Abstract
M.A.
Little research has been done regarding the copulative word group in the African languages (and in Southern Ndebele in particular). This is probably because the copulative (word group) is the most complex grammatical structure in the Bantu languages, hence also in Ndebele. The aim of this study is to investigate the copulative word group in Ndebele (i.e. Southern Ndebele). The subjection of the copulative word group to verbal categories such as implication, mood, tense and actuality as distinguished by Posthumus (1993:99) will be investigated. It is assumed that in all copulatives there is an existential relation between two entities. This
relation is found between the subject and the complement or antecedent and complement of the copulative and can be expressed as a relation of identification, association or description. The identificative copulative word group generally has a noun or a pronoun as complement of the identificative copulative particle word. This copulative word group generally consists of twoparticle words followed by a noun or pronoun. (In Ndebele this copulative has low tone on the initial syllable.) In Ndebele an identificative relation is marked by a particular particle word (called the identificative particle word) which precedes the complement (and as already stated by lowering the tone on the initial syllable). The associative copulative is marked by the associative copulative particle word (which is basically na-). Like the identificative copulative word group this word group also comprises two particle words and a complementary word. The descriptive copulative word group on the other hand has no particle word that marks the descriptive relationship in particular. This word group basically comprises two words. In the chapter on the occurrence of copulatives in different moods, moods have been classified into tense distinguishing (which include moods such as the indicative, situative (or participial) and the relative) and the non-tense distinguishing moods (which include the subjunctive, imperative consecutive and the infinitive). Even though Ndebele school textbooks classify the subjunctive mood as tense distinguishing, this mood is regarded as being non-tense distinguishing, in this study. (Consider Posthumus (1991) in this regard). One of the outstanding differences between the tense-distinguishing moods and the non-tense distinguishing moods is that a copulative word group in the former category can realise in both the non-inchoative and the inchoative form while a copulative in one of the latter moods can only realise in the inchoative form (i.e. the inchoative verb stem -ba is necessarily used).