The reference status of Southern Sotho predicative nouns

Abstract

The concepts ‘reference’ and ‘denotation’ form the basis of argumentation in this article which reveals that a noun/noun phrase that occurs as the complement of a Southern Sotho identifying copulative is generally not used to refer to a real world object/entity. Instead, such a predicative noun denotes a particular attribute/property/characteristic of the subject of the copulative predicate. The property denoted by such a copulative complement, is often only relevant within a particular context at a particular point in time.