Four Sentences, Three Errors, One Protest
A Standard 7 learner writes four sentences for homework: (1) 'Batho o ne a kopana kwa kgotleng.' (2) 'Dikgomo e ne e fula kwa masimong.' (3) 'Metsi a ne a le mantsi.' (4) 'Ke bone bana mme ka mo dumedisa.' The teacher marks (1), (2) and (4) wrong but (3) right. The learner protests that 'metsi' looks plural, so (3) should be wrong too, and that in (4) 'mo' is used for one person, which is exactly what he meant: he greeted one of the boys, not all of them. The class has not yet revised noun classes this term.
1. Correct sentences (1) and (2), and state the rule the learner has broken.
Read the worked answer
Corrections: (1) 'Batho ba ne ba kopana kwa kgotleng.' (2) 'Dikgomo di ne di fula kwa masimong.'
The rule is subject-concord agreement with the noun class of the subject. Batho is class 2 (the plural of motho), so the concord is ba-. Dikgomo is class 10 (the plural of kgomo), so the concord is di-. The learner has used the class 1 concord o-/a- and the class 9 concord e-/e-, which belong to the singular nouns he was picturing.
Agreement follows the class of the word actually written, not the singular idea in the writer's head.
2. The learner says 'metsi' looks plural, so sentence (3) should be wrong. Explain why the teacher is right.
Read the worked answer
In Setswana, agreement follows the noun class, not English intuitions about plurals. Metsi belongs to class 6, the ma- class, and class 6 takes the concord a-. So 'Metsi a ne a le mantsi' is correct, and mantsi is the matching class 6 form.
The learner is transferring an English habit of thought - 'water' is uncountable, and metsi looks like a plural - into a system where the class marker controls the concord. The teacher is marking grammar, not meaning. The protest is reasonable as a question but wrong as a correction.
3. Sentence (4) is 'Ke bone bana mme ka mo dumedisa.' Give the correction and explain what would have to change for the learner's 'mo' to be right.
Read the worked answer
The correction is 'Ke bone bana mme ka ba dumedisa' - bana is class 2, so the object concord is ba-.
For mo to be correct, the object would have to be a class 1 noun, for example 'Ke bone Kago mme ka mo dumedisa' ('I saw Kago and greeted him'). If the learner really means 'I greeted one of them', he cannot express that by changing the concord while keeping bana; he must name the child or use a different construction.
The key point is that object concord tracks the noun, not the speaker's intention. This is why 'but I meant one person' does not rescue the sentence.