In Sesotho, pronouns, verbs, copulatives, adjectives, relatives, enumeratives, and possessives all need to agree with the noun(s) associated with them.
Noun stems can range in length from monosyllabic as in [mʊtʰʊ] motho ('person'), to very long stems formed either by duplication (e.g. [xodumodumo] kgodumodumo ('great and fearsome thing', the swallowing monster) or derived from long and complex verbs, such as the seven-syllable [pʰupʼɑʀʊl̩lɛlɑnɔ] phuparollelano ('the act of mutual giving and receiving'), derived from a verb which is in turn idiomatically and recursively and comes through four distinct steps — derived from the verb [fupʼɑ] fupara ('to close one's hand suddenly').
[4] Some historical words, such as [liˌt͡sʼi'e] letsie ('locust'), have completely lost their singular prefixes (and, in the case of [t͡sʼi'e] tsie, ended up in class 9).
The proper names and kinship terms generally have miscellaneous forms, but the names of animals, plants (possibly personifications), and some humans in this class begin with a mma- or ma- prefix.
Names of mothers, fathers, married women and men (in a system of [hʊɬɔnɪpʰɑ] ho hlonepha prohibiting the use of nouns sounding like the names of certain family members), and initiated boys and girls may be formed from other nouns and proper names with the prefixes mma- (or just ma-) and ra- meaning "mother of" and "father of" respectively (though initiates often get prefixes of the opposite sex, ma- for boys and ra- for girls).
Some nouns in this class also come from verbs, but are non-personal and usually end in the vowel ⟨o⟩.
Like class 1 the prefix appears as mm- before stems beginning with ⟨b⟩ in standard Sesotho.
It has many terms of body parts which appear in pairs, natural phenomena, and certain special classes of people.
However, since this process often happens when constructing first names of people, the resulting noun then appears in class 1a.
The second strategy is much less common and creates nouns indicating actions by first replacing the final vowel with [ɪ'ɔ] -eo before applying the nasalization.
For non-monosyllabic stems the meaning obtained by replacing the final vowel with ⟨o⟩ and applying nasalization is generally only that of the action.
Infinitives denoting a negative meaning are formed by inserting an infix[9] -se- after the prefix and changing the final vowel to ⟨e⟩.
In many other Bantu languages, including Setswana,[10] this class is productive, but this is no longer the case in Sesotho.
The class prefix is fa-[11] and comes from original Proto-Bantu *pa- (denoting near positions).
In many other Bantu languages, including Setswana,[10] this class is productive, but this is no longer the case in Sesotho.
The class prefix is ho-[11] and comes from original Proto-Bantu *ku- (denoting remote positions).
In many other Bantu languages, including Setswana,[10] this class is productive, but this is no longer the case in Sesotho.
The class prefix is mo-[11] and comes from Proto-Bantu *mu- (denoting close or internal positions).
The concords are attached to the front of the parts of speech and result in utterances which sound mildly alliterative.
[ʀɑtʼɑ] -rata ('love') → Note that: Generally, agents are formed in classes 1 and 7 by adding the prefix and changing the final vowel to /i/ i, while impersonal nouns are formed in several classes by adding the prefix and changing the final vowel to /ɔ/ o: There are, however, some impersonal nouns which end with i.
Agents derived from passive verbs often use the full passive suffix -uwa, and never change the final vowel: A rich source of nouns are nominal compounds formed (somewhat irregularly) from other parts of speech and even complete sentences.
Note that the use of dashes to separate their parts is also irregular and usually based on the popularity and utility of the noun, and the Lesotho and South African orthographies tend to differ (with the Lesotho orthography tending to prefer dashes more).
Many Sesotho nouns (and other parts of speech) stem from contact with speakers of Indo-European languages, primarily French missionaries, Orange Free State Afrikaners, and, in modern times, English people.
The form of the Setswana productive class 17 prefix is irregular, as the historical sound shifts should have resulted in go instead.