1. Family: Niger-Congo
  2. Subfamily: Benue-Congo
  3. Genus: Bantoid

Sesotho

WALS coordinates: 28° S, 27° E

spoken in Lesotho, South Africa

Find examples here.

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Sotho (Southern)
Routledge:
  • Sotho (South)
Other:
  • S Sotho,
  • Southern Sotho
ISO 639-3:

Features

ID Feature Value Area References  
27A Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication Morphology
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36A The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural Nominal Categories
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examples
53A Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th Nominal Categories
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55A Numeral Classifiers Absent Nominal Categories
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56A Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative Nominal Categories
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60A Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated Nominal Syntax
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61A Adjectives without Nouns Without marking Nominal Syntax
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65A Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking Verbal Categories
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66A The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions Verbal Categories
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67A The Future Tense No inflectional future Verbal Categories
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68A The Perfect Other perfect Verbal Categories
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79A Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None Verbal Categories
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79B Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) Verbal Categories
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80A Verbal Number and Suppletion None Verbal Categories
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81A Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO Word Order
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82A Order of Subject and Verb SV Word Order
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83A Order of Object and Verb VO Word Order
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84A Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX Word Order
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85A Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions Word Order
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86A Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive Word Order
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87A Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective Word Order
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88A Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative Word Order
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90A Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause Word Order
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90C Postnominal relative clauses Noun-Relative clause (NRel) dominant Word Order
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92A Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle Word Order
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95A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions Word Order
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96A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel Word Order
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97A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj Word Order
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101A Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject pronouns in different position Simple Clauses
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112A Negative Morphemes Negative particle Simple Clauses
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116A Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only Simple Clauses
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138A Tea Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te Lexicon
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examples
143A Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb NegV Word Order
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143E Preverbal Negative Morphemes NegV Word Order
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143F Postverbal Negative Morphemes None Word Order
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143G Minor morphological means of signaling negation None Word Order
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144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb Other Word Order
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144D The Position of Negative Morphemes in SVO Languages Other NegV Word Order
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144J SVNegO Order No SVNegO Word Order
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144K SVONeg Order No SVONeg Word Order
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