Ethiopian Journal of Languages and Literature

Morphosyntactic Features of the Wəllo Variety of Amharic

Baye Yimam — 2019-01-22

This paper is an attempt towards a morphosyntactic description of the Wəllo variety of Amharic. The description focuses on aspects of derivational and inflectional affixes, and on restructuring of phrases to serve as lexical expressions of manner of events and/or actions. The description of the facts show that the variety deviates from the ‘standard variety’ in the derivation of active, passive and middle voice stems of what are traditionally known as type A, B and C verbs. The variety geminates the penultimate radical of a root to derive both perfective and imperfective stems whereas the standard variety geminates the same radical to derive only perfective stems. Furthermore, the Wəllo variety uses different forms for passive and middle voices whereas the standard variety uses the same form for both the middle and the passive. Ditransitive verbs show agreement affixes for both the direct and indirect objects in the Wəllo variety whereas the same type of verbs show affixes for only direct object in the standard variety. The Wəllo variety also differs in the form and use of honorific, endearing and pleading terms, and in the choice of goal and source adpositions. The overall description shows that the Wəllo variety has a more complex morphology than the standard variety, which calls for a more elaborate comparative description.

The Argobba Language Revitalization: Practices and Limitations

Getahun Amare — 2022-07-27

There are down-to-earth efforts in revitalizing the Argobba language. However, the desired steps forward has not been observed. In this scenario, the first thing to be well thought about is the root of the problem that made it so happen. The main objective of this study is, therefore, to critically analyze the Argobba language revitalization practices, identify challenges encountered and finally provide future directions that can make the revitalization endeavor triumphant. The study found out that the endeavor has become fruitless because of three major problems. First, the efforts were not well coordinated and directed to the desired goal. Second, some activities, which obligatorily require the involvement of different professionals, were carried out on an individual basis. Third, more importantly, the determining role of the community was disregarded. As a result of these drawbacks, the practices for the Argobba language revitalization have become futile. Argobba community members, education professionals, teachers, elders and spiritual leaders should recognize the importance of the revitalization, and participate in the revitalization endeavor at all levels. As a final point, this study recommends the revitalization process be community based, institutionalized with top-down and bottom-up approaches synchronized and taking regional varieties into consideration.

The Past and Present Orthographies of Sidaama (Sidaamu Afoo)

Anbessa Teferra — 2022-07-28

This paper deals with the past and present orthographies of Sidaama, a Highland East Cushitic (henceforth HEC) language spoken in south-central Ethiopia. The first orthography of Sidaama was an Ethiopic-based one and was used before 1993. This orthography was initially used for liturgical purposes by various missionaries and in particular by Catholic mission churches. A revised version of this orthography was used also after 1979 for the purpose of mass literacy campaigns. The current orthography is a Latin-based one that was adopted for the language since 1993. The new orthography overcame the problem of representing geminates and long vowels. On the other hand, it was also fraught with its own drawbacks such as inaccurate representation of the glottal stop, the glottalic segments, the problem of allophony, unnecessary insertion of i after y, selection of problematic graphemes for some phonemes, etc. In this paper, some amendments are proposed to rectify these recurrent problems of the current orthography.

Pluractionality of Lexical Aspects in Afaan Oromoo

Eba Teresa Garoma — 2019-01-22

Pluractionality is the phenomenon that denotes plurality of events, happenings and states (situations) which are quantified and described through verbs. This study provides the description of pluractionality in Afaan Oromoo. The data were collected from written texts and crosschecked by native speakers and introspection. Based on the sample clauses, different semantic and structural types of pluractionality are identified and described. These are iterative, distributive and frequentative as well as causative, which is basically different structural category. Semantically, iterative shows regular repetition of occurrences in which the same participant is involved; the repetition occurs in a recurrent period of time. Distributive refers to multiple actors or participants in the events so that each event happens to exist with its own actor or participant, either simultaneously or consecutively in the same or different places. The other pluractional form is frequentative, which has single/identical participant who engage in a repeatedly regular occurrence of an event. The repeated event occurs in different times. On the other hand, causative is indicated using the causative morpheme. This involves affixation of -s with several variant forms, which are phonologically triggered. The marking strategies and structures of the first three are the same in that reduplication of the first syllable of the verb is employed to show pluractionality. The study concluded that pluractionality of lexical aspects is structurally represented by reduplication and affixation in Afaan Oromoo.

Analytic Causatives in Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic: The Case of Afan Oromo, Amharic, Shekkinoonoo and Kafinoonoo

Tolemariam Fufa — 2022-07-28

This paper presents an overview of analytic causatives of Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages. I shall show that, based on main verbs, Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages have two types of analytic causatives. One of these analytic causatives employs the inchoative form of the verb ‘to be’ as a matrix verb of the causer event while the other one employs the verb ‘to do’ as the main verb of the causer event of analytic causatives. The inchoative form of the verb ‘to be’ that serves as the main verb of the causer event itself is always a complex verb because the causative morpheme and agreement elements are suffixed to it. The causative morpheme that is attached to such an inchoative form of the verb ‘to be’ can be single or double depending on the language and the number of causers. This means that if a language permits double causative and the number of causers is two in the analytic causative, the causative morpheme that is added to the inchoative verb is two, and so on. But some other Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages use only the verb ‘to do’ as a main verb of the causer event. In languages where the verb ‘to do’ is used as a main verb, its form shows variations. In some languages, the verb ‘to do’ is a frozen base (i.e., a deponent or non-existing base) and to be used as a main verb of the analytic causative structure, it must get the causative morpheme attached to it. The causative morpheme that is attached to such a frozen base can be single or double. In some other languages the verb ‘to do’ is an already existing verb and it can be used as a main verb of the analytic causative structure as is or as a complex verb form since it can add one or two causative morphemes. Moreover, the paper discusses analytic causatives based on oppositions of causative and non-causative members. Particularly, the paper investigates the verb ‘to be’ and the verb ‘to do’ as correlational opposites to serve as the basis for analytic causative. Moreover, the paper considers some ideophones and analytic causatives as oppositions of causative and non-causative members. I also show that analytic causatives have strict word order; the subject of the main sentence precedes the subject of the embedded sentence while the verb of the main sentence follows the verb of the embedded sentence. The paper also considers structures of analytic causatives in terms of grammatical function changes.

በብሌን (1982) የፍቅር እስከ መቃብር “ስሑት አስተያየቶች” ላይ ሒሳዊ ፍካሬ

Gezahegn Tsegaw — 2022-07-28

ይህ ሒሳዊ ፍካሬ÷ ፍቅር እስከ መቃብርን አስመልክቶ በብሌን (1982) ወይይት ላይ የሥነ ጽሑፍ መምህራኑን (የዘሪሁን እና የደበበን 1982) ዕይታዎች መነሻ ያደረጉ ሦስት ጥቃቅን ሁነቶችን መዞ÷ ለመነሻዎቹ ጥያቄያዊ ሐቲቶች ምላሽ ለማርቀቅ ሞክሯል፡፡ ሒሳዊ ጥናቱ÷ ሦስቱን ገጸባህርያት ማንጸሪያ ያደረጉ ተናጠላዊ ሁነቶች ለመፈከር÷ በዮናስ (1992) ጥናት ላይ ተግባራዊ ከሆኑ የመፈከሪያ ሥልቶች ጋራ፣ የአንባቢ ምላሽ ሒስን (Reader-Response Criticism) አግባብቶ፣ በፊት ለፊት ከሚነገረን ጀርባ ያለን “ትርጉምና አንድምታ (meaning and significance) ፈልፍሎ ማውጣት” የሚያስችልን የፍካሬ (interpretation) ሥልት ተግባራዊ አድርጓል፡፡ በፍካሬ ሂደቱም÷ አንደኛ፡- ሰብለ በዛብህን÷ “በፍቅር ጓደኝነት የተቆራኘችው የባላባት ዘር ሲነፍጓት፣ አማራጭ ስታጣ ነው” የሚለው የሐያስያኑ ምልከታ÷ የሰብለንም ሆነ የልቦለዱን ዐውዶች ያላገናዘበ÷ ርዕዮተ ዓለማዊ ወገንተኝነት የተጫነው “ስሑት አስተያየት” መሆኑን፤ ሁለተኛ፡- የፊታውራሪ መሸሻን ከፈረስ ላይ ወድቀው መሞትን ከግላዊ ባህርያቸው የሚመነጭ ተምሳሌታዊ ሞት በማድረግ ሀዲስ የተሳካላቸው መሆኑን፤ ሦስተኛ፡- የካሣ ዳምጤ “ጉድ” መባል አስመልክቶም÷ ደራሲው የገጸባህርይውን አፈንጋጭነት በውል የተገነዘቡ መሆናቸውንና በማፈንገጡ ጥያቄ እንዳያስነሳ “ጉድ” ብለው ለመሰየም መብቃታቸውን፤ ሒሳዊ ጥናቱ÷ በበቂ አስረጆች ለማጠየቅና ለመፈከር ሞክሯል፡፡ ፍቅር እስከ መቃብርም እንዲሁ ላይ ላዩን ብቻ ተነቦ የሚተነተን ሳይሆን÷ እያንዳንዱን ቅንጣት አሀድ በተናጠልና በጥቅል እያነበቡና እየመረመሩ የሚፈክሩት “የሐሳቦች ልቦለድ” መሆኑን÷ ይህም ሒሳዊ ጥናት መጠቆም ይወዳል፡፡