
if Matome chose an impala, then it implies that Lesiba also chose an impala. In her
own words, Kempson (1977:130) emphasises this point thus: "Do so expressions
require identity of meaning ..." In sentence 3 it seems that the only normal
interpretation is that we both saw either a male human being or we both saw a real he-
man, but not that I saw a human being and Matome saw a he-man.
Page -197-
Ke bone monna le Matome o dirile bjalo.
`I saw a man and so did Matome.'
However, in sentence 4 below, it does not imply that mohlwekgi (the cleaner) also
painted my bedroom.
Mapentane o dirile phapoS7 ya ka ya borobalelo le mohlwekgi o dirile
blab.
`The painter has done my bedroom and the cleaner has too.'
On the contrary, the natural interpretation is that different actions have been carried out.
On the question of different interpretations of words such as go dira (to do), Kempson
(1977:131) argues thus:
If the expression to do the sitting-room were said to be ambiguous
according as the actions it described differed, we would predict that such
different interpretations of the expression could not be conveyed in the
above example. But they can; and they can because the expression to do
the sitting-room is not ambiguous but merely unspecified.
Another problematic case, to use Kempson's words (1977:131-2), "which has been
used as the basis for an argument in the recent syntax-semantics controversy", is the
usage of the deficient verb stems such as nyakile (almost) in sentences. Sentence
5 can be used to describe an occasion in which Matome was on the point of carrying
out some action which would have caused the prisoners to die, or it can be used to
describe an occasion in which Matome did carry out some action which brought the
Page -198-
prisoners to the point of death.
5. Matome o nyakile a bolaile bagolegwa.
`Matome almost killed the prisoners.'
What is to be decided, as Kempson (1977:132) puts it, "is whether the sentence is
ambiguous, and has two quite separately specifiable meanings, or whether it has a
meaning which does not specify exactly how almost interacts with the remainder of the
sentence". Let us use the `le NP o dira/difile bjalo' ambiguity test and see the results:
Matome o nyakile a bolaile bagolegwa, le Lesiba o dirile bjalo.
'Matome almost killed the prisoners, and so did Lesiba.'
It is an undeniable fact that both Matome and Lesiba almost brought the prisoners to
the point of death. It is also true that Matome severely wounded the prisoners and that
Lesiba was on the point of finally shooting them when somebody, such as a policeman,
burst in and tore the gun from him. These statements are all acceptable because there
is no contradiction. For instance, the sentence can be rewritten without contradicting
sequences, as follows:
Matome o nyakile a bolaile bagolegwa, le Lesiba o dirile bjalo. Matome
o thomile pele ka go ba gobaga gabohloko gomme o Lesiba o rile a sa
re o ba felelega ka sethunya gwa gwelela lephodisa leo le ilego la ba
amoga sona.
`Matome almost killed the prisoners, and so did Lesiba. Matome first
severely wounded them and then Lesiba was on the point of shooting
them to death when the policeman burst in and tore the gun from him.'
Page -199-
The above illustration shows that sentence 6 is not ambiguous but merely unspecified.
It has been illustrated that though the deficient verb stem such as -nyakile (almost) can
be used in a sentence to convey rather different interpretations, such a sentence is,
according to Kempson (1977:132), not ambiguous.
Frawley (1992:58) on the other hand, has come up with his own ambiguity test. He
argues that if an expression is ambiguous, it is possible to assert it in both positive and
negative contexts simultaneously with no anomaly. He continues to say that
If there is ambiguity, then the negative context will affect only one of the
fully specified senses and leave the other untouched. Ambiguity is
compatible with positive and negative assertion because there are in fact
two different definitions.
He argues that the opposite holds true for vagueness (Frawley, 1992:58):
This • is not the case for vagueness. If an expression is vague, its
simultaneous positive and negative assertion is anomalous, because the
expression inherits meaning from context and thus inherits contradictory
information.
Following Frawley's test, a word like phala in the following sentence is ambiguous and
not vague for it can be asserted in both a positive and negative context without any
contradictions or anomaly.
Page -200-
Se a tlilego le sona ke phala, ga se phala.
'What he/she has brought along is an impala, not a whistle.'
`What he/she has brought along is a whistle, not an impala.'
Example 6 is acceptable because of the difference between phala (an animal) and
phala (a musical instrument). The sentence means either 'What he/she has brought
along is an impala and not a whistle' or 'What he/she has brought along is a whistle and
not an impala'.
On the contrary, a sentence like 7 below is not ambiguous but vague because
according to (Frawley, 1992:58), "its simultaneous positive and negative assertion is
anomalous".
Mosima o na le maoto a go loka.
`Mosima has good legs.'
This is discernible in the following sequence:
7a. *Mosima o na le maoto a go loka, eup§a ga se a go loka.
`Mosima has good legs, but they are not good.'
As seen in paragraph 5.1, 'She has good legs' is associated with several meanings;
healthy legs, beautiful legs, et cetera. The fact that such a sentence is not ambiguous
but vague is illustrated by the fact that a go loka (good) "is unspecified for particular
meanings and takes them from context" (Frawley, 1992:58). Sequence 7a is
anomalous because it "inherits meaning from context and thus inherits contradictory
Page -201-
information" (Frawley, ibid). The phrase a go loka (the good ones) inherits its meanings
from context, in isolation it is a single expression with a single interpretation. It is
context which determines its various specified senses.
5.3 Types of Vagueness
In order to clearly separate ambiguity from vagueness, Kempson (1977) distinguishes
between four different 4,7 es of vagueness, namely, referential vagueness,
indeterminacy of meaning, lack of specification and disjunction.
5.3.1 Referential Vagueness
This applies to instances where, according to Kempson (1977:124), "the meaning of
the lexical item is in principle clear enough, but it may be hard to decide whether or not
the item can be applied to certain objects". In other words, the referent itself is vague
because, as Malmkjmr (1991:294) puts it, 'Things in the world do not come in clear,
distinct categories". It is sometimes difficult to tell whether something is, for instance,
lengope (a donga), noka (a river) or moedi (a valley); toropo (a town) or toropokgolo
(a city). Though it is known, in principle, what the term refers to, it is often difficult, in
practice, to be certain exactly which referent is appropriate. Is Pietersburg really a city?
Or just an advanced town? "Notice that it will not do to specify as part of the meaning
of the item that a city must contain a minimum number of inhabitants" (Kempson,
1977:124-5), for we can talk of Johannesburg city or Durban city where the numbers
might hypothetically not exceed that of a present-day village.
Page -202-
There are many examples of this kind: What crucially distinguishes maemane (a boy)
from lesogana (a gentleman)? Applied to linguistic terms, when is a morpheme (the
so-called free morpheme) not a morpheme but a word (mono-morphemic word)?
5.3.2 Indeterminacy of Meaning
Sometimes, as Malmkjmr (1991:294) puts it, "it is impossible, out of context, to decide
what the referent of an expression is". In other words, as Kempson (1977:125)
explains, the interpretation of an expression may sometimes seem "intangible and
indeterminate". Take, for example, the following possessive construction: Lengwalo la
Matome (Matome's letter) which can be used to describe the letter Matome wrote; the
letter he owns; the letter he has been reading; the letter he was carrying when he came
into the room; and so on. Sekolo sa Matome (Matome's school) can be used to
describe the school where Matome did his matric; the school he is heading as a
principal; the school where he teaches; the school he built; the school he likes; et
cetera. These examples make it clear that the meaning of most possessive
constructions is otherwise indeterminate. (Refer to Chapter 4, paragraph 4.4.5).
Discussions of reference, as Bach (1987:67) observes, are usually restricted to singular
reference, where the speaker is referring to just one individual, but there is no reason
why a speaker cannot refer to more than one. Plural reference can either be achieved
through a plural term of a sort or another, for instance, batho (people), or with a
conjunction of singular terms, for example, dipudi, dinku le dikgomo (goats, sheep and
cattle), et cetera. With regard to plural reference, Bach (ibid) distinguishes between
collective reference and distributive reference. Compare the likely uses of `Matome and
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Lesiba' in the following sentences:
Matome le Lesiba ba imela 100 kg bobedi bja bona.
'Together, Matome and Lesiba weigh 100 kg.'
Matome le Lesiba ba imela 100 kg mongwe le mongwe.
'Matome and Lesiba weigh 100 each.'
Sentence 8a displays collective reference and sentence 8b distributive reference. In
sentences such as the above, context always tells whether the reference is collective
or distributive.
On the other hand, Ducrot & Todorov (1979:236) talk of 'contextual determination',
which, they say, "stems from the fact that the situations in which an expression is used
may inflect its meaning in different directions". For example, sentence 10 below, will
on one hand, be interpreted to mean that the store is open even on Sundays (if Sunday
is a day when stores are usually closed); and in other situations it will be understood to
mean that the store is open only on Sundays.
9. Lebenkele le le a bulwa ka diSontaga.
'This store is open on Sundays.'
Unlike in ambiguity, here the different meanings have a core (that is, that the store is
open on Sundays) to which the situation adds an element of over-determination. The
question of indeterminacy will be discussed in more detail in paragraph 5.4.
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5.3.3 Lack of Specification in the Meaning of an Item
Though lack of specification itself does not cause vagueness, some linguists such as
Kempson (1977:125) argue that examples thereof are often confused with ambiguity,
hence its inclusion as one of the types of vagueness. Here the meaning of a lexical
item is clear but is only generally specified. For example, given the sentence such as
10 below, does the hearer/reader infer that the attack was by a shark (§aka)?
10. Ft/apt e hlaset§e moruthi.
'The fish attacked the swimmer.'
It has been found that general terms like hlapi lack specification, and thus leave the
hearer/reader guessing as to the exact referent. The vagueness could be resolved if
the general term hlapi (a fish) could be replaced by more specific terms like §aka (a
shark).
Ducrot & Todorov (1979:237), on the other hand, refer to this type of vagueness as
semantic extension. They argue that most expressions have a very general signification
that allows them to describe very different situations. The word senamelwa (a vehicle)
for example, is not considered ambiguous just because it can be used for a sedan, a
lorry or even a bicycle. The general meaning of senamelwa seems common to all the
uses of the same expression, "it is simply a very broad and abstract meaning" (Ducrot
& Todorov, ibid).
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Still on the question of generality, Kooij (1971:119) has the following to say:
A second feature of lexical elements that may give rise to ambiguity in
actual use without entailing these words having different senses is
generality. Quoting once more from Chao, the word coloured can be
ambiguous in language use since it does not indicate which colour or
colours are meant; the sentence / bought an animal from the Zoo can be
ambiguous in language use since it may arouse curiosity which animal the
speaker brought. Between lexical elements like animal and monkey, or
coloured and yellow, a paradigmatic relationship of hyponymy or sense-
inclusion can be defined.
General lexical items like phoofolo (an animal), act as superordinate terms whereas
specific lexical items such as tau (a lion), though gender is still not specified, act as
subordinate terms. In language use, as Kooij (1971:119-120) has rightly observed,
subordinate terms like tau (a lion) and §weu (white) may resolve a lack of clarity since
they can specify what is left unspecified by the use of their superordinate terms like
phoofolo (an animal) and mmala (colour) respectively: Ke bone tau (I saw a lion) is more
specific than Ke bone phoofolo (I saw an animal), and pudi ye thweu (a white goat) is
more specific than pudi ya mmala (a coloured goat). Kooij (ibid) concludes his
argument with a warning: these general terms should not be seen to be ambiguous. He
says:
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It would, however, be an error to conclude that words like coloured and
animal are therefore inherently polysemous. Coloured does not mean
'(blue V red V green V ...)', nor does it mean '(blue A red A green A ...)'.
It means, roughly paraphrased, and disregarding its non-literary senses,
'with colours' or 'not without colours'.
Perhaps the less obvious example of lack of specification in the meaning of an item in
Northern Sotho is the verb stem -dira (do) which has a clearly specifiable meaning and
yet cover a wide variety of actions, since this meaning is so general.
Ke dira tthelete mo femeng ye.
'I make money at this firm.'
Sentence 11 above, for instance, can be used by the speaker to imply that he/she is
minting money, he/she is accumulating money or he/she earns a lot of money,
depending on the nature of work the speaker is engaged in.
Ke dira bjala.
'I make beer.'
Example 12 can be used to describe actions as dissimilar as omela (add fermentation
to), apea (cook), hlotla (strain), etc. because dira is quite unspecified as to the
specification of the action. In the above sentence dira simply has a meaning of brewing.
Despite this, the meaning of the item dira (do) is not itself indeterminate. The
expressions go dira molato (to do crime), go dira mothalo (to do a line), go dira molete
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(to do a hole), go dira legema (to do a working party), et cetera, mean, according to
Kempson (1977:126), "to carry out some action involving that object; but what the
action is, is quite unspecified". For the action to be clearly specified, the appropriate
verb stems should replace dira (do) as in the examples below:
go dira molato > go oba molato (to commit an offence).
go dira mothalo > go thala mothalo (to draw a line).
go dira molete > go epa molete (to dig a hole).
go dira legema > go rapa legema (get a working party
together).
As a conclusion to this subsection, Kooij's (1971:120) words will suffice:
However, the distinction between generality and ambiguity is not so easy
to make in every case. To maintain that child is ambiguous for native
speakers as between 'daughter' and 'son' or that friend is ambiguous
between 'Male friend' and 'Female friend', is less absurd than to maintain
that tree is ambiguous because it does not specify which kind of tree. ...
But it cannot be denied that, in language use, implicational relationships
between superordinate and subordinate terms can make themselves felt
more in some cases than in others.
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5.3.4 Disjunction of Different Interpretations
The use of goba (or) in Northern Sotho is somehow problematic since it brings about
multiple interpretations. This is a case of disjunction - a case where the meaning of an
item involves the disjunction of different interpretations. Take, for instance, the following
sentence:
Go tla thwalwa yo a phasit§ego mammatlou goba a nago le maitemogelo
a borutia
The one to be hired must have passed matric or have teaching
experience.'
In the above example, the implication that goba (or) contributes to the sentence as a
whole is that one of the two conjuncts is true. The person who qualifies for the job is
the one who has either gone through and of course, passed matric, but lacks teaching
experience, or he/she who has teaching experience but has not passed matric, or, in
as far as Kempson, (1977:126-7) is concerned, possibly both. That is to say, there is
an interpretation in which both implications can be held simultaneously. The following
sentence also shows similar implications:
Ka lebati lela go tsena basadi goba ba ba humilego.
'Through that door enter women or those who are rich.'
The utterer of a sentence such as 14 above, would certainly not be excluding the
possibility of both of the conjuncts being true, for this would imply that women who enter
through the door had either to be rich or not. On the contrary, the sentence allows the
following types of people who could pass through the door: women (either poor or rich)
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and others who are not women, as long as such people are rich. Kempson (1977:127)
summarises this disjunction in the characterisation of or as follows:
Any sentence of the form P v Q (where P and Q each represent
sentences) will be true if and only if either P is true, or Q is true, or P and
Q are true.
Kempson (ibid) goes on to illustrate her definition by drawing what she calls the truth-
table definition, which she says should be read from left to right. To this she adds that
the particular truth value of P v Q is in each case dependent on the truth values of P
and Q stated on the left of the vertical column. T stands for True, F for False and v for
And.
P Q P v Q
T T T
T F T
F T T
F F F
Figure 5.1
What this figure captures is that P or Q can be true under different conditions without
these different conditions being themselves the basis for an ambiguity in goba (or). As
Kempson herself (1977:127) puts it, the definition seems to be three-ways ambiguous
as P is true but not Q, Q is true but not P, and both P and Q are true.
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5.4 Semantic Indeterminacy and Ambiguity
Indeterminacy is defined by Crystal (1991:174) as a term used in linguistics to refer to
a state of affairs in linguistic study in which there is uncertainty on the part of a linguist,
or between several linguists, as to how and where a boundary line between different
types of structure might best be drawn. Semantic indeterminacy, therefore refers to a
state of affairs in semantic study where there is uncertainty between semanticists as to
the actual referent of an uharance. It is not always true that the speaker means what
the sentence (an unambiguous one) means and nothing more or less. There are many
instances where a sentence turns out to mean what the speaker does not intend to
mean. A sentence such as 15, for example, obviously refers to a certain human being
who has arrived, but the speaker must also be referring to a particular human being
though meaning of the sentence does not determine it.
15. 0 fihlile.
'He/she has arrived.'
Sentence 15 is not semantically equivalent to 15a because the concord o- (he or she
or it) which alludes to the pronoun yena does not mean motho yo mongwe (a certain
human being).
15a. Motho yo mongwe o fihlile.
'A certain human being has arrived.'
This illustration exemplifies what will, in paragraph 5.4.2 be called indexical
indeterminacy. This is the uncertainty which is the resultant lack of determinacy on the
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part of indexicals.
5.4.1 Referential Indeterminacy
Although the meaning of a sentence such as 15 above, does not determine the
speaker's intended referent, it should not be concluded that such a sentence is
semantically ambiguous, rather the sentence is referentially indeterminate. There are
some sentences which, due to their reForential indeterminacy, "can be used literally
despite the fact that a speaker does not (and cannot) mean just what the sentence
means" (Bach, 1987:75). Thus, such sentences are semantically indeterminate, and
not semantically ambiguous. For example, if one utters sentence 16 which has been
adapted from Bach's (ibid.) example, one would probably mean that teye (tea) is better
than kofi (coffee), but that is not what the sentence means.
16. Teye e kaone.
'Tea is better.'
Neither is example 16 an elliptical form of sentence 16a below, for sentence 16 could
just as well be used to mean that teye is better than senogididi (cold drink), senotagi
(intoxicating beverage), sekhampelele (cold water with sugar added), et cetera.
16a. Teye e kaone go phala kofi.
'Tea is better than coffee.'
Surely, teye can be compared to a countless number of things, and yet the sentence
is not ambiguous. All said, sentence 16 is not an elliptical form of sentences 16b and
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16c where X in sentence 16b is a variable whose value is to be determined in the
context of utterance.
Teye e kaone go phala X.
'Tea is better than X.'
Teye e kaone go e phala.
'Tea is better than it.'
In sentence 16c, what the object concord -e- , which alludes to the pronoun yona (it),
is being used to refer to is to be determined in the context of an utterance.
Referential indeterminacy is also discernible in the following example:
17. Kgarebe ya ka e a apea.
'My lady is cooking.'
Presumably, the utterer of sentence 17 would mean that kgarebe (a lady) is cooking
something, even though there is no mention of it in the sentence. (Note that the verb
stem apea (cook) is called a 'dedicated verb' since the only thing that can be cooked is
food). Since the speaker means that the lady is cooking food, he intends his audience
to infer which food this is. Cooking is done to food, and the type of food which is being
cooked is not specified in sentence 17. It might be thought that the real meaning of
sentence 18 can be represented in 17a, but this will not suffice.
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17a. Kgarebe ya ka e apea se sengwe.
'My lady cooks something.'
Se sengwe (something) in 17a does not specify the referent, and thus leaves the
sentence even more indeterminate. Though sentence 17 is grammatically acceptable,
it does not, "as a school grammar book might have said, ... express 'complete thought"'
(Bach, 1987:76).
5.4.2 Indexical Indeterminacy
As alluded to in the previous paragraphs, indexical indeterminacy refers to an
uncertainty which is there because of the unspecified meanings of indexicals. Pronouns
(personal and impersonal) are basically anaphoric in nature. When anaphoric pronouns
were first discussed by transformational grammarians, they were thought to be the
product of a pronominalization transformation. The idea was that an anaphoric pronoun
appears in the surface structure of a sentence as the result of replacing a duplicate
occurrence of an NP in the deep structure (Bach, 1987:222-3). However, after the
introduction of new approaches, such as Chomsky's (1981), the former view was
abandoned. The new approaches, according to Bach (1987:223), "employ the device
of referential indices to mark co-reference (or non-co-reference)". Chomsky (1981) is
of the idea that when pronouns are used to co-refer with their antecedents, they do so
as a matter of sentence grammar. With this assumption in mind, consider the two
different readings of 18 below:
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18. Lesiba o bethile mosadi wa gagwe.
'Lesiba beat his (own) wife.'
'Lesiba beat his (somebody else's) wife.'
The possessive pronoun gagwe (his) in the above sentence is likely to be used to refer
to Lesiba, but it can also be used to refer to someone else; a third person whom the
speaker is talking about. Lesiba might have beaten his own wife or somebody else's
wife. Apart from this anaphoric use, Bach (1987:223) introduces other 'uses' of
possessive pronoun. For example, gagwe (his/her) can also be used as an indexical
as in sentence 18a or it can be used as a 'bound pronoun' as in 18b below:
Lesiba o be a le gona ge mahodu a utswa mokotia wa gagwe.
'Lesiba was there when the thieves stole his/her bag.'
Motho yo mongwe le yo mongwe o swanetS'e a hlokomele mmele wa
gagwe.
'Everybody must look after his/her body.'
In sentence 18a, gagwe (his) is used to refer to a contextually salient individual (though
the individual is not specified). Though there are three 'uses' of this possessive
pronoun, Bach (1987:223) argues that this possessive pronoun (gagwe) is not
ambiguous, but its different uses can be explained pragmatically. He says that the fact
that the same pronoun (for instance, gagwe) can be used both indexically and
anaphorically would be mere coincidence. Thus sentence 18a is indexically
indeterminate with respect to gagwe, and the fact that gagwe "can be used to refer
to someone mentioned elsewhere in the sentence does not show that its semantic
contribution is different from when it is used to refer to someone else" (Bach, 1987:224-
Page -215-
225).
Indexicals cannot be appropriately interpreted unless the physical context of the
speaker is known. Indexicals include demonstratives and other types of pronouns. As
seen in the previous paragraphs, there are some sentences in Northern Sotho which
are virtually impossible to interpret if, as Yule (1985:99) puts it, one does not "know who
is speaking, about whom, where and when". Out of context, sentence 19 below, for
example, is extremely vague because, it contains a lot of deictic expressions (namely,
yena, bona, gosasa, mo, lehono) which depend for their interpretation on the immediate
physical context in which they were uttered.
Yena o bolet§e go re ba tla mmona gosasa ka gobane a ka se be gona
mo lehono.
'He said that they will see him tomorrow because he will not be here
today.'
Sentences such as 19 above can only be understood in terms of the speaker's
contextual as well as situational contexts. If someone utters sentence 20, for instance,
does he/she mean 'in this office', or 'in this building', or 'in this city', or 'in this Province',
or 'in this country' or some other place?
Ke nyaka go bereka mo.
'I want to work here.'
A demonstrative like mo (here) is an indexical, and thus it can only be interpreted in
terms of the location that the speaker intends to indicate.
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54.3 Meaning and Use
There is, as Bach (1987:69) correctly asserts, an undeniable connection between
meaning and use, in that the meaning of a sentence determines its literal use. A
sentence can be used literally and non-literally. To use the sentence literally means
taking the meaning of a sentence as is, and to use it non-literally means meaning
something else. In a language such as Northern Sotho, there are linguistic forms which
have corresponding functions, that is, what Bach (1987) and Aarts & Aarts (1988), refer
to as illocutionary acts/force. The forms would be described in the syntactic analysis
of a language, and the functions as what the people use language for. The latter is
treated /discussed within the speech act theory. The following diagram illustrates some
such forms and functions in Northern Sotho:
Example Grammatical/Linguistic Form
Function
Monna o betha mosadi. Declarative Sentence
Statement
`A man beats a woman.'
Na monna o betha mosadi? Interrogative Sentence
Question
`Does a man beat a woman?'
Sepela (hle)!
Imperative Sentence
Command
`Go (please)!
(Request)
A naswana batho!
Exclamatory Sentence Exclamation
`What a black beauty!'
Figure 5.2
In Northern Sotho when a question particle such as na? or naa?, or the question
intonation is used, it is described as a direct speech act. For instance, when a speaker
does not know something and asks the hearer for information, he will produce a direct
Page -217-
speech act as in the following example:
Na o kgona go ngwala lengwalo?
'Can you write a letter?'
The above sentence is undoubtedly a direct question where the speaker needs a direct
answer from the hearer if the answer is positive, such as Ee, ke a kgona (Yes I can)
or Ee, ke kgona go ngwala lengwalo (Yes, I can write a letter). However, this is not the
case with sentence 22 below:
A o ka mphethget§a puku ye?
'Can you pass me this book?'
Unlike sentence 21, example 22 would under normal circumstances not be interpreted
to be a question about someone's ability to do something, but rather as a request.
Though the syntactic form is that of a question, it is in fact not a question, but a request,
and one would (of course, if one likes) perform the action requested, and in this case,
pass the book. Such an example is described as an indirect speech act, that is, in
Bach's (1987:71) words, "the speaker does not mean what the sentence means but
means something else". This example illustrates "that there is no one-to-one
correspondence between the grammatical form of a sentence and its function in
communication (what is called illocutionary force)" (Aarts & Aarts, 1988:95). Whenever
one of the linguistic forms in figure 5.2 above is used to perform a function other than
the one which it is supposed to perform (that is, the one listed beside it in figure 5.2), the
result is an indirect speech act.
Page -218-
If a man says sentence 23 to his wife, he is not only directly telling her that he is hungry,
but he also is indirectly asking her for something to eat.
23. Ke swerwe ke tlala.
'I am hungry.'
Though example 23 is a declarative sentence, its illocutionary act is twofold - being a
statement as well as a request.
On the same note, a sentence such as 24 below is usually interpreted as a request for
direction, although it is in actual fact a 'yes-no' question.
24. A o ka mpotS'a moo sekolo se lego gona?
'Can you tell me where the school is?'
In a sentence such as 24 above, according to Simpson (1989:16), "the context (and/or
convention) will normally dictate whether the literal or figurative interpretation is to be
preferred". Simpson (ibid) groups together linguistic devices such as indirect requests,
idiomatic expressions, metaphor, sarcasm, et cetera, under the name of pragmatic
ambiguity.
Speech acts, as Yule (1985:100) calls them following Austin (1962), can have humorous
effects as a result of a person failing to recognize another person's indirect speech act.
The best example is that of a lost visitor with his heavy luggage stopping a passerby:
Page -219-
Moeng: Tshwarelo Morena, a o tseba mo Holiday Inn e lego gona?
'Visitor: Excuse me Sir, do you know where the Holiday Inn is?'
Mosepedi.. Ee, ke a tseba ( a napa a sepela).
'Passerby: Yes, I know (and walks away).'
In this scene, the visitor uses an interrogative sentence, a form which is normally
associated with a question and a passerby answers that question literally. Instead of
responding to the request, *o use Yule's (1985:101) words, "the passer-by replies to the
question, treating an indirect speech act as if it were direct."
5.5 Ambiguity and Negation
To reverse the meaning of a particular statement, one has to negate the statement. As
Hornby (1989:565) puts it, negation is the action of denying or making a statement
negative involving the use of `no', `not' or 'never'. It is the opposite of something which
is actual, positive or affirmative. In Northern Sotho, negation is made possible by the
application of negative morphemes, inter alia, ga- and -se-. For each and every
affirmative sentence in Northern Sotho, and of course other languages, there is a
negative counterpart(s). Negation is not a process as simple as it may seem; there is
a problem of interpreting negative sentences in Northern Sotho. How does one account
for the interpretation of the negative sentence below?
Ga ke dume go ja.
'I don't feel like eating.'
That it is the negation of 'Ke duma go ja' (I feel like eating) is a platitude. The question
is: is it just a mere negative form of the given sentence? Is it not true that if the speaker
Page -220-
does not feel like eating, he/she might be feeling like doing something else; playing or
walking, for instance? Or he/she does not feel like eating, but he/she wants to eat (ga
a dume eup§a o nyaka go ja)? Sentence 26 has more to it than just negating 'Ke duma
go ja' The following sentence is even more complex than the previous one:
27. Matome ga se a bolaya mosadi wa gagwe.
`Matome did not kill his wife.'
Firstly, it is not certain whether his wife is indeed dead. She might be alive more so the
sentence confesses that Matome did not kill her. Secondly, if the woman is dead, it is
certain that her death was not caused by Matome, but by somebody else or something
else. This statement could also imply that it is not his own wife that . Matome killed, but
another person's wife. On the contrary, the positive counter form of sentence 27,
Matome o bolaile mosadi wa gagwe (Matome killed his wife), makes it clear that the
woman is dead, and Matome is the cause of her death.
From the foregoing paragraph, if one may quote Kempson (1977:118), it becomes clear
that "unlike positive indicative sentences which are used to assert some proposition,
negative sentences are used to claim that their corresponding positive proposition is
false". It is not only positive sentences which can be true, there are a number of
alternative ways in which negative sentences can be said to be true. Sentence 27
above, for example, is true either if Matome killed his wife but did not intend to, or if he
did not actually managed to cause her death though he intended to by axing her, or if
Matome's wife was killed but not by Matome himself but by somebody else, or if it was
not his own wife that he (Matome) killed but somebody else or somebody else's wife.
Page -221-
The necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of `Ke monna' (It is a man) are that
there be something that is animate, human, male and adult. On the contrary, the
necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of sentence 28 below, are, to use
Kempson's (1977:119) words, "not in fact met in the world".
28. Ga se monna.
`It is not a man.'
Thus sentence 28 is true if, for example, either there is somebody, a boy (not adult), or
if there is a woman (not male), or if there is a girl (not adult and not male), or if there is
a lion (not human), or if there is a stone (not animate), and so on. We have seen, as
Kempson (1977:133) has also observed, that the negative sentences, at least in
general, have a single representation of meaning, given by disjunction. Kempson (ibid)
furthermore provides the pro-form which he says confirms that negative sentences are
not ambiguous:
(8) On Monday it wasn't a woman that came to the door, and on Tuesday
it wasn't either: on Monday it was a man and on Tuesday it was a young
girl. In (8), the sentence It wasn't a woman that came to the door is used
for two purposes - firstly to assert that the reason why on Monday it was
false that a woman came to the door was the person who came was not
a female adult but a male; secondly to assert that the reason why on
Tuesday it was false that a woman came to the door was that the person
who came was not a female adult, but a female non-adult. ... yet this
difference does not demonstrate a difference in meaning of the negative
Page -222-
sentence in question.
Kempson (ibid) calls the phenomenon she is tackling in the above quotation, scope of
negation; the scope of negation being those elements to which the negative element is
applying. In the case of sentence 28a, for example, the scope of negation is restricted
to the condition adulthood, and in the case of 28b, the scope of negation is restricted
to the condition of femininity.
Ga se monna yo a tlilego eup§a mo§emane.
'It is not a man who has come but a boy.'
Ga se monna yo a tlilego eup§a mosadi.
'It is not a man who has come but a woman.'
In both cases, no other part of the sentence is denied. Though Brown & Miller
(1980:104) maintain that for every affirmative sentence, there is a corresponding
negative sentence, it is not wholly true for Northern Sotho (and maybe for other
languages too). A positive sentence in Northern Sotho may have two or more different
corresponding negative sentences. Consider the following sentence as an example:
29. Batho ba bant§i ba tlile maabane.
'Many people came yesterday.'
The above sentence may be negated as follows:
Page -223-
Batho ba banal ga se ba tle maabane.
'Many people did not come yesterday .'
Ga se batho ba bantsi ba ba tlilego maabane.
'It is not many people who came yesterday.'
Batho ba banal ba tlile, fela e sego maabane.
'Many people did come, but not yesterday.'
As illustrated in the above negative sentences, it is not only the verb phrase which can
be negated, but also other IC. In sentence 29a it is the VP which is negated, thus
implying that the people could have done anything in this world but tla (come). In
sentence 29b it is the subject NP which is denied, implying that few, not many, people
did come yesterday. In sentence 29c it is the ADVP (adverb phrase) which is denied,
implying that though many people did come, they came but not yesterday. In all of the
sentences in 29 above, negative morphemes have been affixed to form the negation.
Apart from the negative morphemes, negation in Northern Sotho can also be formed
through the . use of tag words such as Aowa (no) or Ee (yes). There are some positive
questions which need the tag only as a complete answer. As an answer to question 30
below, for instance, the addressee may answer by a simple Aowa (no), or by this tag
word followed by a negative sentence as in the sentence 30a:
30. 0 ba bone?
'Have you seen them?'
Page -224-
30a. Aowa, ga se ke ba bone.
'No, I did not see them.'
Here, the tag word is used to emphasise negation. By answering with a tag word alone,
the speaker would have applied a transformational rule known as the deletion rule. This
fact is also iterated by Bolinger (1975:161):
The appropriateness of a simple No suggests that the meaning of
negation is somehow logically outside the rest of the sentence ... No is a
surface structure from which a transformation has deleted everything
except 'negation.'
It is not only the aowa (no) which is responsible for the negation of sentences in
Northern Sotho. Though it functions as a positive tag, ee (yes) can also be used to
facilitate negation. If the question is in the positive form, to give a positive answer the
addressee should use the tag word ee (yes) (as is explicated in example 31a below).
If the question is in the negative form, to give the positive answer, the addressee should
answer by aowa (no) (as is illustrated in example 31b below). If the question is in the
positive form, to answer negatively, the addressee should use the tag word aowa (no)
(as explicated in example 31c below), and if the question is in the negative form, to
answer negatively, the addressee should use the tag word ee (yes) (as illustrated in
example 31d below).
31a. 0 jele?
Ee, ke jele.
'Have you eaten?
Yes, I have eaten.'
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Ga se wa ja? > Aowa, ke jele.
`You have not eaten? > No, I have eaten.'
0 jele? > Aowa, ga se ka ja.
`Have you eaten? > No, I have not eaten.'
Ga se wa ja? > Ee, ga se ka ja.
`Have you not eaten? > Yes, I have not eaten.'
When a question is in the negative form, the tag word when used as an answer,
responds to the sequence of words, not to the meaning of the sentence (question) per
se. In example 31b Aowa (no) negates the statement `ga se wa ja' and in sentence 31d
Ee (yes) is also used to negate the same statement. Note that when negating a
negative sentence, Ee is followed by a negative complement whereas Aowa is followed
by a positive statement. It is this aspect of negation which leaves speakers of the
language not quite certain of what the response refers to, especially when a tag word
is used without a complementary statement. Suppose the answer to question 31b was
just Aowa (no). Such an answer would have the listeners guessing the intended
answer, for it might mean Aowa, ke jele (no, I have eaten) or Aowa, ga ke a ja (no, I
have not eaten) depending on the understanding of both the speaker and the
add ressee(s).
One other problem relating to Northern Sotho negation is that the negative morphemes
may be used to affirm. The verbal construction in such cases may be in the negative
form, but semantically expressing affirmation. For instance, instead of saying there are
many sheep, one could say:
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32. Ga se nku, ga se nku.
'It is not sheep, it is not sheep.'
'There are many sheep.'
Mathematically speaking, it is being said that two minuses make a positive, the same
applies here; two negatives make a positive. The meaning conveyed by the above
sentence is of a greater intensity than is expressed by a single positive verb. This
double-negative sentence expresses heightened affirmation.
From the foregoing discussions of negation, one is obliged to concur with Kempson
(1977:121) who concludes thus:
It seems prima facie that we are committed to predicting that all negative
sentences are many ways ambiguous. This last problem, the problem of
distinguishing ambiguity and vagueness, lies at the heart of much
misunderstanding in semantics, and it is therefore important to clarify the
problem as much as possible ...
5.6 Résumé
In this chapter, an endeavour was made to differentiate between ambiguity and
vagueness. Vagueness, as seen in the foregoing paragraphs, refers to an uncertainty
of meaning, mainly because of the uncertainty of the word's reference. On the contrary,
ambiguity, according to Ducrot & Todorov (1979:238), "supposes that between the
different meanings of the same expression there is neither a common core nor even
continuity; this makes it impossible either to explain any one by the others or to derive
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them all from one basic signification. Consequently, if an ambiguous expression has
the two meanings a and b, its use in sense a and its use in sense b correspond to two
choices that are as distinct as if two different expressions were involved".
Bach (1987:76) attempts to differentiate between semantic ambiguity and semantic
indeterminacy:
If a sentence is semantically indeterminate, it cannot encode a complete
thought content because it contains a semantic 'hole', so to speak. Its
utterance expresses only a partial thought content, so that even if a
speaker uses it literally to express a thought he must intend a hearer to
rely on contextual information to infer what fills the hole and thereby
completes the content. In contrast, if a hearer is to understand a literal
utterance of an ambiguous sentence, he must disambiguate it, taking one
of its meanings as the operative one. Clearly that involves a different sort
of inference than the one required for completing the content of the
utterance of a semantically (or referentially) indeterminate sentence.
To epitomize this subsection, Copi's (1961:92-93) words in an endeavour to differentiate
vagueness from ambiguity, will suffice:
Although the same word can be both vague and ambiguous, vagueness
and ambiguity are two quite different properties. A term is ambiguous in
a given context when it has two distinct meanings and the context does
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not make it clear which one is intended. On the other hand, a term is
vague when there exist "borderline cases" such that it cannot be
determined whether the term applies to them or not. Most words are
vague in the sense indicated.
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CHAPTER 6
TOWARDS A COMPOSITE PICTURE The reader's next task is to decide what the author has said. Not what he, the reader, would say on that subject,
or what the writer ought to have said. - Walpole (1941:232)
Having examined the various types of ambiguity in some detail, it is now time to pause
and take stock of them with a critical eye. It has been demonstrated in the previous
chapters that many acceptable sentenws of Northern Sotho in particular, are
ambiguous, that is, they can be interpreted in two or more different ways. Following
Hoffman's (1989:206) analogy of the journey metaphor as indicated in chapter 1 of this
thesis, there is, it seems, a variety of distinctly different ways in which various types of
meanings might involve ambiguity. In the following paragraphs different types of
meanings are examined with a view to how they, in one way or the other, influence
ambiguity in sentences.
6.1 Types of Meaning
• Polysemous Meaning
Polysemy as discussed in chapter 3, can be defined as one form (written or spoken)
which has multiple meanings which are all related by extension (Yule, 1985:97). The
word hlogo, for example, is used to refer to the organ at the top of an animal's body, at
the top of a company, at the top of a family, at the top of a maize, et cetera. Though
a word has multiple and distinct meanings, each of the meanings is clear but one is
uncertain of which one to apply in a given situation. For instance, interpreted out of
context, dihlong in the following sentence could be taken to mean 'hedgehogs' or
`being shy' (like hedgehogs do when seeing light):
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1. Mosadi yo o na le dihlong.
'This woman has hedgehogs.'
'This woman is shy.'
Literal versus Figurative Meaning
A word may have literal meaning, that is, the actual meaning - the dictionary defined
meaning, as well as the figurative meaning, that is, the imaginative meaning which
"involves the illogical comparison of unlike things" (Hoffn -.3n, 1989:208). Sentence 2
below is literal when referring to people who were fighting, but is metaphorical when
referring to gossip.
2. 0 ile a mo loma tsebe.
'He/she bit his/her ear.'
'He/she told him a secret.'
It is this type of confusion which seems to be the main course of ambiguity in natural
languages. This seems to be in line with Hoffman's (1989:213) assertion:
... metaphoric ambiguity is undoubtedly the most pervasive type of
ambiguity in technical discussions of research on lexical ambiguity.
Primary versus Secondary Meaning
The dominant meaning, that is, the most frequent activated meaning as discussed in
chapter 3 of this thesis, differs from the subordinate or less frequently activated
meaning(s). For example, upon hearing the word /e§oko out of context, most people
might be inclined to assume that it means 'mercy' rather than the less frequently used
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meaning which is 'labour pains'.
Conceptual versus Associative Meaning
Conceptual meaning, alias 'denotative or cognitive meaning' (Leech, 1981:9), covers
those basic, essential components of meaning which are conveyed by the literal use of
a word (Yule, 1985:92). Some of the basic components of the word mootlwa (thorn),
for example, include 'thin, sharp, plant'. These components form part of the conceptual
meaning of mootlwa. However, there are some associations and connotations attached
to a word like mootlwa which might lead one to think of 'pain' whenever one encounters
the word. This kind of meaning is referred to as associative meaning.
Intended versus Interpreted Meaning
The intended meaning, that is, that which is in the mind of the speaker/writer when he
is framing his message, and the interpreted (understood) meaning, that is, that which
is conveyed to the mind of the listener/reader when he receives the message, are not
always the same. Successful communication, according to Leech (1981:22), is attained
if, and only ``if we know what was in mind (A) has been transferred to, or occupied in,
mind (B)." If that is not the case, the intended meaning is different from the interpreted
meaning, then ambiguity comes to the fore, for the two people, namely, the speaker
and the addressee, understand the text/speech differently. The essence of language,
writes Otto Jespersen (in Moore & Carling, 1982:v)
... is human activity - activity on the part of one individual to make himself
understood by another, and activity on the part of that other to understand
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what was in the mind of the first.
With the above types of meaning in mind, one can, with a clear conscience for that
matter, concur with Tomasulo (1986) who laid conditions for ambiguity. These
`conditions' serve as criteria for differentiating ambiguity from other related phenomena,
inter alia, vagueness, ambivalence and other cognate phenomena. Such conditions as
outlined in Tomasulo (1986:149-50), are paraphrased as follows:
An ambiguous word, phrase, expression or utterance has two or more
distinct meanings within a single context.
The meanings of an ambiguous expression are not reducible to each
other or to some common denominator, nor are they identifiable with each
other or subsumable in a larger unit of meaning which they conjoin to
create or in which they are reconciled and united.
The meanings of an ambiguous expression are mutually exclusive in a
given context, in the sense that if one applies, the other cannot apply, and
vice versa.
An ambiguous expression requires the reader or viewer to choose
between its alternative meanings, but, at the same time, it provides no
ground for making this choice. The mutually exclusive meanings therefore
coexist in spite of the either/or conflict between them.
However, there are two related subproblems which one should overcome in the analysis
of ambiguity in natural language. The first subproblem, as Allen (1987:9) observes, is
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the representation problem, that is, how the different interpretations possible at a given
level are represented, and the_second is the interpretation problem, that is, how the
appropriate representations at each level are produced from the input to that level.
6.2 Pragmatic Ambiguity
As witnessed in the above paragraphs, there is a connection between meaning and
use, for it is the meaning of a sentence or an utterance which determines its use. It is
against this background that Yule (1985:91) concludes thus:
we cannot assume that there are some God-given, meaningful
connection between a word in a language and an object in the world. It
cannot be the case that we know the meaning of the word chair, for
example, because this label has some natural, 'God-given' connection to
the object you are sitting on.
If that is to be the case, then one will be forced to say that God is an English speaker,
and thus that a label such as setulo in Northern Sotho is, in some sense, an 'unnatural'
way of referring to the same object. The meanings of words are therefore arbitrary.
The meaning of a word is connected to its use. Some words/sentences have literal or
figurative meanings because of their usage in a particular context. Say, for example,
a boy directs the following sentence to his mother:
3. Ke swerwe ke boroko.
'I am sleepy.'
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Is this just a statement from a boy telling his mother about his state of mind, or are there
other connotations attached? An utterance such as the one above does not only act
as a statement, but also as a request. The speaker is not only directly and literally
informing his mother that he is sleepy, but is also, though indirectly, asking permission
to sleep (or requesting a bed to sleep on). If he had said sentence 4 below, he would
have been directly but non-literally telling his mother that he is sleepy, as well as
indirectly asking for permission to sleep.
Ke duma go robala.
'I feel like sleeping.'
Similarly, the following sentence is usually interpreted as an invitation to join the group
which is dining, although in actual fact it is a statement which needs no other reaction
than acknowledgement.
Re sa ja.
'We are still eating.'
In all these and similar cases, the context normally dictates the preferred meaning,
either literal or figurative. These examples emphasise the fact that the "speaker can
always mean something else or something more, but his audience cannot infer this
without relying on information beyond the meaning of the sentence uttered" (Bach,
1987:70). It goes without saying that the meaning of an utterance relies mostly on its
use and the context within which it is being used.
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6.3 The Slips
According to Meyer et al. (1989:58) every living human being makes mistakes or
parapraxes daily, mistakes which he/she normally regards as minor, insignificant or
unimportant. Among other mistakes, he/she misspells easy and simple words; he/she
calls people he/she knows very well by wrong names; or as Meyer et al. (1989:58) say,
"he has a slip of the tongue and says something he did not intend". They continue to
say that Freud does not regard these mistakes as accidental because he maintains that
they are caused by unconscious desires and fears and that they are a mild form of
psycho-pathology which is found in every normal human being.
Apart from the slip of the tongue, it is natural and proper for a human being to have a
slip of the pen. By 'the slip of the pen', as dealt with in detail in chapter 2 of this thesis,
is meant writing something that one does not intend putting on paper. Such a mistake
may bring serious misunderstandings and misinterpretations which could lead to
quarrels and even fighting between the writer and the readers (vide some examples in
chapter 2). To further exemplify the problems that might be caused by these slips, the
following experience will suffice. The researchers friend's car had the following wording
written on a sticker put on the rear window:
6a. Di ahaba di maket§e.
'They ran away while puzzled.'
When the researcher asked his friend to explain the meanings of the wording of the
sticker on his car, he read the sentence as follows:
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6b. Dit§haba di maket§e.
'The nations are surprised.'
Instead of writing the noun dit§haba (the nations) conjunctively, his pen slipped and it
was written disjunctively, conveying a different meaning altogether. He wanted to
praise his beautiful but old Mercedes Benz, saying that, old as it was, its beauty was the
envy of many people. Such slips of the pen are abundant in Northern Sotho, perhaps
because of the orthographical uncertainty that arises when one has to choose between
writing a word disjunctively or conjunctively.
However, such errors may sometimes as Aitchison (1981:35) depicts them, "provide
useful information". Revisiting the above example, with the picture of the car which is
being talked about in mind (a 1971 model), one is obliged to concur with what is written
on the sticker because those old cars were sturdy, unlike the newer ones which are
made of 'plastic'. The written error, 'Di t§haba di maket§e', reveals what could happen
if cars were people! Surely, they would not dare come near that Mercedes, for any
collision would be disastrous to them - hence their running away while surprised.
As seen in chapter 2 of this thesis, it is not only the mode of writing that causes
confusion of interpretation in Northern Sotho, punctuation also has a role to play.
Writing a full stop instead of a question mark or an exclamation mark brings an
unintended meaning. Writing a comma where it is not supposed to be also contributes
towards conveying the unmeant. The same holds for putting a diacritic mark on the
wrong vowel. Fortunately, when it comes to diacritic marks, the Northern Sotho
Language Board in Northern Sotho Terminology and Orthography (1988) recommends
Page -237-
that care should be taken when using them, and that they should only be used for
scientific books such as dictionaries or only when and where their absence could cause
confusion. Though the slips of the pen are natural and sometimes unavoidable, in
practice, the ambiguities they cause are avoidable because in speech intonation and
word-breaks distinguish one sense from another.
6.4 Context and the Selection of Meaning (Disambiguation)
As illustrated in the previous chapters, ambiguity, to use Thorne's (1997:237) words,
can occur when a word can be interpreted differently depending on its word class; when
the different connotations of a word alter the meaning; when word order is altered to
make the headline concise; or when punctuation is omitted to prevent a headline from
being too long. Sometimes, as Thome (ibid) rightly observes, the ambiguity created is
purposeful, and in others, accidental. Since ambiguity is found in almost every sphere
of linguistics, one has to find ways of resolving or avoiding it. Disambiguation,
according to Trask (1983:83), is any procedure for selecting one of the meanings of an
ambiguous string. This may be done in various ways, such as by adding extra words
or, paraphrising or in some cases, by adding referential indices. It can be processed
in various ways, context being one of them. Before moving on to the role of context in
the disambiguation of utterances and sentences, Kahn & Ilson's (1985:46) observation
needs to be revisited:
The way to avoid ambiguity in speech and writing is very simple - and
very difficult. The trick is merely to think carefully before you speak, and
to check carefully after you write.
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Is it really possible for a normal human being to speak without thinking, and think
carefully for that matter? All speakers want to convey their messages to their audience,
and that being the case, no normal speaker can just talk without first thinking what he
wants to tell his audience. With all this thinking, the speakers still deliver wrong
messages to their audience through ambiguity. When one writes, one makes sure that
one's writings deliver the intended message. How does it happen that one does not
carefully check what one writes?
Though it is true, as Chafe (1970:77) also observes, that when one is confronted by an
ambiguous utterance one usually recognizes one use of its meanings before the other
(or others), it is not always the case with full ambiguity. In the case of full ambiguity
one's competence (knowledge of the language) and one's performance (use of a
language) do not resolve the meaning; the perceiver must decide on some other basis
(topic of conversation, plausibility, knowledge about the speaker) which of the two
meanings the speaker intended (Fodor, 1995:218).
As illustrated in paragraph 6.2 above, the semantic-pragmatic approach to ambiguity
calls for serious consideration to be given to the context; linguistic as well as situational.
It is the concern of pragmatics to contextually determine the meaning of utterances. In
order to determine the actual meaning of an utterance, as Richards et al. (1992) put it,
"usually, additional information either from the speaker or writer or from the situation
indicates which meaning is intended." Like other linguists, Empson (1961:20) is also
aware of the importance of seeing a word as part of a larger whole when he comments
on the need to observe "the context implied by the statement, the person to whom it
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seems to be addressed, and the purpose for which it seems to be addressed to him".
It follows from this that verbal ambiguity is fundamentally dependent on the context that
is implicit in the linguistic structure (Su, 1994:65).
Hirsch's (1967:86-7) definition of context is broad and very inclusive. He defines it as
a term,
... by which we normally mean a very complex and undifferentiated set of
factors, starting with the words that surround the crux and expanding to
the entire physical, psychological, social and historical milieu in which the
utterance occurs. We mean the traditions and conventions that the
speaker relies on, his attitudes, purpose, kind of vocabulary, relation to
his audience, and we may mean a great many other things besides.
Hirsch's definition makes context an umbrella term which is used to include anything
that gives an utterance meaning. In this subsection, however, only two contexts will be
scrutinised in resolving ambiguities in Northern Sotho, namely, the sentential or the
linguistic context and the situational context.
6.4.1 Linguistic Context
"The linguistic context", says Su (1994:78), "refers to the verbal surround of a given
word, phrase or sentence, i.e. the grammatical and semantic relations it contracts with
other elements of the text." Words or phrases are used with other words to convey full
meaning - in isolation they are vulnerable to ambiguity. A Northern Sotho word,
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Mosotho, for example, may be interpreted as a black person (a compounded form of
mothomoso which derives from motho yo moso) or as a Sotho speaking person when
taken out of the context of a sentence. Usually, such an ambiguity "passes unnoticed
in everyday language-behaviour, because the context is such that all but one of the
possible interpretations are irrelevant or relatively improbable" (Lyons, 1977:397). For
example, the ambiguity of Mosotho as used in the following sentence is resolved -
disambiguated:
8. Go boleta ge o le Mosotho go bolela Setswetla go phala Sezulu.
'It is easier, if you are a Sotho speaker, to speak Venda than Zulu.'
In comprehending the actual meaning of Mosotho as used in this sentence, one is
directed by the meaning of the other relational words with which it is being used. In the
above sentence, it is Setswetla (the Venda language) and Sezulu (the Zulu language)
which determine the meaning of Mosotho in that these two languages are spoken by
black people. Hence Mosotho here refers to a Sotho speaking person. The importance
of linguistic context is emphasised by Katz & Fodor (1964:493) who claim that
... the basic fact that a semantic theory must explain is that a fluent
speaker can determine the meaning of a sentence in terms of the
meanings of its constituent lexical items.
This approach is also followed by linguists who pursue discourse analysis. Beaugrande
(in Frawley, 1992:37) gives an extreme version of this approach:
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The enterprise of stating all potential word classes and meanings - the
ultimate step in abstract linguistics - is doomed precisely because the
results of contextual determination cannot be foreseen ... A more
auspicious enterprise would be to explore the processes of contextual
determination.
In interpreting the word within sentential context, we note not only the semantic but also
the syntactic relationships within a sentence (Su, 1994:78). When one sees an NP
preceding a VP, for instance, one's immediate response is that the NP is the subject
of the VP. Is it wholly true even in the following sentence?
9. Polao ya bana e nyamgitte sethaba.
`The killing of the children saddened the nation.'
Is the NP (polao ya bana) the subject of the VP (e nyarngige seithaba), or is it part of
the object? Who does the killing? Is it the children (bana) who are killing other people
or is it other people who are killing the children? Only context can disambiguate this
sentence. It is the deverbative polao (from the verb stem -bolaya) which is responsible
for the ambiguity of the above sentence.
6.4.2 Situational Context
In most cases, disambiguation depends partly on the linguistic context and partly on
the extralinguistic context, especially, 'contextual information', to use Katz's (1972:62)
phrase. The following sentence can occur in a situation where it can be possible for the
hearer to decide that some of its senses do not apply but others do.
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Ga go sa na kereke. 'There is no church anymore.'
Suppose, for instance, the above sentence is uttered while the hearer is sitting next to
the church building, waiting for other congregants. Then the situation gives the hearer
the information he/she needs to decide that the utterance uniquely means that there will
be no more services at the church. The point becomes clearer when sentence 10a is
uttered while the hearer is faced with a charred rubble of what was once his church.
However, the following sentence rules out the interpretation of 'church services'.
Kereke e swele. 'The church burnt down.'
Similarly, the following sentence is ambiguous. One is not sure about the meaning of
thapo as used in that sentence. Should it be interpreted as 'a pip' and 'a rope'?
11a. Ke be ke swere thapo. 'I was holding a pip/rope.'
However, sentence 11 b below is not confusing.
11 b. Ke ipofile ka thapo. 'I tied myself with a rope.'
The appropriate meaning/sense of sentence 11 a depends wholly on the context within
which it is being used. If the 'thing' that the speaker was holding was all covered in the
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hand, then the thapo brings the sense of a pip, for though probable, it is not so easy
to clasp the whole rope in one's hand.
6.4.3 Résumé
What has been demonstrated in this subsection, as well as in chapter 3, is the
indispensability of context for a study of ambiguity. On the indispensability of context,
Higginbotham (in Frawley, 1992:44) has this to say:
Perhaps nothing at all that people say has its meaning wholly
independently of context. It does not follow that semantic theory has little
to say, or that it is in any way intrinsically incomplete. On the contrary, it
is through only context-independent features that we know what aspects
of a context to take as relevant in the first place to the interpretation of the
utterances around us.
This thesis does not only treat unintentional ambiguities; but it also treats the intentional
ambiguities because as Whitney & Clark (1989:250) have observed, "there are
occasions when writers and speakers are intentionally ambiguous". Consider the
following sentence:
12. Ke hweditte Lesiba a eja Mokgadi a robette.
'I found Lesiba eating while Mokgadi was asleep.'
'I found Lesiba having sex with Mokgadi lying down.'
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A speaker could use the above sentence with the express intention of referring to -ja
as in eating food, or with the aim of using -ja to refer to sexual intercourse, or with the
objective of uttering an ambiguous sentence meant to confuse his audience. No one,
would say that the grammar of Northern Sotho has to explain that a particular utterance
of 12 was meant by the speaker to be ambiguous and that a particular utterance of 12
was not meant to be. Each and every sentence has its meaning though its meaning
may change depending on context. The meaning of a sentence does not change just
because a speaker does not mean what it means. Whether or not the speaker means
what the sentence means, the meaning of a sentence provides the hearer with the
linguistic basis for inferring what the speaker means (Bach, 1987:70).
It is easier to avoid ambiguity in conversation than in writing. This is enhanced by
O'Connell (1988:24) who maintains that "sentences are ambiguated by being isolated
to written form". This idea is further supported by McArthur & McArthur (1992:33) who
say that ambiguity in speech can be resolved by asking the question: "What do you
mean, X or Y", but in reading there is no one to ask and, unless the term is marked so
as to designate the meaning intended, it may be impossible to distinguish one meaning
from another. Whitney & Clark (1989:250) comment as follows with regard to ambiguity
in conversation as well as in written language:
In conversation there is more opportunity for context and feedback from
the listener to allow for disambiguation. However, ambiguity in written
language often leads to problems in comprehension. In fact, the
pervasiveness of ambiguity (at various levels) in written language is no
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doubt a major factor underlying much of the research reported in this
volume.
To sum up this subsection, it is deemed fit to quote Lutz's view on the question of
pervasiveness of ambiguity in natural languages. Lutz (1996:38-9) is convinced that
ambiguity cannot be wholly eliminated from languages mainly because words have
double or mu:::ple meanings.
If words had only one meaning, we could pretty well eliminate all
ambiguity from the language. However, since each word in a sentence
can have multiple meanings, we must sort out all those possible
meanings to arrive at the one meaning that we think works. We do this
every time we use language, and usually we're not even aware we're
doing it ... Without context, we might not know what the words mean.
6.5 The Pros and Cons of Ambiguity
Every cloud . has a silver lining, so goes the adage; and language is no exception.
Pervasive as it is, ambiguity has its good and bad sides. It is in this subsection that the
good as well as the bad side of ambiguity will be analysed. Tomasulo (1986:154) is
also convinced that linguistic ambiguity has its ups and downs. He summarises his
observation thus:
Ambiguity, whether narrative or visual, demonstrates not only one of the
major limitations of artistic reproduction, but also one of its major
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strengths. It is only in art that the same figure can be a duck or a rabbit
and that birds can be white while flying in one direction and black while
flying in the other. In real life, such equally tenable contradictions are not
allowed ...
Tomasulo's observation is backed by Simpson (1989:21) who also acknowledges the
pejorative as well as the ameliorative effects of ambiguity in languages. He concludes
thus:
In short, ambiguity serves two critical roles: as one of our most
fundamental problems and as one of our most powerful tools.
In the past, according to Cox & Dyson (1965:176), ambiguity was usually used as an
adverse term; it signified the use of a word or phrase in such a way that alternative
meanings were possible, thereby obscuring the intended meaning. In modem usage,
the term is used to refer to the conscious use of a word or phrase to bring about two or
more meanings, all of them relevant. Hence Grice's (1975:54) reminder: "We must
remember that we are concerned only with ambiguity that is deliberate, and that the
speaker intends or expects to be recognized by his hearer". In other words, what Grice
brings forth is that ambiguity can be used intentionally to create, among others,
suspense, fun, "comic or wry effect" (Gray, 1992:18).
In everyday uses of the spoken as well as the written language, ambiguity, as many
linguists such as Greenbaum (1991), Fowler (1987), Peck & Coyle (1984) are in
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agreement, is a fault to be avoided because it may cause confusion and
misunderstandings. Howevep± poets in particular, introduce ambiguity deliberately to
convey simultaneous meanings. Such ambiguities are in most cases realised in puns.
As one word suggests various meanings, "we come to feel how life burgeons beyond
the absolute control of the writer" (Peck & Coyle, (1984:129).
Exposure to ambiguity, jokes and riddles as suggested by Brause (1975:105) can help
children to develop linguistically and mentally. Understanding some aspects of
language such as ambiguity can add to one's understanding of people and their speech
behaviour, thereby coming to understand their thinking. The study and understanding
of ambiguity help linguists to solve certain problems with ease, as explicated by Brause
(1975:108):
Newspaper headlines which are in most cases concise but ambiguous. In most
cases, the ambiguity in such news headlines is deliberate so that the headlines
could be able to attract the potential readers. Dense headlines, according to
McArthur & McArthur (1992:466), often demand a second reading because of
strange combinations, and some of them remain ambiguous until the text has
been read.
Advertisements which are in most cases commercially inclined, are usually
ambiguous. Advertisements are aimed at persuading, informing and selling.
Page -248-
Humorous jokes are based on one's interpretation of words or phrases in two
ways, simultaneously.
Politicians' speeches are usually ambiguous, the intention being either to
confuse or convince the nation (audience). Werth (1978:68) also sees it the
same for he says: "Again ambiguity can be used deliberately to either expand
meaning (as in literary uses) or to mask duplicity or prevarication (as in political
uses)". This is what Lutz (1996:151) calls 'the doublespeak of politics'.
• Riddles are always ambiguous - to solve them, one has to interpret the intended
object or the meaning implied in the riddle itself. Yule (1985:97) gives an
example of a riddle which uses homonymy. To use his own words: "And if you
have come across this riddle: Why are trees often mistaken for dogs?, then you
will have encountered the use of homonymy in the answer: Because of their
bark." Here the riddler plays with the meaning of the word 'bark' referring to
either the cry made by dogs or the outer covering of the trunks of trees.
Ambiguity is a natural characteristic of language which becomes heightened and
significant in verse. It should not be taken as a specific figurative device which may be
chosen at will for decoration (Fowler, 1987:7). And to use Empson's own words, it is
not "a thing to be attempted". Full ambiguity is a threat to successful communication.
By including an ambiguous word in a sentence, one slows the processing of that
sentence.
Page -249-
As indicated above, ambiguity is a literary device which is commonly used in poetry.
In most cases, a poem, perhaps because of its ambiguous nature, does not have a
single meaning. In some instances, it is only one word in a poem which causes it to
have multi-meanings, and in others it may be the poem as a whole which activates
different meanings. When reading a poem, one should not just look for one meaning
in it. That is why even Peck & Coyle (1984:130) warn:
We should attempt to reverse our instinctive attitude of looking for one
meaning in a poem in favour of seeing that the language of poetry is full
of conflicting, ambiguous meanings. The danger in such an approach is
that everything can be represented as ambiguous and the plain sense of
the poem can disappear unless one remembers that ambiguity is
concerned with the complexity of meaning in the words, not with
improbable meanings of the poem as a whole.
Ambiguity can be very costly, especially if it occurs unintentionally. Misinterpreting a
command or any utterance may cause one to do things one should not have done.
People may kill each other all because of misinterpretations and misunderstandings.
Take, for instance, the following true conversation which could have led to divorce had
it not being for Matome's intervention. Matome, a family friend, found his friend's baby-
boy sitting with his mother on the veranda of their home. After greetings, the following
conversation took place between Matome and the child:
Page -250-
Matome
Tlou
`Matome
Tlou
Tlou, tatago o kae?
Tate! Ka mehla le ka mehla ge a eya banneng o a mpot§a.
Mamohla ga a mpot§a, ke gore o ile basading.
Tlou, where is your father?
My father! When he goes to the men, he always tells me.
Today, he did not tell me, which means he went to the
women.'
The last sentence made the mother furious - she wanted to verify as to whether it was
true that her husband went to 'the women'. The expression o ile basading is
ambiguous. On the one hand, it means that the person has gone to see the women not
men, whereas on the other hand it is being used metaphorically, meaning he has gone
to womanize; he has gone to see his secret lovers. Hence his wife's anger. Had it not
been for Matome's explanation of the ambiguity of the sentence the child uttered, the
woman would have filed for divorce. It is in view of incidents such as this that Whitney
& Clark (1989:250) conclude thus: "Unintentional ambiguity of meaning, ... is not only
pervasive, but also costly."
6.6 The Final Word
In the introductory chapter of her book, Taylor (1983:7) writes:
As I write this book, my goal is to transfer certain ideas from my brains
into your brains. To accomplish this, I sit at a typewriter and make marks
on paper. These marks stand for the ideas I have, and I hope that they
will mean approximately the same ideas to you when you see them -
Page -251-
slightly altered by the process of publication - on the pages of your
textbook.
The same applies to this researcher - it is his wish that what he wanted to convey to the
readers be transferred successfully, and be rightly interpreted and understood. As
witnessed in this thesis, ambiguity (especially written ambiguity) is difficult to avoid. It
is the researcher's hope that his ideas will mean approximately the same when they
reach the eyes and minds of the readers.
An apology is perhaps desirable for the appearance of a thesis purporting to survey the
whole range of ambiguity studies. In a period of increasing specialization, experts in
several types of ambiguity are likely to find that, in their opinion, "their own speciality is
treated scantily, superficially, and with distortion in emphasis and selection" (Robins,
1989:xi).
To conclude this thesis, it is deemed fit to quote words and ideas from Lutz (1996:6),
who wrote a very interesting but challenging book on doublespeak. He concludes thus:
I do not mean that we should "clean up our language" in the sense that
we speak "proper" English, whatever that might be. Or that we should
pronounce words correctly, whatever a correct pronunciation is. Nor do
I mean that we should avoid all obscene, vulgar, or improper language,
whatever that might be. What I do mean is that we should insist that
public language, the language of public discourse, the language we use
Page -252-
as a society and a nation to run our public affairs, should be as clear,
complete, and as direct as possible.
To this end it is suggested that contentious conceptions of ambiguity, like literary
ambiguity, still deserve scrutiny in Northern Sotho.
Page -253-
CHAPTER 7
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Nida, Eugene A. 1975. Componential Analysis of Meaning: An Introduction to Semantic
Structures. The Hague : Mouton & Co. N. V., Publishers.
Nowottny, W. 1962. The Language Poets Use. London: The Athlone Press.
Pickering, J.H. & Hoeper, J.D. 1981. Concise Companion to Literature. New York:
MacMillan Publishing Co. Inc.
Renkema, Jan. 1993. Discourse Studies: An Introductory Textbook. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins Publishing Company.
Schaub, Thomas H. 1981. Pynchon: The Voice of Ambiguity. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press.
Page -269-
Schvaneveldt, R.W.; Meyer, D.E. & Becker, C.A. 1976. 'Lexical Ambiguity, Semantic
Context, and Visual Word Recognition' in Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Human Perception and Performance, 2. pp. 243-256.
Swinney, D.A. & Hakes, D.T. 1976. 'Effects of Prior Context upon Lexical Access during
Sentence Comprehension' in Journal of Verbal Learning Behavior. 15. pp. 681-
689.
Ullmann, Stephen. 1951. Words and their Use. London: Frederick Muller Ltd.
Ullmann, Stephen. 1970. 'Change of Meaning' in Hungerford, Harold; Robinson, Jay &
Sledd, James (eds). English Linguistics: An Introductory Reader. Illinois: Scott,
Foresman and Company.
7.3 ORTHOGRAPHIES
Department of Education and Training. 1988. Northern Sotho Terminology and
Orthography. Pretoria: Government Printers.
The Central Orthographic Committee. 1937-8. 'A Practical Orthography for Tswana' in
Bantu Studies, 11-12.
The Transvaal Sotho District Committee. 1927-30. 'The Practical Orthography of the
Transvaal Sotho' in Bantu Studies, 3-4.
7.4 NEWSPAPERS
City Press 1998/06/14
City Press 2000/01/23
Sowetan 1998/06/24
Page -270-
APPENDIX
A. Ambiguity Which is Due to the Slip of the Pen
A.I Word Division
Digare di fapakana mologong wa seaparo. VS. Di gare di fapakana mologong
wa seaparo.
Diphuthego fteo di fihlilego. VS. Di phuthe go fte o di fihlilego.
Dithhaba di makethe. VS. Di Ithaba di makethe.
Eba monna. VS. E ba monna.
Ga ke nyake lebone ge ke mo swere. VS. Ga ke nyake le bone ge ke mo
swere.
Go hwa bao ba ratago. VS. Go hwa ba o ba ratago.
Go na le lehumo tseleng. VS Go na le lehu mo tseleng.
Ke bone seo se bonego. VS. Ke bone se o se bonego.
Ke bone sehiaga nageng. VS. Ke bone se hiaga nageng.
Ke ya gae gomme ke yo robala. VS. Ke ya gae go mme ke yo robala.
Ke segage§o. VS. Ke sega ge§o.
Ke lefela. VS. Ke le fela.
Ke tia tia gosasa. VS. Ke tia tia go sa sa.
Ke bone lefofa godimo ga mohiare. VS. Ke bone le fofa godimo ga mohiare.
Lea ratana? VS. Lea rata na?
Lea Jana? VS. Le a ja na?
Le a bonana? VS. Le a bona na?
Lerete la mang? VS. Le retela mang?
Monna o lefa mo§emane. VS. Monna o le fa mo§emane.
0 tla gobala. VS. 0 tla go bala.
0 sa katana? VS. 0 sa kata na?
0 tla hwetta makgarebe ao a nyakago. VS. 0 tla hwetha makgarebe a o a
nyakago.
0 mo lese. VS. 0 mo le se.
0 jeletta batho. VS. 0 jele tta batho.
0 falaga meetse. VS. 0 fala tta meetse.
Page -271-
0 mpethile ka seroba. VS. 0 mpethile ka se roba.
Se ke sefe? VS. Se ke se fe?
Setimela se kitima kudu. VS. Se timela se kitima kudu.
Setlatla seo! VS. Se tla tia seo!
Ail Punctuation
1 Ba§emane ba re go ja, banenyana ba hlatswa dibjana. VS. Ba§emane ba re go
ja banenyana, ba hlatswa dibjana.
Ke tia robala boroko ke fedit§e mo§omo. VS. Ke tia robala boroko, ke fedige
mo§omo.
Monna o bolet§e go re a sepele. VS. Monna o bolet§e, gore a sepele.
Morutrti Maake ke mootledi wa sefatanaga sa malome. VS. Moruti§i, Maake ke
mootledi wa sefatanaga sa malome.
The ka moka ga se selo, selo ke Lerato. VS. The ka moka ga se selo, selo ke
lerato.
B. Lexically Ambiguous Sentences
Ba re ba tla ikgama neng basadi bao?
Baagi§ani ba gagwe ba a tsoga.
Bohle bao ba felesethago khwaere diphadi§anong, ba kgopelwa gore ba 'dale.
Bophelo bo tlethe ka dilo ga bothata.
Ga a na mokokotlo.
Ge a fthai§a ka moka re a makala.
Go thwe o ile a §ala a kata mosadi wa moaggane wa gagwe mola monna wa
gagwe a sa ile maeto.
Go re ke nako ya fo go fola, o tia bona ka banna ba myemyela.
Go ithoma, kudu ge motho a §et§e a thofethe, go bohloko.
Go thwe koko yo ge a ratile o ja le§ela.
Ke kwa go thwe Mosima mola a yago dikhithhining o a kganya.
Ke thapo ya mang ye?
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Ke kwa ba re monna wa gago o rata lewa kudu.
Ke felet§we ke makhura.
Ke kwele go thwe Mokgaegi o robegile leoto.
Ke na le bomma ka kua ntlong.
Le re ke mmisisi wa mang yo?
Le tia ba le rena gosasa?
Lesiba, o gobege kae?
Lesogana le bethi§a mosadi monna.
Lesogana le nyethe le sa rate.
Malose o phela ka dihiong.
Matome o wethe.
Matome o sa fahia magotlo.
Mo ga ke go tsebe.
Mokgaetti o a ntshepelela.
Mokgaet§i o sa ithomile.
Mokgalabje o rekela batemane malekere.
Mosadi ge a hiapa ga a nyake go bona monna.
Motemane yo o re o nyaka go ntheipa.
0 fapogile.
Se o se bonago se ke molala.
C. Structurally Ambiguous Sentences
Bakgalabje le bakgekolo ba kgale ga ba rate dikgetho.
Banna ba bethile mosadi wa go nwa bjala ka pareng.
Banna ba leka go loki§a sefatanaga gape.
Banna ba bethile mosadi wa go kgoga lebake ka kerekeng.
Ba§emane ba bone mosadi wa go belega sepetlele.
Batho ba kgopege thu§o ya go lwant§ha bosenyi maphodiseng.
Batswadi ba Matome le Lesiba ba ile toropong.
Batswadi ba lena ba rile le namele ditonki le basadi ba lena.
Bomma ba rile ke hlapi§e ngwana le monna wa ka.
Page -273-
Ge o fihla gae, o game dikgomo le mosadi wa gago.
Go lwant§ha ditau go kotsi.
Ke tseba basadi ba ba botse go phala Raesibe.
Ke founo ya gago.
Ketelo ya metswalle e a lapi§a.
Kgo§i e laete maphodisa go fedi§a go nwa.
Lerato la Modimo le bohlokwa.
Lesiba o na le bana le basadi ba babedi.
Makgema a mosadi wa go leta dinonyana ma§emong.
Maphodisa a swere mo§emane wa go utswa maabane.
Maphodisa a swere mo§emane wa go utswa pankeng maabane.
Matome o nagana kudu ka Mokgaet§i go phala Lesiba.
Matome o tswette mo§emanyana le ngwanenyana.
Matome o rata Mokgaet§i go feta Lesiba.
Mokgaet§i o bethiiwe ke batswadi ba Matome goba Lesiba.
Monna wa mosadi wa go nona o tlile.
Maemane yo a ka le phalago ka moka ke tla mo fa R10 le mosetsana.
Motsomi o swere matlalo, dingatha le manaka a ditlou.
Ngwato le Lesiba goba Matome ba ile toropong.
Ngwato goba Lesiba le Matome ba ile toropong.
Ngwato o na le leino le letee la go bola.
Phakedi o bodige Lesiba gore mosadi wa gagwe o botse.
Puku ye ke ya motlabo wa ka le Lesiba.
Sefatanago se se nametha banna le basadi ba bane.
Thunt§ho ya batsomi e bile gampe.
Thuthupe o swanette go ba a tlogile ka gobane mafesetere a tswalethwe.
Yena o bona diswant§ho tta monna le mosadi.
Yo motho, Modimo o a mo tseba.
Yo monna, mosadi o a mmetha.
Page -274-
D. Contextually Determined Sentences
DS Matome o nyette ka pareng.
DW Go thwe Matome o nyege mosadi maabane.
FA Matome o nyege a sa rate.
SW Matome o nyette ka ga malome'agwe.
SS Matome o nyethe ngwagola.
DS A re mo emeleng, o tla re ge a boa go ithoma ra sepela.
DW Le ge pula e ena, go ithoma gona, ge nako e fihlile, o swanet§e.
FA Go ithoma, kudu ge motho a thofet§e, go bohloko.
SW Motho yo mogolo ga a ke a ithoma bana ba le gona.
SS 0 ka se be wa ithoma mola lapa le tlette bana, roma yo mongwe.
DS Nama ya kgomo ya molala e phala ya serope ka bose.
DW Molala wa gagwe ke wo mogolo.
FA Se o se bonago se ke molala.
SW Ba mo segette molala wa go feta ya ba bangwe ka moka.
SS Ngwaga wo ga re a lema, e no ba molala fela.
DS Go thwe o ile a ikgama ka thapo.
DW Ngwana wa gagwe o rile go bolawa, Mosima a ikgama.
FA Ba re ba tla ikgama neng basadi bao.
SW 0 mo hlokomele, a ka ikgama ngwana a ba mathateng.
SS Motswelti ge a eftwa maeto o swanege go ikgama pele ngwana a ka
nyanya.
DS Matome o rile go kata Mosima a iki§a maphodiseng.
DW Matome o rile go kata Mosima a timelela.
Page -275-
FA Go thwe o ile a §ala a kata mosadi wa moaggane mola manna wa gagwe
a sa ile maeto.
SW Manna o ile a kgopela moagi§ane wa gagwe gore a "sale a kata mosadi
wa gagwe.
SS Matome o kata mosadi wa moagi§ane gore a se hlaselwe.
DS 0 re go mona lerula o tshwe thapo.
DW 0 hupege thapo yeo ka mmu pele e eba selemo.
FA Ke thapo ya mang ye?
SW Se dumelele bana ba raloka ka thapo, e tla ba kgama.
SS Bofolla thapo yeo pele e go sehla.
DS Matome ge a fola o nt§ha me§i ka dinko.
DW Matome o fola le legoko la dinko.
FA Gore ke nako ya go fola, o tla bona banna ba myemyela.
SW Ge a fola ga a rate motho go mo ditela.
SS Matome o fola mabele ka mafuri.
DS Mosamelo wo o mpolai§a molala gobane o bothata.
DW Mmopi o di dirile gore di be bothata.
FA Bophelo bo tlethe ka dilo tha bothata.
SW Moruti§i o di dirile gore di be bothata.
SS Matome o re dipalo di bothata.
DS Maabane re §ebile ka nama ya phala.
DW 0 rile ge a boa go tsoma a boa le phala.
FA Phala e Ilile , banna ba emaema.
SW Se a se hupedittego ka letsogo ke phala.
SS Yo a se nago phala o tla lega mogwete.
Page -276-
NOVE US
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