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K’ui tii ‘Don’t speak!’ – Morphology and syntax of commands in Ts’ixa (Kalahari Khoe) and beyond

Anne-Maria Fehn

Résumés

Recouvrant des langues actuellement parlées au Botswana, en Namibie, en Angola, au Zimbabwe et en Afrique du Sud, la famille khoe-kwadi fait partie de l'unité typologique des langues « khoïsan d'Afrique australe ». Malgré l’afflux récent de nouvelles données provenant d'un large éventail de langues, aucune étude descriptive ou comparative sur l’expression des ordres n’a été entreprise. Dans cet article, je montre que la langue khoe du Kalahari, Ts’ixa, parlée dans le nord-est du Botswana, manifeste un type d’impératif spécifique, caractérisé par l'absence de marquage tam. Les impératifs en ts’ixa utilisent une morphologie particulière, comprenant un marqueur d’interdiction, une conjonction et un morphème de subordination, attestés avec les impératifs canoniques (2ème personne) et les impératifs étendus (1ère et 3ème personne). Concernant l’expression de la politesse, les impératifs Ts’ixa se combinent avec la morphologie interrogative et vocative. Dans une perspective comparatiste, l’examen des langues de tous les principaux sous-groupes khoe-kwadi met en évidence que de nombreuses caractéristiques des impératifs ts’ixa peuvent être généralisées à l’ensemble de la famille. Non seulement le point de vue comparatif révèle un lien historique entre la morphologie interrogative et impérative, mais il ouvre également de nouvelles perspectives pour les approches généalogiques et aréales des impératifs en khoe-kwadi.

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1. Introduction

  • 1 It should be noted that the data presented in this paper was collected within the framework of a l (...)
  • 2 Natural language data is here understood as recorded texts of spontaneously produced speech, inclu (...)

1Recent years have seen a big leap forward in the documentation of non-Bantu click languages from southern Africa commonly subsumed under the typological label “Khoisan”. Comprehensive descriptions as well as sketch grammars have become available for a considerable number of languages from the Kx’a (Dickens 2005; Collins & Gruber 2014; Heine & König 2015; Pratchett 2020a), Tuu (Güldemann 2005; 2013; Collins & Namaseb 2011) and Khoe-Kwadi families (e.g., Kilian-Hatz 2008; Haacke 2013; Visser 2013; Widlok 2013; Collins 2023; Fehn 2016; Phiri 2021), covering (almost) the entire geographical and genealogical spectrum (Map 1). Given the amount of available linguistic descriptions, surprisingly little is known about the expression of commands. Beyond occasional mentions of an imperative clause type in descriptive works, no in-depth study exploring the encoding of directive modality in southern African “Khoisan” has yet been undertaken. In this article, I intend to provide a starting point for future research by offering preliminary insights into the expression of commands and prohibitions in the Khoe-Kwadi language Ts’ixa.1 My aim is two-fold: First, I will provide a language-specific overview using both elicited and natural language data2 which not only makes reference to the grammatical encoding of commands and obligations, but also to the ethnographic background. Second, I will adopt a comparative perspective and consider observations made for Ts’ixa in the context of publicly available descriptions of commands in related Khoe-Kwadi languages. I will thereby consider both closely related varieties from the Khwe and Shua dialect clusters, as well as more remote relatives from across the family, including the extinct Angolan language Kwadi.

2The present article is structured as follows: I start out by setting up the preliminaries, including a review of Khoe-Kwadi classification (§1.1), an introduction to the Ts’ixa speech community (§1.2), and a brief description of the typological profile of the Ts’ixa language (§1.3). In §2, I present the Ts’ixa data, starting from “canonical” (2nd person) imperatives with different levels of politeness (§2.1). I then turn to non-canonical imperative expressions directed at individuals encoded as 1st (§2.2) and 3rd person (§2.3) subjects. §3 focuses on comparative aspects (§3.1) and diachronic relations (§3.2) in the morphosyntax of imperative clauses across Khoe-Kwadi. §4 provides a short conclusion and outlook on future research.

1.1 The genealogical classification of Khoe-Kwadi

Figure 1 — Map displaying the historical extension of the typological unit “Southern African Khoisan”, including major languages of the Kx’a, Tuu and Khoe-Kwadi families (cf. Güldemann 2014).

Figure 1 — Map displaying the historical extension of the typological unit “Southern African Khoisan”, including major languages of the Kx’a, Tuu and Khoe-Kwadi families (cf. Güldemann 2014).

The Ts’ixa language, which forms the main subject of this study, is marked by a star.

3In his influential classification of the languages of Africa, Greenberg (1963) postulated a genealogical unit “Khoisan”, encompassing all non-Bantu, non-Cushitic click languages of southern and eastern Africa. This proposal has since been rejected in favour of three independent language families, Kx’a (Heine & Honken 2010), Tuu (Güldemann 2005) and Khoe-Kwadi (Vossen 1997; Güldemann 2004; Fehn & Rocha 2023), that co-exist in a linguistic area roughly delimited by the Kalahari Basin of southern Africa (Güldemann 1998; 2014). While the two eastern African click languages Hadza and Sandawe are usually considered isolates (Sands 1998), a link between Sandawe and Khoe-Kwadi has been suggested on the basis of lexical, morphological and typological evidence (Güldemann & Elderkin 2010).

4The Khoe-Kwadi family (Figure 2) consists of two sister branches, Khoe and Kwadi, whereas the Kwadi branch is represented by a single language which used to be spoken around the Curoca River Basin in southwestern Angola (Westphal 1965; 1971; Güldemann 2004; Fehn & Rocha 2023). The Khoe or “Central Khoisan” languages were recognized as a family by Maingard (Maingard 1961; 1963), Westphal (Westphal 1962a; 1962b; 1971; 1980), Köhler (Köhler 1962; 1963; 1966; 1971; 1981), Baucom (1974) and Winter (1981; 1986) before becoming the subject of a thorough historical-comparative reconstruction by Vossen (1997). While the subdivision of Khoe into a Khoekhoe and a Kalahari Khoe branch is relatively undisputed, the further existence of an eastern and a western Kalahari Khoe unit as assumed by Vossen (1997) is doubtful (cf. Güldemann & Fehn 2017; Fehn 2020; Pratchett 2020b) and therefore not accounted for in Figure 2. Likewise, Vossen’s (1997) classification of Ts’ixa as a dialect of Shua is rejected here on the basis of my own research (Fehn 2016; 2019).

Figure 2 — The Khoe-Kwadi language family.

Figure 2 — The Khoe-Kwadi language family.

Extinct languages are marked by †.

5Due to the association between speakers of Khoekhoe and pastoralism, a foreign origin of the herders (Bleek 1851; Lepsius 1880: 188; Meinhof 1912) and, later on, of the entire language family (Westphal 1963; 1980; Güldemann 2008; 2020) has frequently been evoked. Based on typological (Güldemann 2008; 2020) as well as extra-linguistic evidence from archaeology (e.g., Sadr 2015; Lander & Russell 2018) and human genetics (e.g., Henn et al. 2008; Pickrell et al. 2014; Pinto et al. 2016), it is now widely assumed that Khoe-Kwadi languages were introduced in southern Africa by sheep herders from eastern Africa, around 2,000 BP. The details of this migration, as well as the historical relationship between the original herders and modern Khoe-Kwadi speakers – most of whom are foragers – are topics of ongoing research (Fehn et al. 2022).

1.2 The Ts’ixa speech community

6Ts’ixa is a Kalahari Khoe language spoken by ca. 200 individuals in the village of Mababe in the Ngamiland region of northern Botswana. The Ts’ixa speech community exclusively consists of former hunter-gatherers who belong to the ethnographic macro-unit commonly referred to as “San”, “Bushmen” or “Basarwa”. The term Ts’ixa transparently traces back to the expression ts’íí.xà ‘having buttocks’ and is commonly understood to be a xenonym coined by a closely related neighbouring community, the Bugakhwe, to refer to the inhabitants of Mababe. Speakers of Ts’ixa do not consider this term derogatory and agreed to its use for the language and speech community in scholarly publications. Their preferred term of self-reference is Xuukhoe ‘people left behind’ which is also in use among various Khwe-speaking communities of the Okavango River Basin. The unit Ts’ixa is further subdivided into three subgroups or extended families referred to as Handakhoe ‘people of the plains’, Hiyokhoe ‘people of the forest’, and Danisi, with the latter term referring to the descendants of formerly Shua-speaking migrants from the east.

7The Ts’ixa led a fully nomadic life until their hunting grounds were turned into conservation areas during the 1960s. Village elders were still born and socialized in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and retain a profound knowledge of their natural environment, traditions and social values. While the Ts’ixa community has a history of headmen going back to the time before sedentarism, their social organization is predominantly egalitarian, with few differences between the individual rights of men and women. Although the younger generation is progressively adapting to a westernized lifestyle and has partially gained access to higher education, many traditions are still observed, including joking and taboo relationships, female initiation rites, traditional dances and healing.

8Ts’ixa is still used as a medium of everyday communication by most villagers over 40, and during my fieldwork (2010-2013), even children had at least a passive knowledge of the language. All villagers are bilingual in Setswana, and those younger than 50 are usually fluent in both spoken and written English. Speakers of Ts’ixa also understand and speak the neighbouring Khoe language Bugakhwe, and those having relatives in the east often have a passive knowledge of Shua. Hence, Ts’ixa is exposed to contact influence from both related (Shua, Khwe) and unrelated (Setswana, English) languages.

1.3 Typological features of Ts’ixa

9Languages of the Khoe-Kwadi family generally display a preference for verb-final constituent order in pragmatically unmarked clauses (Heine 1976). While speakers of Ts’ixa clearly favour SOV in elicitation contexts, OSV and especially SVO appear with almost equal frequency in narrative texts, suggesting that the constituent order is affected by the information structure of the clause. While the basic constituent order in the noun phrase is head-final, pragmatic considerations may trigger inversion. Ts’ixa nouns are optionally marked by portmanteau morphemes encoding person, gender and number (PGN). These clitics serve the function of specific articles and attach to about 75% of the language’s noun phrases.

10Ts’ixa distinguishes between three syntactic verb classes, according to the number of core participants they may take: intransitives, transitives and S/O-ambitransitives. Ditransitives in the sense of Kittilä (2006), i.e., with two objects treated like the single object of a transitive predication, are not attested. Subject and direct object are optionally case-marked by means of the above-mentioned PGN clitics, which (in singular and plural, but not in dual) display a nominative-accusative distinction. The direct object is optionally marked by the postposition (ʔ)à, which interacts with the argument’s information-structural properties (Fehn 2017; McGregor 2018). Oblique (peripheral) participants are obligatorily marked by a set of semantically specified postpositions.

11Like other Khoe languages, Ts’ixa has a rich suffixing morphology: Derivational affixes attach to both verbs and nouns, and a subset of the language’s tense-aspect morphemes is linked to the verb stem via the so-called juncture morpheme (Elderkin 1986; Heine 1986; Vossen 2010). Predicates may be simple or complex. Complex predicates display semantic features similar to serial verb constructions and involve two or more verbs, which are connected by the juncture morpheme (Fehn 2016; Güldemann & Fehn 2017; Fehn & Phiri 2022).

12Some features like a preference of SVO over SOV in narrative texts, inversed constituent order in the noun phrase, verb-like modifiers and the absence of ditransitive constructions suggest past substrate influence from a dialect of the Kx’a language !Xun (Fehn 2016).

2. Expressing commands in Ts’ixa

13Ts’ixa expresses commands and obligations, but also advice, pleas and wishes, by using the imperative. The imperative is here understood as a specific clause type with morphosyntactic properties not shared by other clause types, i.e., declarative and interrogative (see, e.g., König & Siemund 2007 on basic clause types). The imperative can be oriented towards 1st, 2nd and 3rd person subjects. Therefore, Ts’ixa does not formally differentiate between “canonical” imperatives (§2.1), and hortative (§2.2), jussive or optative (§2.3) expressions.

14A finite verb phrase in declarative and interrogative clauses requires the presence of a grammatical formative encoding tense, aspect or modality (tam). This formative may either be a particle preceding the verb stem, or a suffix (1a-c). The majority of tense-aspect markers are portmanteau morphemes encoding temporal and aspectual notions, as well as mood. While Ts’ixa has a dedicated interrogative morpheme, the clause final particle (1d), declarative clauses do not require a clause type marker.

(1) Examples of declarative and interrogative clauses in Ts’ixa
a. Declarative: Imperfective
gǀã̄ã̀-kàà táó.táò=mà
1sg ipfv try-vol drive=sg.m
‘I want to try driving.’ (elicited)
b. Declarative: Hodiernal Past
ʔájā.kʰó ʔã̄ã́-káxū-nā-tā kʰōē=nā ʔà kʼóā=m̄ móláò
headman know-caus-j-pst person=pl.c acc new=sg.m law
attr mpo
‘The headman informed the people about the new law.’
c. Declarative: Subjunctive
kōlóí=sà ʔé.m̀ hĩ̄ĩ́ ʔíté nāá=ḿ
car=sg.m 3sg.m sbjv do neg dem.ref=sg.m
‘He is not capable of fixing the car himself.’ (elicited)
d. Interrogative
ǂˀórī ʔāná-há rè?
sourplum 2pl.c know:j-prf q
‘Do you know sourplums?’
  • 3 An anonymous reviewer rightfully observes that imperative expressions are by definition context-sp (...)

15The Ts’ixa imperative follows a cross-linguistically common pattern in using the simple verb stem, which may consist of the bare root or of a root plus derivational affix (Aikhenvald 2010: 18; Aikhenvald 2017: 5; Devos & Van Olmen 2013: 44; König & Siemund 2007: 303). Imperative clauses are incompatible with tam marking and therefore clearly distinct from declarative clauses which are defined by the presence of at least one tam morpheme or a copula-like element.3 As will be seen, the distinction between interrogative and imperative is less clear-cut: the interrogative particle may be part of an (unmarked) imperative clause if the speaker wishes to be more polite (§2.1). While Ts’ixa does have a dedicated imperative morphology which includes a conjunction , a prohibitive particle tíí, and a subordination marker , an imperative morpheme as such is absent. Infrequently, the particle (ʔ)è occurs, possibly as a result of contact influence from Khwe or Shua (see §3.1).

2.1 Canonical imperatives (2nd person Subject)

16Canonical (2nd person) imperatives in Ts’ixa are expressed by means of the bare (2a-b) or derived (2c) verb root. The subject pronoun is considered implicit and usually dropped (2a-b), but tends to be expressed when multiple individuals are addressed (2c). Word order in imperative clauses is flexible and aligns with the intended information-structural properties of the utterance. Imperative clauses may be verb-final (2a, 2c) or verb-initial (2b). In (2c), given as reply to the question ‘What shall I boil?’, the object has been fronted and occurs in the focus slot before the openly expressed subject.

(2) Examples for “canonical” imperatives in Ts’ixa
a. sēkúélé ʔò kṹũ̀
school dir go
‘Go to school!’ (elicited)
b. ǁá ʔʲ̄ṹ=sí ń=sà ʔà
taste food=sg.f dem.prox=sg.f acc
‘Taste this food!’
c. k’ōxú=mà kxābá.kxábā-kàxù
meat=sg.m 2pl.c boil-caus
‘Boil the meat!’

17Ts’ixa does not have a dedicated clause type marker signalling imperative clauses. Very rarely, a particle (ʔ)è appears, which was presumably borrowed from Khwe or Shua where it functions as a vocative and imperative marker (3a) (cf. §3.1: (16)). The Ts’ixa vocative is formally identical with the interrogative marker and may even share the same historical source (see §3.2). However, when used as vocative, appears right after the subject, and not in clause-final position (compare (1d)). The vocative occasionally appears with overt 2nd person subjects in imperative clauses (3b). Imperatives with a vocative subject pronoun are considered more polite than those without a (vocative) subject pronoun.

(3) “Marked” imperatives in Ts’ixa
a. Imperatives with the (borrowed) particle (ʔ)è
gáò è mũ̄ũ̀
look imp conj.imp see
‘Look and see!’
b. Imperatives with a vocative pronoun
tsá gáò
2sg.m voc look
‘Look!’
  • 4 A conjunction na is widespread in languages of the Bantu family (see, e.g., Nurse 2006). However, (...)

18Ts’ixa uses a dedicated conjunction to link verbs in imperative clauses (4a).4 In declarative and interrogative clauses, other strategies are used, including complex predicates in which individual verb stems are linked by means of the juncture morpheme (4b-c), the conjunction ʔà (4c), and the discourse referential marker tʰí.à (4d).

(4) Strategies of verb linkage in Ts’ixa
a. Imperative:
hāà dzāá
come conj.imp taste
‘Come and taste!’
b. Declarative: complex predicate
cʰɛ̄ɛ́-tã̀ kónò gūī-ā kʰāà ǁṹũ̄=sī ʔò
fall.off-neg.ipfv when 2sg.f ipfv pick.up-j give parent=sg.f dir
ŋǁá=sì ǀúḿ-káxù
dem.ref=sg.f nurse-caus
‘When (the umbilical cord) does not fall off, you pick up (the child) and give it to the mother, (so that) she makes it nurse.’
c. Declarative: ʔà
kʼáá.kʰóè=mà ǁkʼāḿ-á kérè.kérè ʔà gǁāā.kʰóè=sà tsʼã́ã̄-tā
man=sg.m beat-j repeat conj woman=sg.f steal:j-pst
‘(They) tortured the man and kidnapped the woman.’
d. Declarative: tʰí.à
lēbótélè=m̀ ǀkʼɛ́ɛ́ tʰí.à !ˀārá.!ˀárā-sī
bottle=sg.m pst fall drm break-refl
‘The bottle fell and broke.’ (elicited)

19Along similar lines, the dedicated prohibitive morpheme tíí is restricted to imperative clauses (5a). In declarative and interrogative clauses, the default negation particle ʔíté (5b), and the negated imperfective -tã̀ (5c) appear.

(5) Negation strategies in Ts’ixa
a. Imperative: tíí
kʰōē=mā céé.céè tíí, cxṹũ̄ cīì
person=sg.m listen proh brain ipfv be.sick
‘Don’t listen to this man, he is mad!’
b. Declarative (default): ʔíté
bāā.tsʰáā gérè k’áà ʔíté
beer 1sg fut drink neg
‘I will never drink beer.’
c. Declarative (Imperfective): -tã̀
ʔābá=ḿ kúè ǀkʼáǹ=sè gáò-sī mēé páá-tã̀
dog=sg.m ipfv bad=advz look-refl but bite-neg.ipfv
‘The dog looks dangerous, but it does not bite.’ (elicited)

20In addition to a dedicated conjunction and negation particle, Ts’ixa imperative morphology also includes a particle (6), which is tentatively interpreted as a clause-final subordination marker (but see §3.2).

(6) The subordination particle
a. xúú ʔé.ǹ k’ōó k’ōxú=mà ǁˀābà-nà
let 3pl.c eat.meat meat=sg.m get.hungry-pst sub.imp
‘Let them eat the meat, (because) they are hungry.’
b. xúú ʔé.m̀ kṹũ̀ nĩ̄ĩ́.xúè ʔé.m̀ hĩ̄ĩ́-á-tá ʔíté
let 3sg.m go that.thing 3sg.m do-j-pst neg sub.imp
‘Let him go, (because) he is innocent (lit. he didn’t do that thing).’

21The genuine way to express obligation, i.e., ‘you must do X’, is a simple imperative clause (7a). Especially younger speakers also tend to use the Tswana verb tsónèlà ~ tsónàlà which is grammatically treated as an accomplishment verb (Fehn 2016: 134–136 on lexical verb classes), i.e., its unmarked meaning is ‘to become obliged’. It therefore requires use of the past/perfect suffixes - (7b) or -hã ∼ -ha (7c). In the available data, use of tsónèlà ~ tsónàlà is restricted to 2nd person subjects and it is not clear whether it can be used with imperatives directed at 1st or 3rd person subjects. To express obligation for 1st person subjects, the volition suffix -kàà appears to be the preferred choice (10c-d).

(7) The expression of obligation in Ts’ixa
a. ǁṹũ̄=na ʔà bɛ̄ɛ̄
2sg.f poss parent=pl.c acc obey
‘You must obey your parents.’
b. tsá ʔà k’ōxú ̄ũ̄-ā-mā-tsónèlà-nà
2sg.m 1sg acc meat mpo buy-j-ben-must-prf
‘You must buy meat for me.’ (elicited)
c. tsá kũ̀-tsónàlà-nà-hà ̄ṹ ʔò
2sg.m go-must-j-prf Maun dir
‘You must go to Maun.’

22While there are various means to mitigate the effect of commands in Ts’ixa, all of them are firmly rooted within the imperative clause type. One possibility to appear more polite, the use of a vocative pronoun, has already been discussed above (3b). Other options include the addition of tsá/sá tí ɟírà ‘I ask you (m/f) to’, commonly translated as ‘please’ (8a), and the formulation of the command as a question, either solely by intonation (8b) or by adding the interrogative particle (8c). Following cross-linguistically common patterns (Aikhenvald 2017: 3), advice also falls within the semantic spectrum of the imperative, but requires addition of the clause-initial particle hĩ́ĩ̄.nā.

(8) Polite commands and advice in Ts’ixa
a. with ɟírà ‘ask for’
tsá ɟírà ǁkāḿ.ǁk’ám̄ tsá cã́ã̄-tã̀=sè
2sg.m 1sg ask.for knock 2sg.m enter-neg.ipfv=advz
‘Please knock before you enter (lit. I am asking you to knock before entering).’ (elicited)
b. Question without (but with rising intonation)
ǀˀṹũ̄=mā dzūú?
1sg poss hair=sg.m cut.hair
‘Could you cut my hair (lit. Cut my hair)?’ (elicited)
c. Question with and rising intonation
tsá hāá.ká-nà-mà
2sg.m bring-j-ben q 1sg
‘Could you bring me (some coins)?’
d. with clause-initial hĩ́ĩ̄.nā
hĩ́ĩ̄.nā ǁxáà.kūm̄.ǁxáà ʔà tā
part early.morning loc get.up
‘You should get up early in the morning to see lions.’

23The preferred way to formulate polite commands is by what may be considered a fusion of imperative and interrogative clause types (8b-c). While intonation and even clause type marking match the interrogative (cf. 1d), the absence of tam marking is typical of the imperative. It is not clear whether the politeness considerations in Ts’ixa are a genuine feature of the speech community’s ethnolinguistic repertoire, or a recent contact feature introduced through westernized schooling and interactions with tourists. Cross-linguistically, it appears that societies with a mainly egalitarian social organization either lack dedicated imperative expressions (Aikhenvald 2017: 11–12) or use them without associations of dominance and impoliteness (Aikhenvald 2017: 34–35). The latter is certainly also true for Ts’ixa where formulaic expressions like greetings and well-wishes are commonly encoded by the imperative. Ex. (9) provides the widely used formulaic exchange used to say goodbye.

(9) Saying goodbye in Ts’ixa
a. kã́ĩ̀=sè kṹũ̀
good=advz go
‘Go well!’ (said by person who is staying behind)
b. kã́ĩ̀=sè káū
good=advz stay
‘Stay well!’ (said by person who is leaving)

2.2 Commands directed at 1st person subjects

24For commands directed at a first person (inclusive) subject, the term “hortative” is sometimes used, particularly in languages with dedicated morphosyntactic means to express canonical and non-canonical imperatives (e.g., Overall 2017 on the Peruvian Chicham language Aguaruna). Here, hortative is used more generally for a semantic subtype of commands commonly translated with ‘let’s do X’ which is formally expressed by the imperative. The 1st person dual or plural subject pronoun is always overt and cannot be omitted (10a-b).

(10) Hortative expressions in Ts’ixa
a. ǁé gūnī ʔò kṹũ̀
1pl.m hunt dir go
‘Let’s go hunting!’ (elicited)
b. kʰú Kʰʷáí ʔò kṹũ̀ tíí ń.tsʰéè
1du.c Khwai dir go proh today
‘Let’s not go to Khwai today!’

25Weaker hortative expressions or suggestions best translated with ‘we should do X’ are usually expressed as questions, i.e., with the interrogative particle (11a-b). The expression of an obligation (‘we need to do X’) involves the volition suffix -kàà following the derived or underived verb (11c-d). In other respects, the morphosyntax of all clauses given under (10) follows the imperative scheme, including lack of tam marking and use of the dedicated imperative morphology, such as the conjunction (11b).

(11) Suggestions and obligations
a. ŋ́.xúà ʔà tsé ɲṹũ̀ rè?
here loc 1pl.c stay q
‘Should we stay here?’
b. tsé c’ūá kṹũ̀ rè?
1pl.c exit conj.imp go q
‘Should we go away?’
c. ǁé kɛ́ɛ̄=mā ǁé ǁʰāí-á céè-tì-kū-kàà
1pl.m poss belt=sg.m 1pl.m pull-j pull-dur-coll-vol
‘We need to tighten our belts.’ (elicited)
d. gǀāná=dzì mĩ̄ĩ́=dzà tsé tsxɛ́ɛ́-xù-tì-kū-kàà
leaf=pl.f dem.dist=pl.f 1pl.c tear-compl-dur-coll-vol
‘We need to tear off those leaves.’

26In some imperative clauses with 1st person subjects, irrespective of whether the intended meaning is a command (12a), an obligation (12b) or a goal (12c), the suffix -tígèrè appears. When co-occurring with the volitional suffix, -tígérè precedes -kàà (12b). The origin, semantic scope, and usage frame of -tígérè will require further research.

(12) The suffix -tígèrè
a. ǁé ǁxōɛ́-tígérè kálāsā ʔà ǀˀēé=mà tābú-káxù
1pl.m lop-sfx branch acc conj.imp fire=sg.m burn-caus
‘Let's lop (some) branches and get the fire burning.’
b. ǀˀáò ŋgǁōɛ́ tsé hĩ̄ĩ́-ká=dzà
money attr month mpo 1pl.c ipfv do-inst=pl.f
tsé ǁūḿ-káxù-tígérè-kàà
1pl.c short-caus-sfx-vol
‘We need to reduce the money we are spending each month.’ (elicited)
c. ŋṹṹ=mà tsé ǁʰāá-xú-tígérè ŋgūú tsé ŋǁānī-kàà kónò
place=sg.m 1pl.c clear-compl-sfx house 1pl.c ipfv build-vol when
‘We have to clear the place if we want to build a house.’

2.3 Commands directed at 3rd person subjects

  • 5 There erroneously given as tíí.

27The imperative clause type in Ts’ixa also permits for 3rd person subjects, usually when a jussive or optative reading is intended (13a). Imperative clauses with 3rd person subjects are most common in reported speech featuring the quotative particle tʰī (13b-d). tʰī usually follows the complement clause and most likely derives from a verb tʰii ‘be thus’ (cf. also Fehn 2016: 263).5 The verb tʰī retains certain properties of a verb, such as the ability to receive tense-aspect marking as in (13c) where the verbum dicendi has been elided. Embedded imperative clauses cannot receive tam marking and display imperative morphology, such as the prohibitive particle tíí (13d).

(13) Jussive and optative expressions in Ts’ixa
a. ʔé.m̀ kṹũ̀
3sg.m go
‘He should go/ He may go.’
b. ǁṹũ̄=m̄ ǁṹũ̄=m̄ k’ārō-ǀṹã̀ ɟírà ʔé.ǁù
parent=sg.m poss parent=sg.m boy-dim pst ask.for 3pl.m
ǀˀēé=dzà ʔà ǀˀēé=ḿ ʔà cã́ã̄ tʰī
firewood=pl.f acc fire=sg.m loc enter quot
‘The grandfather asked the little boys to add firewood to the fire.’
c. Tʰelatʰile=sì kúú tʰī-nā-hā
Thelathile=sg.f gather.firewood quot-j-prf
‘Thelathile (told the children) to gather firewood.’
d. tsé dáò=dzà tsé ǀk̄ṹ-nà ʔé.ǹ tsé ʔà kámà
1pl.c poss track=pl.f 1pl.c kill-pst 3pl.c 1pl.c acc pursue
tíí tʰī
proh quot
‘We covered our tracks, so that they would not follow us.’

3. A cross-Khoe-Kwadi perspective

28In the following two sections, an expanded perspective on the expression of imperatives in the Khoe-Kwadi language family will be provided. As many known Khoe-Kwadi languages are already extinct or severely endangered, an attempt was made to assemble as many examples as possible from a maximally wide range of sources. In part owing to the exploratory nature of the present article, in part to the limited amount of data available, I will restrict myself to the morphological representation of canonical imperatives directed at 2nd person subjects. §3.1 presents a general overview of imperative clauses and morphology, and §3.2 looks at Khoe-Kwadi imperative morphology from a diachronic perspective while also considering contact influence from languages of the Kx’a and Tuu families within the Kalahari Basin typological area (Güldemann 1998; Güldemann & Fehn 2017). Although occasional reference to typological features attested elsewhere is made, a thorough assessment of the observed patterns in a cross-linguistic framework is beyond the scope of this work and will hopefully form the subject of future studies.

29To facilitate comparison, all data taken from published or archival sources has been transliterated to match IPA standards, and glossing has been adapted. When deemed necessary, the original transcription is provided in brackets < >.

3.1 A comparative overview of imperatives in Khoe-Kwadi

30From the available data, it seems clear that the use of zero marking to express canonical imperatives is a cross-Khoe feature. All varieties surveyed displayed imperatives directed at 2nd person subjects with the following features:

  1. absence of tam marking
  2. optional use of a dedicated clause type marker
  3. optional expression of pronominal subjects

31Examples of unmarked imperatives for all major subgroups and language complexes of the Khoe branch of Khoe-Kwadi (see Figure 2) are provided in (14).

(14) Unmarked imperatives across Khoe
Kalahari Khoe: Khwe
a. á.à, tʃá ʔà kx’ṍã́
no 2sg.m 1sg acc wait
‘No, you have to wait for me!’ (Khwe; Kilian-Hatz 2008: 122)
b. tsá ǂí ʔā=m̄ ǀȭã̄=mà
2sg.m call dem=sg.m child=sg.m
‘Call the boy!’ (ǁAni; Heine 1999: 63)
Kalahari Khoe: Shua
c. ʔũ̀ã́ màrí ʔò
bring money 1sg dir
‘Bring the money to me.’ (Gǁoro; Westphal n.d. a)
d. càā.hú ŋǀè ǁxáó ʔúú.
1sg brother dir spear take.to
‘Take the spear to my brother.’ (Deti; Westphal n.d. b)
Kalahari Khoe: Tshwa
e. yii k’oo.xo kaxu ka ǁxum-a-xu.
dem meat knife with cut-j-compl
‘Cut this meat with a knife.’ (Tjwao; Phiri n.d.)
f. <khonwa nyo>
xom wa ɲũũ
ground loc sit
‘Sit on the ground!’ (Hiechware; Dornan 1917: 71)
  • 6 The Gǀui-Gǁana variety referred to as “Kua” by Collins (2023) is not identical with the Tshwa dial (...)
Kalahari Khoe: Gǀui-Gǁana6
g. c’ĩ̀-χà kũ̀
beautiful-advz go
‘Go well!’ (Kua; Collins 2023: 36)
Kalahari Khoe: Naro
h. ǂˀõõ
eat
‘Eat!’ (Naro; Visser 2013: 198)
Khoekhoe: Nama-Damara
i. mũ̀ũ̀
see
‘See!’ (Nama; Hagman 1977: 146)
Khoekhoe: Haiǁom
j. ma te tsi ko
give 1sg 2sg.m emph
‘Do give it to me [now]!’ (Haiǁom; Widlok 2013: 349)
Khoekhoe: !Ora
k. !ae
wait
‘Wait!’ (!Ora; Meinhof 1930: 60)

32Westphal’s Kwadi field notes (Westphal n.d. c) include only few examples for imperative clauses. In two of the examples available (15a-b), the bare, unmarked verb-stem appears. The third example contains a postverbal element -ʔà which may be an optional imperative marker, but is most likely linked to (indirect) object-indexing. While the addressees in (15a) and (15c) are not overtly expressed, (15b) features a pronominal subject of the 2nd person dual.

(15) Unmarked imperatives in Kwadi
a. <xwã!>
xũã
‘Dance!’ (Westphal n.d. c)
b. <uwa xwã!>
u.wa xũã
2du dance
‘Dance (you two)!’ (Westphal n.d. c)
c. <tanǀ’óká’a>
ta ǀˀó ká-ʔà
1sg fire:?sg.m give-?
‘Give me fire!’ (Westphal n.d. c)

33While all Khoe-Kwadi languages have zero-marked imperatives, not all languages automatically link absence of tam morphology with this particular clause type. For example, zero-marked verb forms in Khwe are also used to express thetic events (Kilian-Hatz 2008: 121), although imperative is still considered the “default interpretation” (Kilian-Hatz 2008: 123).

34Some of the Khoe languages surveyed also make optional use of a morpheme which could be interpreted as an imperative clause type marker (16). While the most common position for the imperative marker is clause final, it may also occur in clause-second (Gǁoro (16c)) or clause-initial position (Kua (16g)). An imperative marker ʔè, è or also used as vocative is found in Khwe and Shua (16a-e) (Kilian-Hatz 2008: 124; Heine 1999: 64; Westphal n.d. a; n.d. d). The very limited Tshwa data did not reveal any overt imperative marking, save for the singular appearance of an element ho in Hiechware (16f) which may be cognate with Naro o (16h). The Khoekhoe varieties Nama and Haiǁom both use a particle re (16i-k), which has additional connotations of politeness (i.e., ‘please’) in Nama (Hagman 1977: 146; Haacke 2013: 335–336).

(16) Marked imperatives across Khoe
Kalahari Khoe: Khwe (ʔè)
a. jāá ʔè
come imp
‘Come!’ (Khwe; Kilian-Hatz 2008: 126)
b. kṹũ̀ (è) ǁˀáé (kà)
go imp home loc
‘Go home!’ (ǁAni; Heine 1999: 63)
Kalahari Khoe: Shua (wè ~ è)
c. ʔěmérè wē ʔò ʔṹã́
bucket imp 1sg dir bring
‘Bring the bucket to me.’ (Gǁoro; Westphal n.d. a)
d. mṹũ̀ gǁōô xáḿ
see big lion imp
‘Look at the big lion!’ (Nata-Shua; Westphal n.d. d)
e. ǀíí
sing 2pl.c imp
‘Sing!’ (Deti; Westphal n.d. b)
Kalahari Khoe: Tshwa (ho)
f. <ama ‖khaho>
ʔama xaa ho
pot wash ?imp
‘Wash the pot!’ (Hiechware; Dornan 1917: 71)
Kalahari Khoe: Gǀui-Gǁana ()
g. cúá kṹũ̀
imp neg go
‘Don’t go!’ (Kua; Collins 2023: 36)
Kalahari Khoe: Naro (o)
h. ǂxobe.kxam te o
open 1sg imp
‘Open (for) me!’ (Naro; Visser 2013: 198)
Khoekhoe: Nama-Damara (re)
i. ŋǂaa re
dance imp
‘Please dance!’ (Nama; Haacke 2013: 336)
Khoekhoe: Haiǁom (re)
j. ha re
come imp
‘Come!’ (Haiǁom; Widlok 2013: 349)
Khoekhoe: !Ora (re)
k. ʔau re
give imp
‘Give (me)!’ (!Ora; Meinhof 1930: 60)

35While the Zimbabwean Tshwa variety Tjwao does not seem to have a dedicated imperative clause type marker, a special set of 2nd person pronouns different from declarative clauses is used whenever the subject is overtly expressed (17a-b). A similar phenomenon has been observed in the Gǀui-Gǁana variety Kua by Collins (2023: 36), who dubs this special paradigm “subjunctive” (17c-d).

(17) 2nd person declarative and “subjunctive” pronouns in Tjwao and Kua
a. tʃa kua ti.a tʰũũ-kaxu
2sg.m ipfv 1sg.acc injure-caus
‘You are making me (meaning: my head) hurt.’ (Tjwao; Phiri n.d.)
b. tʃi kx’ui-a kũũ tii, tʃi tʃee.tʃee na kũũ
2sg.m talk-j go proh 2sg.m listen conj.imp go
‘Don’t walk talking, walk and listen!’ (Tjwao; Phiri n.d.)
c. è kwà kṹũ̀
2sg.f sbj prog go
‘You are going.’ (Kua; Collins 2023: 172)
d. cúá kṹũ̀
2sg.f neg go
‘You don’t go!’ (Kua; Collins 2023: 38)

36Negated imperative or prohibitive clauses are found across the Khoe subgroup of Khoe-Kwadi, but not all languages actually display a dedicated prohibitive marker. The most widespread prohibitive morpheme, the clause-final particle tii ~ cii, is found in Khwe, Ts’ixa (5), Shua, Tshwa and Gǀui-Gǁana. In some languages, tii ~ cii can optionally be combined with the imperative marker (e.g., Gǁoro (18c); Deti (18e)). The Tshwa dialect Hiechware has an additional prohibitive marker, the clause-initial particle g|ana, which can appear on its own (18g), but is also found combining with tii (18h). In the Gǀui-Gǁana variety Kua, the generic negation morpheme cúá (18j) may be used instead of cīī (18i). It appears that cúá (but not cīī) can co-occur with the clause-initial imperative marker (18j). In Naro (18k) and Khoekhoe (18n-p), the imperative is negated by means of the clause-initial negation particle táá. While táá is a dedicated prohibitive morpheme in Nama, it is a general negation particle in Naro (Visser 2013: 199–200) and Haiǁom (Widlok 2013: 163; 350), and a negator of imperative and subordinate clauses in !Ora (Meinhof 1930: 55). Naro makes use of an additional prohibitive marker xūū which follows the verb and can either replace (18l) or accompany táá (18m). It may be assumed that xūū derives from the verb xūū ‘leave behind, come from, stop’ (Visser 2001: 30). While táá co-occurs with the imperative in both Nama (Hagman 1977: 147) and Haiǁom (Widlok 2013: 351), none of the prohibitive morphemes in Naro can co-occur with the imperative o (Visser 2013: 200).

(18) Prohibitive clauses across Khoe
Kalahari Khoe: Khwe ()
a. tává-è, m̀.ḿ, tʃá ǂˀṹṹ
uncle-voc no 2sg.m eat proh
‘Uncle, no, don’t eat it!’ (Khwe; Kilian-Hatz 2008: 128)
b. ɦàâ
come proh
‘Don’t come!’ (ǁAni; Heine 1999: 64)
Kalahari Khoe: Shua (tíí)
c. jìī ʔà é céè tíí
wood acc imp pull proh
‘Don’t pull the log!’ (Gǁoro; Westphal n.d. a)
d. ǀ’á k’òxú kʰàà tíí t’úɲè kʰàà
bad meat 1sg.acc give proh conj.imp good:cop 1sg.acc give
‘Don’t give me bad meat, give me good!’ (Nata Shua; Westphal n.d. d)
e. ǀíí tíì
sing proh 2pl.c imp
‘Don’t sing now!’ (Deti; Westphal n.d. b)
Kalahari Khoe: Tshwa (tíí)
f. tʃi karo-ra gam-a-xu tii
2sg.m stone-pl throw-j-compl proh
‘Don’t throw the stones!’ (Tjwao; Phiri n.d.)
g. <|gana tsaa hwee>
g|ana tsʰaa xue
proh water run.away
‘Do not run away from the water!’ (Hiechware; Dornan 1917: 73)
h. <ǀgana chi kwi thii>
gǀana tʃi k’ui t(ʰ)ii
proh 1sg speak proh
‘Don’t talk to me!’ (Hiechware; Dornan 1917: 73)
Kalahari Khoe: Gǀui-Gǁana (cīī, cúá)
i. Thabo=m̀ ǀχòà qχ’úī cīī
Thabo=sg.m com talk proh
‘Don’t talk to Thabo!’ (Kua; Collins 2023: 36)
j. (nà) cúá Thabo=m̀ ǀχòà qχ’úī
imp neg Thabo=sg.m com talk
‘Don’t talk to Thabo!’ (Kua; Collins 2023: 36)
Kalahari Khoe: Naro (táá, xūū)
k. táá tséé
neg work
‘Don’t work!’ (Naro; Visser 2013: 200)
l. tséé xūū
work proh
‘Don’t work!’ (Naro; Visser 2013: 200)
m. táá tséé xūū
neg work proh
‘Don’t work!’ (Naro; Visser 2013: 200)
Khoekhoe: Nama-Damara (táá)
n. táá !úũ
proh go
‘Don’t go!’ (Nama; Hagman 1977: 147)
Khoekhoe: Haiǁom (ta)
o. ta tu !ao re
neg 2pl.c fear imp
‘Don’t be afraid!’ (Haiǁom; Widlok 2013)
Khoekhoe: !Ora (ta)
p. ta ǀχ’a
proh steal
‘Don’t steal!’ (!Ora; Meinhof 1930)

37Data on conjoined imperatives is fragmented and does not allow for a comprehensive assessment of the situation across Khoe. While the Ts’ixa imperative conjunction (4) is widely attested in Kalahari Khoe, including Khwe (19a), Shua (19c-e), Tshwa (19f) and Gǀui-Gǁana (19g), the data is not always sufficient to say whether the particle is strictly dedicated to imperative contexts or may also appear elsewhere. In the Gǀui-Gǁana variety Kua, stands in complementary distribution with the default verbal coordination marker à: appears in imperative clauses, and à elsewhere (Collins 2023: 40). A similar analysis may also hold for Ts’ixa, and possibly for various dialects of Khwe, Shua and Tshwa. Other strategies of coordinating verbs or clauses in the imperative include use of generic conjunctions (Khwe (19b); Naro (19h)), or simple juxtaposition (Naro (19i)). No data on conjoined imperatives could be retrieved from languages of the Khoekhoe cluster, i.e., Nama-Damara, Haiǁom and !Ora.

(19) Conjoined imperatives in Kalahari Khoe
Kalahari Khoe: Khwe
a. jāá ǁx’áō à
come conj.imp help 1sg acc
‘Come and help me!’ (Khwe; Kilian-Hatz 2008: 287)
b. jāá ǁx’áō à
come conj help 1sg acc
‘Come and (then) help me!’ (Khwe; Kilian-Hatz 2008: 287)
Kalahari Khoe: Shua
c. ʔāū ŋgǀóá tíí k’òxú ŋgǀóá
fish cook proh conj.imp meat cook
‘No, don’t cook fish, cook meat.’ (Gǁoro; Westphal n.d. a)
d. ǀ’á k’òxú kʰàà tíí t’úɲè kʰàà
bad meat 1sg.acc give proh conj.imp good:cop 1sg.acc give
‘Don’t give me bad meat, give me good!’ (Nata-Shua; Westphal n.d. d)
e. ʔáū ŋǀòá tíì nā k’òxú ŋǀóá è
fish cook proh conj.imp meat cook imp
‘No, don’t cook fish, cook meat.’ (Deti; Westphal n.d. b)
Kalahari Khoe: Tshwa
f. tʃãã na xum ǀxe ɲũũ
enter conj.imp ground loc sit
‘Come in and sit down.’ (Tjwao; Phiri n.d.)
Kalahari Khoe: Gǀui-Gǁana
g. ʔè qχ’úō kṹũ̀
3sg.c eat conj.imp go
‘Eat and go!’ (Kua; Collins 2023: 40)
Kalahari Khoe: Naro
h. hàà nākā tēē kx’áà
come conj tea drink
‘Come and drink tea!’ (Naro; Visser 2013: 391)
i. !ṍõ̀ síí tséé
walk go work
‘Go and start working!’ (Naro; Visser 2013: 388)

38There is not enough data to elaborate further on cross-Khoe patterns of expressing commands, including dedicated morphology for subordinate clauses. It is, however, worth mentioning that Naro has a clause-final particle kē which marks subordinate clauses that provide a reason for the command expressed in the accompanying imperative clause (Visser 2013: 393) (20). As shown in (6), ke also appears in Ts’ixa and probably displays full form-function correspondence with its counterpart in Naro.

(20) The subordination particle kē in Naro
xūū tē tsàā=r kō kē
leave 1sg be.sick=1sg cont sub.imp
‘Leave me, (because) I am sick!’ (Visser 2013: 393)

3.2 Diachronic perspectives on Khoe-Kwadi imperative morphology

39The results of the survey presented in §3.1 reveal that not only Ts’ixa, but all Khoe-Kwadi languages use a cross-linguistically common pattern by expressing canonical imperatives through the unmarked verb stem (cf. also Aikhenvald 2010: 18; Aikhenvald 2017: 5; Devos & Van Olmen 2013: 44; König & Siemund 2007: 303). However, it is not clear for all languages whether zero-marking is inextricably linked to the imperative clause type (as in Ts’ixa), or also allows for other readings, such as theticity or perfective (cf. Khwe, Kilian-Hatz 2008: 121). A historical assessment of the relationship between absence of tam morphology and the imperative would therefore require a better synchronic appraisal than is presently available. Along similar lines, more data from a large number of languages would be needed to evaluate the extension of imperative morphology to commands directed at 1st and 3rd person subjects. The available information from Ts’ixa (this study), Khwe (Kilian-Hatz 2008: 121) and Nama (Hagman 1977: 146–148; Haacke 2013: 335–336) suggests that the Khoe imperative can be used with 1st, 2nd and 3rd person subjects.

40No dedicated imperative marker can be reconstructed for proto-Khoe-Kwadi or proto-Khoe. However, most Khoe languages make optional use of a clause-initial, clause-second or clause-final particle which may be interpreted as an imperative clause type marker. From a comparative perspective, the attested imperative markers partially overlap with vocative and interrogative morphology. The cross-linguistically common “intimate connection” between imperatives and vocatives (Aikhenvald 2010: 48) may therefore be expanded to all addressee-oriented forms in Khoe, i.e., imperative, vocative and interrogative (see also Overall 2017 for similar observations on Aguaruna). In this semantic framework, at least two particles with a link to imperative morphology, (ʔ)e and re, are attested across Khoe. A third particle or suffix, (-ʔ)o, either has a more limited distribution, or displays a broader semantic scope including declarative and subordinating morphology (Table 1).

Table 1 — Cross-Khoe morphology displaying a link to imperative clause type marking (Sources: Kilian-Hatz (2008) for Khwe, Fehn (2016) for Ts’ixa, Westphal (Westphal n.d. a; n.d. b; n.d. d) for Shua, Phiri (2021) and Dornan (1917) for Tshwa, Collins (2023) for G|ui-Gǁana, Visser (2013) for Naro, Hagman (1977) and Haacke (2013) for Nama-Damara, Meinhof (1930) for !Ora, and Widlok (2013) for Haiǁom)

Khwe Ts’ixa Shua Tshwa Gǀui-Gǁana Naro Nama Haiǁom !Ora
(ʔ)e voc, imp voc, imp voc, inter ? voc voc ? ?
re inter inter, voc inter n/a imp imp imp
(-ʔ)o ?sub ?sub ?decl (Deti) ?imp n/a imp ?sub inter, ?sub ?sub

41The particle (ʔ)e is most widely attested as a vocative marker following nouns and pronouns, i.e., in Khwe (Kilian-Hatz 2008: 82–83), Shua (Westphal n.d. a; n.d. b; n.d. d; own data), Tshwa (Phiri n.d.), Naro (Visser 2013: 387), and Nama (Hagman 1977: 149; Haacke 2013: 339). If the expression of vocatives is assumed to be its main function, the marking of imperative (Khwe, Shua) and interrogative (Tshwa) clauses are best considered semantic extensions and therefore secondary functions of the particle. While the distribution of (ʔ)e would technically allow for a proto-Khoe reconstruction as vocative, borrowing from an unrelated language within the Kalahari Basin linguistic area (Güldemann 1998; Güldemann & Fehn 2017) cannot be excluded. For example, the Groot Laagte variety of the !Xun dialect ǂKx’aoǁ’ae displays a vocative suffix -è (Pratchett 2020a: 67), but lack of data on !Xun vocatives in general makes it difficult to assess whether ǂKx’aoǁ’ae borrowed from Khoe or the other way around. Following a different trail, all !Xun dialects display a proximal demonstrative *ē which follows the head noun (Heine & König 2015: 153–155) and may have been reinterpreted by Khoe speakers as vocative in the sense of (e.g.) ‘you here!’. Yet another candidate for a link with the Khoe form is the imperative suffix -we which appears with 2nd person plural subjects in the Tuu language Nǀuu (Collins & Namaseb 2011: 57) and shows full formal correspondence with the Shua imperative marker we (16c-e).

42The particle re marks interrogatives in the Kalahari Khoe languages Khwe (Kilian-Hatz 2008: 297–299), Ts’ixa (Fehn 2016: 281–283) and Shua (Westphal n.d. a; n.d. b; n.d. d; own data), and imperative in Khoekhoe (Meinhof 1930: 60; Hagman 1977: 146–148; Widlok 2013: 349). Ts’ixa shows an extension from interrogative to vocative (Fehn 2016: 120), which probably constitutes a language-internal development. It will be remembered that the most common strategy to formulate polite commands in Ts’ixa is by way of adding the interrogative marker re to the imperative clause (8c). While not attested with questions in Nama, the appearance of re still carries connotations of politeness, suggesting that the particle’s interrogative function is the more basic one. This is also supported by data from !Xun, a language with a long history of areal contact with Khoe-Kwadi languages (Güldemann 1998; Güldemann & Fehn 2017), where clause-final *re is widely attested as an interrogative marker (Heine & König 2015: 245).

43Following a parallel line of argumentation, the suffix -o which appears as an imperative marker in Naro may be related to the interrogative particle o attested in Haiǁom (Widlok 2013: 350). An interrogative o has not been described for other Khoekhoe varieties, but a clause-final interrogative particle exists in the W2 dialect of !Xun (Heine & König 2015: 245). While the !Xun, Haiǁom and Naro forms could be conveniently linked through language contact, the argument is difficult to extend to the imperative marker ho observed in the geographically distant Tshwa dialect Hiechware (Dornan 1917). It therefore remains unclear whether the Naro and Hiechware imperatives are actually related, and, if yes, whether a link between the Haiǁom and !Xun interrogatives should be assumed. The issue is further complicated by the wide distribution of particles of the form (ʔ)oo which display a link to clause type marking. In Khwe, Ts’ixa, and Khoekhoe, a particle (ʔ)oo appears as marker of subordinate clauses, transmitting the notion of ‘when, while’ in Khwe (Kilian-Hatz 2003: 152; Kilian-Hatz 2008: 318), Nama (Hagman 1977: 128–129), Haiǁom (Widlok 2013: 165) and !Ora (Meinhof 1930: 80), and of ‘because’ in Ts’ixa (Fehn 2016: 266–268). In the Shua dialect Deti, a presumably unrelated element (ʔ)o acts as declarative marker (Westphal n.d. b; own data).

44As the above discussion has shown, it is difficult to reconstruct any of the attested imperative markers to the proto-Khoe stage. The interweaving of imperatives with other addressee-oriented morphology, as well as the density of contact between unrelated languages in the Kalahari Basin linguistic area creates a fuzzy situation which may only be resolved when more data from a greater variety of languages becomes available.

45A less complex picture emerges with regards to the prohibitive morphology: the available data shows a quite clear-cut separation between Kalahari Khoe *tii and Khoekhoe *taa, whereas Naro aligns with Khoekhoe, possibly due to contact (Table 2). As no Kx’a, Tuu or Bantu language displays formally similar particles, it may be assumed that both *tii and *taa are genuine Khoe morphemes which may be reconstructed to the proto-Kalahari and proto-Khoekhoe stages, respectively.

Table 2 — Cross-Khoe prohibitive morphology (Sources: Kilian-Hatz (2008) for Khwe, Fehn (2016) for Ts’ixa, Westphal (Westphal n.d. a; n.d. b; n.d. d) for Shua, Phiri (2021) and Dornan (1917) for Tshwa, Collins (2023) for G|ui-Gǁana, Visser (2013) for Naro, Hagman (1977) and Haacke (2013) for Nama-Damara, Meinhof (1930) for !Ora, and Widlok (2013) for Haiǁom)

Khwe Ts’ixa Shua Tshwa Gǀui-Gǁana Naro Nama Haiǁom !Ora
*tii proh proh proh proh proh
*taa proh, neg proh proh, neg proh, neg.sub

46While Kalahari Khoe *tii appears to be a dedicated prohibitive marker, Khoekhoe *taa has a more general profile in Naro (Visser 2013: 199–200), Haiǁom (Widlok 2013: 351), and !Ora (Meinhof 1930: 55). Beyond the mere expression of imperative morphology, there is some reason to assume that the Kalahari Khoe prohibitive *tii is further related to an element *ti ~ *te which appears as part of future tense negators in Naro (Visser 2013: 200), Nama (Hagman 1977: 89–91; Haacke 2013: 338), Haiǁom (Widlok 2013: 163) and !Ora (Meinhof 1930: 55). If one is inclined to speculate, the element may even be related to the Kwadi negation particle tʃi ~ ci (or tʃe ~ ce) which is found combining with different morphological elements in declarative and interrogative clauses (Westphal n.d. c). While no further reconstruction will be attempted here, it is still tempting to consider the possibility of Kalahari Khoe imperatives preserving archaic negation morphology.

47Due to a lack of comprehensive data, it is difficult to comment on the history of other morphological elements linked to the imperative clause type. Nevertheless, some very preliminary observations may be added in order to showcase opportunities for future research:

48The imperative conjunction na appears in Khwe, Ts’ixa, Shua, Tshwa and Gǀui-Gǁana (19), but seems to be absent in Naro and Khoekhoe. Its distribution may therefore merit a reconstruction to the stage of proto-Kalahari Khoe. It is unclear whether na is related to other grammatical markers of the same form which occur in the coordinating and subordinating morphology across Khoe, e.g. Naro nā(kā) (cf. Visser 2013: 390–391).

49The dedicated clause-final particle ke adding background information to commands is only attested in Ts’ixa and Naro, but seems especially interesting from a historical viewpoint. In their comparative survey of clause-second structures in southern African “Khoisan” languages, Güldemann et al. (2019) show a link between the overuse of particles marking thetic, i.e., background information, and the grammaticalization of declaratives. The Nama declarative marker ke, albeit a clause-second morpheme delimiting a pragmatically marked prefield, is formally identical with the particle ke flagging background information in Naro and Ts’ixa. One may therefore speculate that the Nama declarative and the imperative subordinator ke are historically related and go back to a proto-Khoe morpheme marking theticity (which, on its part, may trace back to a copula, cf. Güldemann et al. 2019: 59). However, given the strikingly different syntactical frameworks, in combination with the fact that clause-second markers of the shape kV are widespread in the Kalahari Basin (Güldemann et al. 2019), compare, e.g., Nǀuu ke (cf. Collins & Namaseb 2011: 8–9), any further attempt to pursue a historical relationship between different particles ke in Khoe should proceed with care.

4. Conclusion

50In this article, I have attempted to highlight possible areas of interest for the study of imperatives in the Khoe-Kwadi language family and beyond. As the data from Ts’ixa shows, the expression of commands can be described in terms of morphosyntax, but also needs to take into account the conversational and ethnolinguistic context in which a directive statement is made. By further adopting a comparative perspective, I have stressed the need for a comprehensive description of imperative clauses across the family. The limited data available shows a close association between imperative morphology and other addressee-oriented utterances, such as vocatives and interrogatives. While the expression of imperatives by means of unmarked verb stems could be shown to be a cross-family feature, the morphology of imperatives displayed a considerable degree of cross-linguistic variation, which may in part have been triggered by language contact. Both historical and areal perspectives on imperatives in Khoe-Kwadi therefore seem to provide promising fields for future research.

Acknowledgements

51Data on Ts’ixa was collected under a research permit issued by the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture (2010–2013) of the Government of Botswana and funded by the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School of the University of Cologne, the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) DAAD, the project “The Kalahari Basin area: a ‘Sprachbund’ on the verge of extinction” within the European Science Foundation EUROCORES programme EUROBABEL, and by the Humboldt University of Berlin. The author is currently funded through contract CEECIND/02765/2017 financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal), and this paper was written as part of the FCT-funded projects PTDC/BIA-GEN/29273/2017 and 2022.06259.PTDC (http://www.doi.org/​10.54499/​2022.06259.PTDC).

52I would like to thank Bonny Sands for comments on a previous version of this paper, and Chris Collins for generously sharing his (then) unpublished manuscript on Kuasi with me.

Abbreviations

1/2/3 1st / 2nd / 3rd person
acc accusative
advz adverbializer
attr attributor
ben benefactive
c common gender
caus causative
coll collective
com comitative
compl completive
conj conjunction
cont continuous
cop copula
decl declarative
dem demonstrative
dim diminutive
dir directive
dist distal
drm discourse reference marker
du dual
dur durative
emph emphasis
f feminine
fut future
imp imperative
inst instrument
inter interrogative
ipfv imperfective
j juncture
loc locative
m masculine
mpo multi-purpose oblique
neg negation
part particle
pl plural
prf perfect
poss possessive
prog progressive
proh prohibitive
prox proximal
pst past
q question particle
quot quotative
ref referential
refl reflexive
sbj subject
sbjv subjunctive
sfx suffix
sg singular
sub subordination
tam tense-aspect-mood
voc vocative
vol volition
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Notes

1 It should be noted that the data presented in this paper was collected within the framework of a language documentation project carried out by the author between 2010-2013 (see also Fehn 2016), which did not explicitly aim for a study of imperatives in the narrow sense. Hence, the available material is limited and may not allow for an exhaustive treatment of the subject in Ts’ixa.

2 Natural language data is here understood as recorded texts of spontaneously produced speech, including folktales, life stories and replies to ethnographically oriented interview questions, as well as recorded conversations between speakers. The elicited data was provided by speakers in response to questionnaires, as well as to visual and verbal stimuli. In the present paper, examples elicited from Ts’ixa are marked as such.

3 An anonymous reviewer rightfully observes that imperative expressions are by definition context-specific and therefore derive their tam value from the context of the communication itself.

4 A conjunction na is widespread in languages of the Bantu family (see, e.g., Nurse 2006). However, a direct borrowing from a Bantu language into Ts’ixa seems unlikely, given the relatively wide distribution of a dedicated imperfective conjunction na in languages of the Kalahari subgroup of Khoe-Kwadi (see also (19) in §3.1).

5 There erroneously given as tíí.

6 The Gǀui-Gǁana variety referred to as “Kua” by Collins (2023) is not identical with the Tshwa dialect of the same name described in Vossen (1997), but genealogically close to Gǁana (C. Collins, p.c.).

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1 — Map displaying the historical extension of the typological unit “Southern African Khoisan”, including major languages of the Kx’a, Tuu and Khoe-Kwadi families (cf. Güldemann 2014).
Légende The Ts’ixa language, which forms the main subject of this study, is marked by a star.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lla/docannexe/image/13288/img-1.png
Fichier image/png, 400k
Titre Figure 2 — The Khoe-Kwadi language family.
Légende Extinct languages are marked by †.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/lla/docannexe/image/13288/img-2.png
Fichier image/png, 21k
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Référence électronique

Anne-Maria Fehn, « K’ui tii ‘Don’t speak!’ – Morphology and syntax of commands in Ts’ixa (Kalahari Khoe) and beyond »Linguistique et langues africaines [En ligne], 10(1) | 2024, mis en ligne le 30 juin 2024, consulté le 16 mars 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/lla/13288 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/123pu

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Auteur

Anne-Maria Fehn

CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Universidade do Porto, Vairão & BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, CIBIO, Vairão

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