Content uploaded by Gilles-Maurice de Schryver
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Gilles-Maurice de Schryver on Apr 09, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
827
User-friendly Dictionaries for Zulu: An Exercise in Complexicography
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver
Ghent University
Arnett Wilkes
University of the Western Cape
In this paper the main features of Bantu lexicography are analysed through several case
studies of Zulu dictionary features. Examples from both existing dictionaries as well as a
forthcoming reference work are used in the analysis, which develops from verbs and nouns,
gradually including more word classes, and ending with a detailed study of possessive
pronouns. The latter serves as one example of the complex mappings that occur in the
creation of bilingual dictionaries where the two languages involved have very different
grammatical structures. In this case, one concept-that of a possessor and its possession-has
only a few members in English, but hundreds in Zulu. It is shown how one can deal with
such a mass of data in a structured, systematic and linguistically-sound way, all the while
aiming to produce a user-friendly end product. All the members of this single concept are
collectively referred to as a paradigm, and it is indicated that some members are
homonymous with members of other paradigms-a fact which exponentially complicates the
dictionary treatment. Several suggestions are made for the lexicographic treatment of
conjunctively written Bantu languages, and all the claims, as well as all the data, are based
on facts derived from a large general-language Zulu corpus.
Problem statement: User-friendly dictionaries for Zulu
Zulu, spoken in South Africa by approximately 11 million people as a home language, is one of
Africa’s major Bantu languages. Just like all other 500+ languages in this family, it is (a)
agglutinating in nature, with (b) nouns assigned to different noun classes according to their
noun class prefix, which is (c) linked to what is known as a system of concordial agreement.
Expressed in simple terms this means that merely substituting one noun for another one from a
different class will generally result in a sentence that looks (and sounds) totally different. In
lexicography, this has led to a wide range of lemmatisation approaches, all of them struggling to
present the reader with a user-friendly look-up method. The problem, in essence, is one of
choosing the “right” morpheme(s) of each “word” for lemmatisation.
Comparing electronic dictionaries with paper dictionaries, one of course immediately realises
that this problem is less acute in electronic dictionaries, as the latter can be queried in ways and
directions unimaginable in a paper environment. Size (or storage space in a digital medium) also
play(s) a role, where having more of it helps: cross-references (hyperlinks) can simply point the
user to the entry containing the treatment. Thirdly, in dictionaries for advanced users, a detailed
modular approach with massive articles several columns long can be considered.
In this paper, the hardest type is studied, namely lemmatisation in (a) a paper dictionary, (b) of
modest size, (c) for young learners. In addition, (d) a bilingual Zulu – English dictionary is
looked into, which adds yet another layer of complexity, as two very different grammatical
systems need to be mapped onto one another. Despite these challenges, the goal is to produce
user-friendly dictionaries.
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, Arnett Wilkes
828
Lemmatising verbs and nouns in traditional Zulu dictionaries
In order to illustrate agglutination in practice, consider Wayesezofika ekhaya “He was on the
point of reaching home”, which is the title of an award-winning Zulu novel (Gumbi 1966), and
which can be analysed as shown in (1).1
(1) Analysis of Wayesezofika ekhaya “He was on the point of reaching home” (Gumbi
1966)
u a be e s(e) e zo(ku) fik a e khaya
SC1 RPTM AUX SC1_PM AUX SC1_PM FTM Vroot Vending LOCprefix Nstem
arrive home
u + a > wa semi-vocalisation
be > ø this auxiliary is optionally dropped in the remote past tense
a + e > ye semi-vocalisation
s(e) + e > se vowel eletion
zo(ku) > zo abbreviated future tense morpheme
In a so-called (traditional) “stem-based dictionary” users need to look up these words under the
verb stem -fika for the verb, and the noun stem -khaya for the noun ikhaya (singular, class 5) /
amakhaya (plural, class 6). All the other morphemes may or may not be lemmatised in the
central section, and/or be brought together in the dictionary’s extra matter.
As can be seen from this straightforward example, not only is Zulu agglutinating, it is also
written conjunctively—this as opposed to a disjunctive writing system, which is for instance
found in Northern Sotho. For the latter, the various morphemes are physically written
separately. A so-called ‘word-based dictionary’ tradition has emerged for the disjunctively
written languages, where each ‘orthographic word’, even if it actually forms part of another
(linguistic) word, is lemmatised. Clearly, then, lemmatising a conjunctively written Bantu
language such as Zulu is far more difficult.
Given the multiplication potential of all the prefixes which (can) precede verbs—theoretically
running into thousands of combinations for each verb—it should already be clear that the only
way to realistically enter verbs into a Bantu paper dictionary, is to list them under the first letter
of their stem. On this level, more or less all dictionaries agree. However, Bantu linguists who
compile dictionaries will also lemmatise nouns under their noun stem, an approach which has
been criticised for, amongst others, its user-unfriendliness (cf. e.g. Van Wyk 1995). If
lexicographers fail to unanimously pinpoint the first letter(s) of class 9 noun stems—one of the
arguments goes—how can one realistically expect dictionary users to be able to do so?2 In
modern, user-friendly dictionaries for the Bantu languages, nouns therefore ought to be
lemmatised with (and looked up under the first letter of) their noun class (pre)prefixes.
Lemmatising other word classes in traditional Zulu dictionaries
Verbs and nouns being the main content words, they have by far received the most attention in
the scientific lexicographic literature. One cannot use a language without the content words
from other word classes, however, and certainly not without function words which glue all
content words together. Consider, therefore, the analysis in (2) of the randomly chosen phrase
Baningi impela abahlushwa ngomamezala babo “They are really many, the ones who are
irritated by their mothers-in-law”, lifted from the newspaper Isolezwe of 19 July 2004.
1 A list of abbreviations is found at the end of the paper.
2 Knowledge of Proto-Bantu (known as Ur-Bantu in South Africa) could assist lexicographers to properly
identify the stem of class 9 nouns. That knowledge, however, is even more alien to the average user of a
Zulu dictionary.
Section 4. Bilingual Lexicography
829
(2) An analysis of Baningi impela abahlushwa ngomamezala babo “They are really many,
the ones who are irritated by their mothers-in-law” (Isolezwe, 19 July 2004)
ba ningi impela aba hluph w a ngu o mamezala ba bo
SC2 ADJstem ADV RC2 Vroot Pass Vending COPprefix2 CP2b Nstem PC2 Pstem2
many really irritate mother-
in-law
of their
In a traditional stem-based dictionary, such as Doke & Vilakazi’s (1953) Zulu – English
Dictionary, the items that can be looked up in the A to Z section are: ba-, -ningi, impela, aba-,
hlupha [sic, without initial hyphen], —, —, ngu-, o-, -mamezala, ba-, and -bo. Only a user who
has enough linguistic background will be able to ‘parse’ the words in this phrase, as illustrated
here, so as to look up the formatives, upon which that user can then put the different meanings
together so as to arrive at the overall meaning. The user of this dictionary will also need to be
aware of all the possible morphophonological sound changes, here in order to for example
reduce the passive verb -hlushwa to -hlupha. Further note that not all grammatical formatives
have been lemmatised (nor are they listed comprehensively in the extra matter). Although Doke
& Vilakazi’s dictionary remains by far the best Zulu dictionary to date, it does require advanced
skills to be used. Inconsistencies in the lemmatisation approach followed for the different word
classes further complicate matters a bit.
It is instructive to compare the above with the latest Zulu dictionary to reach the market,
Mbatha’s (2006) Isichazamazwi sesiZulu, a monolingual Zulu dictionary. In that dictionary,
only two words from the above phrase can be found, namely úkú
hlupha
(under the letter H;
without an indication of how to form the passive however, glossing over the sound change) and
ú
mámezâla
(under the letter M; without an indication of how to form the plural however, which
is in class 2b). This outcome, clearly, is most baffling. Upon consulting the front matter of
Mbatha’s dictionary, one reads the astounding claims that (a) only content words belong in a
dictionary, and that (b) this means only four word classes are recognised: noun (bz), verb (sz),
exclamation / interjection (bbz), and ideophone (szk), in addition to idiomatic expression (ssh)
and proverb (sg). This seems to go back to Nkabinde’s PhD (1975), and is not accepted by
anyone working on the Bantu languages. The results are rather catastrophic, as this latest
monolingual dictionary’s only contribution to the Zulu language, then, is (the potential) that it
lists a few verbs, nouns, interjections or ideophones that other Zulu dictionary makers have
missed, as well as some extra idioms and proverbs.
Even more worrying is the fact that meanings were somehow forced onto extremely low-
frequent to non-existing verb and noun stems. As such, one finds the noun í(li)
nîngi
(the
majority) rather than the adjective stem -ningi (many). Likewise, the extremely-low-frequent
noun í
mpéla
(the real one)—which is mostly used in possessive constructions, at which point it
is a possessive – is found instead of the highly-frequent adverb impela (really). The latter has
rank number 74 on a Zulu frequency list of orthographic word forms, and it is hard to argue in
favour of its omission from any general Zulu dictionary. Consequently, and not surprisingly, a
very large percentage of the Zulu language’s top-frequent words have not been lemmatised in
Mbatha’s dictionary, since conjunctions, adverbs, pronouns, and so on, are not “recognised”. As
an illustration, Table 1 lists the top 10 orthographic word forms in an 8.5-million-word general
Zulu corpus, together with their word classes, meanings, and respective occurrences (as a
percentage of all the words in the corpus).
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, Arnett Wilkes
830
Rank Word Word class Meaning %
1 ukuthi conjunction that 1.56
2 uma conjunction when; if 0.68
3 nje adverb just; simply; merely 0.64
adverb in this way/manner; like this
interjection exactly!; just so!
4 ngoba conjunction because 0.55
5 kodwa conjunction but, however, yet, nevertheless 0.51
exclusive quantitative pronoun only
6 -ke enclitic then, well then 0.42
7 lapho adverb there 0.42
conjunction when
8 futhi adverb again; once more 0.40
conjunction moreover; furthermore
9 khona adverb here; there 0.38
absolute pronoun it (in particular); the very …
conjunction so that; in order that
10 noma conjunction although; even if 0.37
conjunction or
5.94
Table 1. Top 10 orthographic word forms in Zulu (in an 8.5-million-word general Zulu corpus).
Each and every word from Table 1—together roughly six percent (5.94%) of all running words
in Zulu—is missing from what is supposed to be the currently most prestigious dictionary for
Zulu! The mere six-page grammatical sketch in the back matter of that dictionary certainly does
not counterbalance this or all other losses in the central section.
Intermezzo: A note on the Zulu orthography
Zulu, as seen above and like all its sister Nguni languages (Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele), has a
conjunctive writing system, that is, a system whereby relatively short linguistic words are joined
together to form long orthographic words with complex morphological structures. The reason why
Zulu and its sister languages have adopted a conjunctive way of writing as opposed to the
disjunctive method of writing followed in most other Bantu languages is not so much a scientific
one as it is a practical one. Phonological processes such as vowel elision, vowel coalescence and
consonant elision, all of which are mostly absent in non-Nguni Bantu languages, make the
disjunctive system of writing a highly impractical one for the Nguni languages.
It is therefore absolutely necessary for Zulu lexicographers to first gain sufficient knowledge of
Zulu morphology before attempting to correctly identify the boundaries of Zulu words, stems
and morphemes that are to be lemmatised. Once understood, that system also needs to be
described in the dictionary’s extra matter, as dictionary users have to be told, more than for any
other Bantu-language dictionary, how to use a dictionary for a language such as Zulu.
Section 4. Bilingual Lexicography
831
Lemmatising words in a novel Zulu dictionary
From what precedes it follows that, given the agglutinative morphology of Zulu combined to the
conjunctive writing system, it is inevitable that one needs to make decisions regarding where to
divide orthographic words—and thus related: how to group words, so canonical forms can be
presented in a dictionary—in order to lemmatise the lexicon. An approach which cuts down to
the smallest morpheme level (as in Doke & Vilakazi) is user-unfriendly for the target user group
envisaged, while an approach which throws out most word categories, and forces so-called core
Zulu meanings onto the remaining section (as in Mbatha) is even more user-unfriendly. While
the former is linguistically sound, the latter moreover is not.
The user-friendly approach/solution advocated here revolves around two notions: (a) except for
verbs and a few exceptions (such as the conjunction -thi (when), which behaves like a verb), all
items from all word classes can be lemmatised with their primary prefix(es) included, as well as
with their suffixes included; (b) overall corpus frequencies may be used in order to make a decision
on the number of prefixes as well as which prefixes to include for each word class as a whole, and
thus on how to organise/lemmatise the lexicon. This is indeed the approach which is followed in a
new Zulu – English dictionary that is presently being finalised. Illustrated for the phrase above, each
of the words/sections highlighted can directly be looked up in that dictionary:
Baningi impela
abahlushwa ngomamezala babo
.
Although clearly far more user-friendly, the trade-off is that this new dictionary contains what
some would view as “unnecessary repetition”. For example, instead of just one adjective stem,
say -ningi (many; much), all the frequent full adjectival forms are included, viz. abaningi (class
2, many), amaningi (class 6, many), eminingi (class 4, many), eningi (class 9, much), esiningi
(class 7, much), eziningi (classes 8 & 10, many), and omningi (classes 1a & 3, much). But then
again, this approach enables the dictionary makers to provide carefully selected examples from
the corpus for each of those forms, and thus to truly illustrate the concordial agreement system
for each of the frequent classes. This approach further enables the dictionary makers to provide
tailored translation equivalents for each of the forms (cf. e.g. “many” vs. “much” here).
As another example, possessive pronouns contain two formatives, written conjunctively: a
possessive concord (PC) followed by a possessive stem (Pstem). See for instance babo in (2)
above, which consists of the Pstem2 -bo (their, referring to ‘many’ in class 2) preceded by the
PC2 ba- (of, in agreement with the noun “mothers-in-law”, in class 2b). The form of the
possessor (Pstem) varies depending on the noun class or person of the object or person
possessing, and likewise the form of the possession (PC) depends on the noun class of what is
possessed. It would suffice, therefore, to list the two series of formatives, and to then assume
that the user can ‘glue’ the bits together to arrive at both the correct word and its meaning for
each. This is what is done in grammars, as well as in some dictionaries.
Of course, in the new Zulu – English dictionary, full forms for each possessive pronoun are
presented, an approach which is surprisingly also followed by Doke & Vilakazi for this word
class. Even Dent & Nyembezi (try to) do this in their Scholar’s Zulu Dictionary (1995). In order
to get such a paradigm of related forms right, however, the argument is made in this paper that
one must treat them all in one go. Other options, such as working through the alphabet from A
to Z, or working down a lemmatised frequency list, will simply never result in a consistent
treatment of each member of such a paradigm. Since an agglutinative language like Zulu
contains several dozen such paradigms, some member forms of which are homonymous with
one another across the paradigms, great care has to be effected in compiling each of those
paradigms. Each one is complex, and given the overlaps, the multiplication of complexity can
quickly get out of hand—the topic of the next section.
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, Arnett Wilkes
832
Lemmatising paradigms in Zulu: An exercise in complexicography
In order to illustrate this complexicography, one can briefly study the possessive pronouns in
more detail. A blind application of what is found in the grammars results in all the forms shown
in Table 2. As can be seen, there are (at least theoretically) 16 × 20 = 320 forms—all of these
for what are basically just a handful of forms for the equivalent concept in English: my, your,
his/her/its, our, your, and their. This is not an exceptional paradigm: one often has to ‘map’
several hundred forms from one language onto just a handful in another when bridging
languages with two very different grammars in bilingual lexicography.
Corpus queries immediately indicate that some forms have a zero occurrence, and should thus
not even have been mentioned in the grammars—these are the armchair words, and are printed
in red (non-bold) in Table 2. Other items are simply not frequent enough to be included in a
desktop dictionary – these are the rare words, and are printed in blue (bold) in Table 2. Rests all
the forms highlighted in green (bold + highlight) to be treated, for which the most systematic
approach to lemmatisation is to go down one column at the time. Doing this for the column
headed by for instance “5” (in tandem with “11”) one can make sure that each translation
equivalent is consistently indicated as “its; her/his”, or for the column headed by “1p sg” that
“my” is used throughout. For the latter column, corpus data quickly reveal that each form
should also be accompanied by a grammatical construction, namely “[DEM] … ~”, meaning
“of mine”—a construction which is a direct result of the need to map two different grammars.
Once one has swept through all the columns, during which one focussed on the characteristics
of the possessor, one must also sweep through each of the rows, to make sure that the data
relevant to each possession have been entered consistently. For PC11 (the possessive concord of
class 11), for example, corpus data indicate that the same frequent combination, namely “uqobo
~”, meaning (depending on the possessor) “the very one(s); myself; yourself; ourselves”, should
be entered throughout (except for “yourselves”, which has a zero frequency in the corpus).
Section 4. Bilingual Lexicography
833
Table 2. Corpus frequency study of all (theoretically possible) possessive pronouns in Zulu
As an illustration of the result of the two previous paragraphs, see the article for lwami shown in (3).
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, Arnett Wilkes
834
(3) Corpus-based treatment of lwami “my” in a user-friendly Zulu – English desk dictionary
lwami possessive pronoun 11+1p sg ► my Uma
sengisemotweni yami noma ekhaya ngifuna ukulalela
ulimi lwami. • When I am in my car or at home I want to
listen to my own language.
▪ [DEM] … lwami ► of mine Ngisalungiselela lolo
hambo lwami. • I’m still preparing for that journey of
mine.
▪ uqobo lwami ► myself Emehlweni azo ngibona
uqobo lwami. • In their eyes I see myself.
As can be seen from (3), in one succinct corpus-based article, the three uses of “my”, “mine”
and “myself” have been brought together.3 It needs to be remembered that this one article for
lwami is just one cell in a two-dimensional plane, cf. Table 2. When “translated” into
lexicography, that plane consists of a paradigm of about one hundred (99 to be exact) “frequent
possessive-concord articles”.
As an illustration of another sweep through a row, consider the fact that the orthographic
appearance of PC15 and PC16 is the same, but the meaning of class 16 possessions obscure. It
was decided to add a note rather at each of the PC15 forms to indicate this. The article for
kwalo1, used for possessors in classes 5 and 11, and shown in (4), exemplifies this.
(4) Corpus-based treatment of kwalo “its; her/his” in a user-friendly Zulu – English desk
dictionary
kwalo1 possessive pronoun 1 15+5 ► its; her/his
“Asidingi phoyisa laseThekwini elizokhombisa
ukuhlakanipha kwalo ngokuba libambe umuntu walapha
eSoweto,” kusho uJonas. • “We need no policeman here
from Durban who will show us his smartness by catching
a person here in Soweto,” says Jonas. 2 15+11 ► its;
her/his Uzocobelela ulwazi oluthile kwabanye bese
uyabona ukubaluleka kwalo. • She will seek certain
knowledge from others and then realize its importance.
Note: The pronoun ‘kwalo’ can also be used with the
locative nouns of class 16, to form an adverbial phrase, in
which case its meaning may become obscure.
In (4) the so-called “senses 1 and 2” treat the possessive pronouns for possessors in classes 5
and 11, with in each case a possession in class 15. The possessions in class 16 for the same
possessors are covered by the Usage Note.4
3 Observe that the form lwami, being the “possessive pronoun 11+1p sg”, has to be used in each of the
shown examples, as ulimi “language”, uhambo “journey” and uqobo “self” are all nouns from class 11.
This, of course, is to the very core of the Bantu concordial agreement system. Also note the use of yami—
the “possessive pronoun 9+1p sg”—in the first example under (3), which links the first person singular
“my” with imoto “car”, a noun in class 9 (cf. also note 3). Further observe, in passing, that according to
the lemmatisation strategy advocated in this paper, the form sengisemotweni will be look-up-able under
emotweni ‘in the car’ rather than under the noun stem -moto (i- izi-) “car” as in traditional dictionaries.
4 Observe that the form kwalo, being the “possessive pronoun 15+5”, has to be used in the example under
sense 1, as the possession ukuhlakanipha “smartness” is a noun which belongs to the infinitive class 15,
while the possessor iphoyisa “policeman” belongs to class 5. Reformulated, and as another way to look at it,
the English genitive in “the policeman’s smartness” corresponds to the Zulu possessive pronoun kwalo.
Section 4. Bilingual Lexicography
835
No doubt, consistently treating a Bantu paradigm like the one of the possessive pronouns in
Zulu is no easy task, and hardly possible without professional lexicography software such as for
instance TshwaneLex, where one can physically create the matrix from Table 2 and work
through the various columns and rows in a systematic way using filters.
A comparison with the treatment of the possessive pronouns in the Scholar’s Zulu Dictionary
serves as an example. In that dictionary, the possessive pronouns are labelled ‘(poss)’
throughout, except for all PC7 forms as well as yenu which are labelled “(pron)”. The latter is
moreover erroneously entered as -yenu (with hyphen). The possessive pronoun sami has been
translated with “mine or my” (partly correct) while all other forms in the first person singular
column only list “my”. For ethu only “ours” (partly correct) is suggested, with all other forms in
the first person plural column showing “our”. The equivalent “hers” is listed under zaso, which is
incorrect, as “hers” is ezaso. One also notices frequent alternations such as “his; her” vs. “his/her”
(cf. e.g. column 1), or “its, his or her” vs. “his, her, its” (cf. e.g. kwalo vs. kwaso), and in general
there is no system as to when to include his/her vs. its etc. All PC2, PC6 and PC14 forms, as well
as labo, are missing for no apparent reason. Lastly, homonyms are sometimes mentioned,
sometimes not, and when they are, the order is haphazard (cf. e.g. kwakhe vs. kwabo). There are
also metalanguage typos (e.g. at kwetho) and inconsistencies (e.g. at lalo). The latter is interesting,
as it is the only place where the authors added that the translation is this or that “depending on
class”—obviously, that is what the mapping of this Zulu paradigm onto English is all about.
Dent & Nyembezi need to be commended for at least trying to present the possessive pronouns in a
user-friendly way in their Scholar’s Zulu Dictionary. The task is all the more daunting from the
moment members of other paradigms are homonymous with the paradigm one is attempting to
complete—one is easily distracted, and has to refrain from tackling several paradigms
simultaneously, as some of them in turn lead to others. In this regard, possessive pronoun members
are homonymous with possessives, locative adverbs, demonstrative pronouns, and an adverb.
Conclusion
Modern, user-friendly dictionaries for Zulu are within reach, as long as one has a sound grasp of
the linguistic mechanisms involved, has access to corpora as well as professional lexicography
software, and keeps the intended target user group in mind—at all times.
Likewise, the “possessive pronoun 15+11” has to be used in the example under sense 2, as the possession
ukubaluleka “importance” is a noun which belongs to the infinitive class 15, while the possessor ulwazi
“knowledge” belongs to class 11. Or thus, the English genitive in “the knowledge’s importance”
corresponds to the Zulu possessive pronoun kwalo.
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, Arnett Wilkes
836
Abbreviations used (with # the class number)
ADJ adjective
ADV adverb
AUX auxiliary verb
COP…# copulative
CP# class prefix
DEM demonstrative
FTM future tense morpheme
LOC locative
N noun
P...# possessive
Pass passive verbal extension
PC# possessive concord
PM participial mood
p pl person plural
p sg person singular
RC# relative concord
RPTM remote past tense morpheme
SC# subject concord
V verb
References
Dictionaries
Dent, G. R.; Nyembezi, C. L. S. (1995). Scholar’s Zulu Dictionary. 3rd ed. Pietermaritzburg: Shuter &
Shooter.
Doke, C. M.; Vilakazi, B. W. (1953). Zulu – English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand
University Press.
Mbatha, M. O. (2006). Isichazamazwi sesiZulu. Pietermaritzburg: New Dawn Publishers.
Other sources
Gumbi, J. N. (1966). Wayesezofika ekhaya. S.L. [Johannesburg]: Beter Boeke. — Literary Award
Winner 1966.
Isolezwe. (2004–2008). Isolezwe Online Edition. http://www.isolezwe.co.za/ [Access date: 30 March
2008] — Zulu language newspaper.
Nkabinde, A. C. (1975). A revision of the word categories in Zulu. S.L. [Pretoria]: S.N. [UNISA] —
PhD Thesis.
TshwaneLex. (2002–2008). TshwaneLex Suite: Professional Lexicography and Terminography
Software. http://tshwanedje.com/tshwanelex/ [Access date: 30 March 2008]
Van Wyk, E. B. (1995). “Linguistic Assumptions and Lexicographical Traditions in the African
Languages.” Lexikos 5. 82-96.
