Northern Sotho consecutive and habitual: mood, tense or aspect?

Abstract

In this article a proposal is put forward whereby the consecutive and habitual verb forms which are currently treated as moods in Northern Sotho grammar, should be regarded as aspectual variants of the indicative. Initial ideas expressed in this regard in Louwrens are developed further, and several new arguments based on, inter alia, recent observations by Northern Sotho as well as Zulu grammarians, are presented in support of this view. It is argued that the consecutive indicative expresses perfective aspect and the habitual indicative imperfective aspect. Indicatives, therefore, have two perfective and two imperfective forms, one of which is tense related and the other not. Perfective forms manifest themselves in the ordinary past tense (tense related) and in the consecutive (non-tense related). The imperfective forms occur in the present and past tense (tense related), as well as in the habitual (non-tense related). The semantic differences between these forms are explained and illustrated with examples from literary texts.