A Lexical Analysis of the Verb of Perception BONA (see) in Setswana

The verb ‘BONA’ (to see) in Setswana represents semantic entailments that are not included in the general entailments that the verb of most perceptions UTLWA (perceive – taste, hear, comprehend, smell, feel) presents. The critical question is what is the basis of the exclusion of BONA from the semantic entailments found in UTLWA? To respond to this question, it is important to examine and characterize the semantic domains of BONA. This verb demonstrates some interesting polysemism when used in different syntactic contexts. The paper will first present the verbs of perceptions in Setswana and their semantic relationships. Further, it will suggest that in the lemmatization of BONA, its varied and specialized semantic entailments that characterize it need to be presented and discussed critically to capture the cultural and linguistic richness of this verb.