Sources of the data: author’s fieldnotes + Tswana dictionaries (Kgasa 1975, Snyman & al. 1990, Kgasa & Tsonope 1995, Creissels & Chebanne 2000, Otlogetswe 2012) + online bilingual (Tswana-English) corpus (https://glosbe.com/tn/en). The Russian version of the questionnaire was used although French and English were the languages of elicitation and discussion. The representation of the data below reflects the correct grouping of morphemes into words and deviates from the orthographic conventions, which gives a distorted view of word division, since many affixes are written as if they were independent words. In fact, Tswana is as agglutivative as any other Bantu language.
How to cite
Creissels, Denis. 2025. Bivalent patterns in Tswana.
In: Say, Sergey (ed.). BivalTyp: Typological database of bivalent verbs and their encoding frames.
(Data first published on February 10, 2025;
last revised on February 10, 2025.) (Available online at https://www.bivaltyp.info,
Accessed on .)
Genealogy (as given in WALS). Family: Niger-Congo, genus: Bantu.
Macro-area: West Asia and the Caucasus.
Grammar notes
Basic clause structure and the transitive construction
In Tswana, the basic constituent order in verbal clauses is S V (O) (X) (S = subject, V = verb, O = object, X = oblique). Intransitive verbs have, however, an impersonal construction in which the participant encoded as the subject in an SVX construction occurs in postverbal position, and the verb does not agree with it. Neither subjects nor objects are flagged, but indexation mechanisms provide a straightforward definition of the grammatical relations subject and object.
The manifestations of the grammatical relation subject (which encompasses the sole argument of semantically monovalent verbs and the agent of prototypical transitive verbs) are the pre-verbal position of the subject NP and the obligatory indexation of the subject on the verb by means of prefixes taht express person and number, plus gender in the third person. Tswana has several sets of subject indexes depending on the TAM-polarity value expressed by the verb. The subject NP is syntactically optional.
The grammatical relation object, whose prototype is the patient of prototypical transitive verbs, is characterized by the possibility of expressing objects by means of object indexes immediately prefixed to the verb stem. In contrast to subject indexes, they are not obligatory, they are used only to represent topical objects, and they do not vary according to the TAM-polarity value expressed by the verb.
Tswana does not have the equivalent of the grammatical relation indirect object (or dative) as found in the languages of Europe. By contrast, double-object constructions are extremely productive. For example, the recipient of the verbs of giving can only be encoded as the first object in a double-object construction. Three-object constructions are possible with causative or applicative verbs derived from transitives.
The distinctive property of obliques is that they cannot be indexed on the verb form. Most obliques are flagged by prepositions of proclitics, but unflagged obliques can also be found.
Nouns and noun phrases
Tswana has a gender system historically cognate with those found across the Niger-Congo language family (commonly designated as “noun class systems”), and Tswana is a typical Bantu languages in this respect (as in many others). The gender system of Tswana relies on an agreement mechanism in which every noun FORM has the ability to act as the controller in one of 12 possible agreement patterns (or “classes”). Genders can be defined as sets of nominal LEXEMES that have the same agreement behavior both in the singular and the plural. The agreement patterns in which noun forms can be involved as controllers are conventionally designated by numbers that relate them to the reconstructed agreement patterns of Proto-Bantu: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8/10, 9, 11, 14, 17.
Moreover, the division of nouns into genders correlates with their division into inflectional types characterized by a particular pair of number prefixes (singular vs. plural) each.
For example, the singular form mosadi [mʊ̀-sádí] ‘woman’ triggers the agreement pattern traditionally labeled class 1, the corresponding plural basadi [bà-sádí] ‘women’ triggers the agreement pattern labeled class 2, and consequently mosadi ‘woman’ AS A LEXEME belongs to gender 1–2. Similarly, the singular form motse [mʊ̀-tsɪ̀] ‘village’ governs agreement pattern 3 (governed by nouns having the same singular prefix as those governing agreement pattern 1, but distinct agreement properties), the corresponding plural form metse [mɪ̀-tsɪ̀] triggers agreement pattern 4, and consequently motse [mʊ̀-tsɪ̀] AS A LEXEME belongs to gender 3–4.
The major genders of Tswana are as follows:
• 1–2 mosadi [mʊ̀-sádí] ‘woman’ pl. basadi [bà-sádí],
• 3–4 motse [mʊ̀-tsɪ̀] ‘village’ pl. metse [mɪ̀-tsɪ̀],
• 5–6 lee [lɪ̀-ɪ́] ‘egg’ pl. mae [mà-ɪ́],
• 7–8/10 selepe [sɪ̀-lɛ́pɛ́] ‘axe’ pl. dilepe [dì-lɛ́pɛ́],
• 9–8/10 podi [pʊ́dí] ‘goat’ pl. dipodi [dì-pʊ́dí],
• 11–6 losea [lʊ̀-sɪ́á] ‘baby’ pl. masea [mà-sɪ́á],
• 11–8/10 loso [lʊ̀-sɔ̀] ‘spoon’ pl. dintsho [dì-ǹtsʰɔ̀],
• 14–6 bothata [bʊ̀-tʰátá] ‘problem’ pl. mathata [mà-tʰátá].
In addition to the 11 agreement patterns typically governed by nouns lending themselves to the singular/plural alternation, agreement pattern 17 has the particularity of being governed exclusively by two nouns that do not have distinct singular and plural forms, golo [χʊ̀lɔ̀] and felo [fɪ̀lɔ̀], both meaning ‘place’, and by infinitives, which do not lend themselves to the singular/plural alternation either.
Noun phrases are head-initial.
Verbs show a rich system of morphological variations, including the following types of markers (Creissels 2006):
The tonal morphology of the verb is particularly complex, even by Bantu standards, cf. Creissels, Chebanne & Nkhwa (1997), Creissels (2017). Moreover, there is no straightforward correspondence between the values expressed by verb morphology and the formatives into which verb forms can be segmented, cf. Creissels (2006).
The inflected forms of Tswana verbs can be grouped into moods in the sense of subsets of inflected verb forms that have the same distribution across clause types:
The forms of the circumstantial mood project dependent clauses whose internal structure is identical to that of independent assertive clauses. Clauses projected by verb forms of the circumstantial mood do not need the adjunction of any conjunction to express temporal subordination.
The forms of the sequential mood mark non-initial clauses in clause chains referring to sequences of events in which the verb of the first clause is in a form of the indicative mood.
The forms of the relative mood are used in relative clauses and in cleft constructions expressing term focalization.
The indicative, circumstantial, relative and infinitive moods share a TAM paradigm distinguishing the following four values:
– present,
– perfect,
– future,
– potential.
Additional TAM distinctions can be expressed by means of auxiliaries (Creissels Forthcoming).
Glossing abbreviations
adpI = index representing an adnominal possessor, APPL = applicative, CAUS = causative, cl = class (agreement pattern), COM = comitative, DECAUS = decausative, DEM = demonstrative, DJ = disjoint, FUT = future, FV = final vowel, GEN = genitive, INF = infinitive, INS = instrumental, LK = linker, LOC = locative, NEG = negative, oI = object index, PASS = passive, PL = plural, POT = potential, PRF = perfect*, PRN = proper name, PRO = pronoun, PROH = prohibitive, PST = past; Q = question marker, REC = reciprocal, REL = relativizer, SG = singular, sI = subject index. Numbers between parentheses immediately after the lexical gloss of noun forms identify the agreement pattern (or “class”) governed by the noun form.
For a proper understanding of the examples, it is also important to keep in mind that the Tswana TAM form labeled “perfect” has uses that do not correspond to those of the English Perfect: depending on the lexical aspect of the verb, th Tswana perfect may also have progressive and stative readings. See Crane (2013) for a detailed analysis of this situation in another Bantu language.
