Issues of Ambiguity in Sesotho: Meaning Retrieval

Abstract

This paper is based on the findings from a study conducted to examine issues of ambiguity in Sesotho. This is a qualitative study in which two experiments were conducted to collect data from 30 Sesotho native speakers. The respondents were purposefully selected from language users in Motheo district in South Africa. The results from these experiments showed that native speakers are able to distinguish a dominant meaning of a word from a subordinate meaning. They are able to assess the role of context in determining the meaning(s) of words. The implications of these findings are discussed. This paper provide an insight as to how context should be regarded as crucial in meaning retrieval. That in the absence of ‘context’, or if it is less restrictive, the most frequent occurring meaning will be activated.