Review of ‘Girma A. Demeke. 2013. Amharic-Argobba Dictionary / አማርኛ አርጎብኛ መዝገበ ቃላት። Trenton: The Red Sea Press' (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Semitic Basis of the Amharic Lexicon
1975
This thesis sets out to examine the make-up of the Amharic vocabulary, principally from the point of view of Amharic as a Semitic language. There can be no doubt that Amharic is a Semitic language in accordance with all the tenets and methods of standard language classification. Typically this does not rely primarily on lexical evidence, but more on the "conservative" levels of analysis, such as morphology. The level of the lexicon probably occupies the opposite position to morphology in so fair as it is typically the least conservative and the most subject to innovation and outside influence. It is this sensitivity of the lexicon to extra-linguistic factors such as ethnic contacts, cultural patterns and directions, influences from outside the community (political, commercial, or intellectual), find so on that provides the value of this kind of study of the vocabulary of a language. The first part of this thesis examines the Semitic basis of the Amharic lexicon from the an...
This basic dictionary, ctqLlisting of two sections, Amharic-English and English-Amharic, is the first such dictionary written since 1920. Since there is a considerable lack of consistency in Amharic spelling, the Amharic orthography used here has been standardized through etymological studies. Whenever necessary, English expressions are given in parentheses to restrict or clarify the meaning of an entry.
An Examination of Amharic Grammar from Pre-17th Century Manuscripts
2013
The paper examines pre-17 th century Amharic manuscripts with regard to the diachronic grammar of Amharic. It examines particularly the imperial songs of Amdetsion Getatchew Haile (1970) which can all safely be dated back to the 16 th and pre-16 th centuries. It focuses mainly on the peculiar grammatical features of that period which are not observable in modern Amharic. Pre-17 th century Amharic exhibits all the pharyngeal and glottal phonemes typical of Semitic languages. Modern Amharic has rigid SOV. Relative clauses and adjectives must also follow their head noun. However, pre-17 th century Amharic was not rigid in this regard. Although structures like those in modern Amharic are also attested, we find a VSO order in pre-17 th century Amharic. Relative clauses and adjectives also follow the noun they modify. Pre-17th century Amharic in general shows more Semitic features than present-day Amharic. This is, in fact, expected if Amharic is seen as a descendant of a Semitic language; not as one created through a pidgin-induced process.
Macrolinguistics and Microlinguistics
This study is on Amharic ideophones, a subject that has not been described well in the syntax of Amharic. The data used for the analysis are collected from natural settings of the Amharic-speaking community in Debre Birhan College of Teacher Education. The description shows that Amharic ideophones contradict some earlier generalizations made about the syntax of ideophones in such works which claim that ideophones do not fit in the grammar of other word classes in a language, and which states that ideophones do not enter any phrase structure, nor are they modified by other word classes. The description here shows that ideophones fit well into the grammar of the Amharic language. In contrast to such claims, they project different phrases such as noun phrases, which occur in subject and object positions and they can occur with or without a modifier. Their verb phrases appear with adverbial modifiers. Amharic ideophones can also be modifiers of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. They form ...
The Morphology of Amharic Ideophones
Zena Lissan
Amharic ideophones are marginalized word classes in most descriptive grammar studies. However, this paper aims to describe and classify ideophones of the language. In addition to this, ideophones are universally considered to have little morphology. Nevertheless, this study identifies several morphological processes which ideophones of the language undergo. Amharic ideophones mainly undergo compounding, derivation, reduplication, and sometimes inflectional morphology. Moreover, in the language, ideophonic verb stems undergo total and partial reduplications. These reduplicated verb stems are further compounded with auxiliaries al-'say' and adərrəɡ-'do/make' to show verbal and adverbial functions. Besides, the study classifies ideophones mainly into verbal and nominal (noun) ideophones. Non-reduplicated ideophone-based verbs function as a verb and the reduplicated ideophone-based verbs have an adverbial function. Furthermore, ideophonic verbs collocate with the dummy verb al-'say' form intransitive verb, and ideophonic verbs which collocate with the dummy verb adərrəɡ-'do/make' form transitive verbs. As the finding shows, some simple nouns reduplicate and compound with auxiliaries to express taste, smells, and some internal feelings. Lastly, derived nominal ideophones also undergo inflections for nominative and accusative cases and number and gender like the regular nouns of the language.
Grammatical Changes in Semitic: A Diachronic Grammar of Amharic.
2017
""Non-Semitic features are visible in every aspect of the grammar and lexicon of Ethio-Semitic languages (ES). Some scholars attribute this to pidginazation, a hypothesis which posits that ES originated from a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic suprastratum. The latter is assumed to have been brought by a Semitic group (or a wave of groups) who migrated from South Arabia into Ethiopia around 500 BCE. However, since the Ethio-Semitic group contains the most diversified languages of the Semitic family and has preserved core Semitic features, a counter-proposal which considers ES to be an autochthonous group has become standard these days. The short period of Amharic history does not prove the hypothesis that ES originated from a mixture of Semitic and Cushitic. Most of the non-Semitic features that contemporary Amharic exhibits are recent innovations. Current Amharic lacks pharyngeal sounds as do the other South Ethio-Semitic languages with the exception of Shonke-Tollaha Argobba. The glottal sounds have also limited distribution in modern Amharic (MA). Old Amharic (OA) has these typical Semitic sounds. Current Amharic seems to be developing postpositions and is characterized by circumpositions. In OA the postpositional elements as relational items did not exist. Neither did circumpositions exist. OA is characterized by a mixed word order. A transitive clause in MA has unmarked SOV order. Relative clauses and adjectives must also follow their head noun. OA was not rigid in this regard. Although structures like those in modern Amharic are attested, we find a VSO order in OA. Relative clauses and adjectives may also follow the noun that they modify. Because Amharic has been serving as a language of administration for over a millennium, it has developed unique polite forms for second and third persons. These polite forms underwent a number of fascinating changes throughout history. Except for third person, Amharic has preserved the Semitic personal pronouns. This book describes the historical grammar of Amharic which furthers our understanding of the changes that Ethio-Semitic languages underwent. The research is based on ancient manuscripts and grammatical works of different periods. ""