Sesotho Names as Minor Clauses: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach

This article explores Sesotho personal names as minor clauses from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theoretical framework. It discusses these personal names as authentic enacted messages. The study is qualitative and data was collected from class list and employment rolls, radio and TV talk show programmes, neighbourhood, telephone directories and many more. The study displays the evaluation of the awarder in coining the names to reflect the modality of these awarders. It makes new observations that display that Sesotho names function as clauses of exchange thus they maintain the social fabric. They confirm Hallidays features about SFL minor clauses. A hybridization of onomastica and Linguistics as well as that of Morphology, Semantics and Grammar reflects. It further displays the reciprocation of the verbal and the nominal groups which show that the verbal group is actually the basis for the nominal group in the onomastica system of Basotho. It concludes that Sesotho names explicate a social function as minor clauses and it recommends that the grammar of Sesotho be taught from the functional view because this approach shall unearth even those issues overlooked by Morpho-syntactic approach currently cherished by Sesotho grammar analysts. This study has implications for education through curriculum design, advertising linguistics, onomastica studies, journalism, sociolinguistics, historical studies and science and linguistics generally.