Browsing by Author "Baye Yimam"

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    A Comparative Study of Ideophones in Afro-Asiatic Languages with Special Reference to Amharic, Kafa and Oromo
    (Addis Ababa University, 2024-01-05) Teferi Mulugeta; Baye Yimam
    In day-to-day communication, ideophones play very significant roles in Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages. However, in descriptive studies they are less tread. This dissertation aimed at the phonological, morphological, and syntactic descriptions and comparison of ideophones of Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages. The three representative languages are Amharic (Semitic), Kafa (Omotic), and Oromo (Cushitic). These languages are from the same Afro-Asiatic phylum but they are distantly related. This comparative study identifies more similarities than differences in the phonology and syntax of ideophones. Their morphology shows significant differences. The languages exhibit unique phonological features in phonemic inventories, phonemic distributions, phonotactics, suprasegmentals, and syllable structures of ideophones. Phonetically, the languages exhibited five non-phonemic click-like sounds [ʘ, ǁ, ǃ, ʞ, and the tchip (suck teeth)]. Phonologically, especially Amharic shows the front and back vowels, at the initial positions of ideophonic words, which are not found in the regular phonology of the regular language. Phonotactically, the three languages display the sequences of two identical consonants in coda positions. Ideophones also show expressive consonant and vowel lengthening as main suprasegmental features. Kafa ideophones exhibit high /H/ tone in all ideophonic words across all syllables. In the last case, ideophones show the CVVː, CVVːC, CVCCː and CVCC pattern in addition to the respective regular syllable types. Morphologically, Amharic and Kafa ideophones undergo complex process in compounding and derivation whereas Oromo shows simple processes. Cross-linguistically, ideophones deploy compounding, derivation, reduplication, and inflectional morphology. Inflectional morphology is unpredictable in ideophones. Syntactically, the ideophones of Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages go contrary to the existing generalizations of syntactic aloofness of ideophones. They do not show differences to the non-ideophonic words. Ideophones occupy the argument and the predicate positions. They function as subject, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They are used in complex predicates of active and passive verb constructions. They also occur across all sentence types even though they are reported to be found in certain sentence types and exist peripherally. The remaining semantic and pragmatics of features of ideophones of Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages are the future study focuses of the researcher.
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    A Comparative Study of Ideophones in Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic Languages with Special Reference To Amharic, Kafa and Oromo
    (Addis Ababa University, 2024-01-16) Teferi Mulugeta; Baye Yimam
    In day-to-day communication, ideophones play very significant roles in Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages. However, in descriptive studies they are less tread. This dissertation aimed at the phonological, morphological, and syntactic descriptions and comparison of ideophones of Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages. The three representative languages are Amharic (Semitic), Kafa (Omotic), and Oromo (Cushitic). These languages are from the same Afro-Asiatic phylum but they are distantly related. This comparative study identifies more similarities than differences in the phonology and syntax of ideophones. Their morphology shows significant differences. The languages exhibit unique phonological features in phonemic inventories, phonemic distributions, phonotactics, suprasegmentals, and syllable structures of ideophones. Phonetically, the languages exhibited five non-phonemic click-like sounds [ʘ, ǁ, ǃ, ʞ, and the tchip (suck teeth)]. Phonologically, especially Amharic shows the front and back vowels, at the initial positions of ideophonic words, which are not found in the regular phonology of the regular language. Phonotactically, the three languages display the sequences of two identical consonants in coda positions. Ideophones also show expressive consonant and vowel lengthening as main suprasegmental features. Kafa ideophones exhibit high /H/ tone in all ideophonic words across all syllables. In the last case, ideophones show the CVVː, CVVːC, CVCCː and CVCC pattern in addition to the respective regular syllable types. Morphologically, Amharic and Kafa ideophones undergo complex process in compounding and derivation whereas Oromo shows simple processes. Cross-linguistically, ideophones deploy compounding, derivation, reduplication, and inflectional morphology. Inflectional morphology is unpredictable in ideophones. Syntactically, the ideophones of Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages go contrary to the existing generalizations of syntactic aloofness of ideophones. They do not show differences to the non-ideophonic words. Ideophones occupy the argument and the predicate positions. They function as subject, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They are used in complex predicates of active and passive verb constructions. They also occur across all sentence types even though they are reported to be found in certain sentence types and exist peripherally. The remaining semantic and pragmatics of features of ideophones of Ethiopian Afro-Asiatic languages are the future study focuses of the researcher.
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    Amharic DBpedia Extraction
    (Addis Ababa University, 2015-03) Biniyam Getahun ; Baye Yimam
    Knowledge base is a technology used to store complex structured and unstructured data used by computer. Today, most knowledge bases cover just particular domain that is created by a small group of knowledge engineers because building general domain base knowledge is cost ly and time taking to cover a ll domains. Wikipedia has developed into one of the focal knowledge so urces for everyone and is kept up by a large number of contributors but its structure has some issue to use as knowledge source. The DBpedia project goes for extracting in formation based on semi-structured information by presenting Wikipedia articles, interlinking it with other knowledge bases, and publishing it as RDF triples openly on the Web. So far, the DBpedia project has succeeded in creatin g one of the largest knowledge bases on the web data, which is used in many applications and research prototypes. DBpedia extraction is extracts structured data (RDF) from Wikipedia. This study describes the effort to extract Amharic DBpedia. During the extraction process, the extraction design present by considering Amharic language. The tool used to extract Amharic DBpedia is 118n extract ion framework. The result shows more than quarter million Amharic RDF trip les extracted. In addition to this achievement, the improvement of Amharic Wikipedia infoboxes could increase the quality of extracting RDF triples. The result also shows extracting Amharic DBpedia is applicable and the language can be a part of the internationalized DBpedia chapter. Even if the study shows encouraging results, there are some remaining work needs to be done to get full Amharic DBpedia chapter. Abstract and homepage extractions must include having a full version of Amharic DBpedia chapter. Live base DBped ia extraction can be a considerable in the future work because it can get dynamic knowledge from Wikipedia and has a capability to deliver in stant RDF triples. Building Amharic knowledge bases, including Amharic DBpedia RDF store helps in order to facilitate access and querying structured data. Furthermore, the Amharic triple store can be knowledge source for NLP tasks and web applications. Keywords: DBpedia, 118n Extraction fram ework, RDF, Semantic Web, Wikiped ia.
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    Analysis of Linguistic Contents in Grades 5-8 English Textbooks of the Curriculum of Oromia Regional State: Focus on Grammar Contents
    (Addis Ababa University, 2010-09) Eba Teresa ; Baye Yimam
    The study was designed to evaluate the grammar contents of English textbooks of grades 5-8 in Oromia Regional State. The evaluation includes grammar exercises, explanations of rules, selection, sequencing, repetition of items and difficulty level of the contents. To conduct the study, a purposive sampling technique was used to select the textbooks, the schools and the teachers, and content analysis was also employed. Four English textbooks (grades 5-8), 32 classrooms (from 8 schools) and 143 English teachers were selected for the study. The study revealed that the contents of the textbooks are selected in line with the social and environmental backgrounds of the students. However, the exercises in the books lack clear instructions, contexts and exhaustive questions that are relevant to particular lessons. There are also shortages of explanations about the grammar rules presented in all of the textbooks. The findings also show that the sequencing of the grammar contents is adequate in that there is a single grammar rule presented at a time. However, many grammar items are not repeated in subsequent units and grades. Moreover, there is little attention paid to grammar contents of the whole textbooks, and many grammar items such as tag questions and answers, nominals, phrases and clauses that need to be taught to primary school children are not addressed in the books. Furthermore, the study shows that there are no grammar summaries/reviews, glossaries, and activities in any of the textbooks.
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    Conditional Constructions in Amhar
    (Addis Ababa University, 2010-09) Abdu Ahmed ; Baye Yimam
    This study aims at describing conditional constructions in Amharic. Two secondary sources, Hartmann (1980) and Leslau (1995), have been used, along with the primary intuition of the researcher. Amharic conditionals are constructed from two clauses one of which is an adverbial, the antecedent, and the other of which is a main clause, which is the consequent. Canonical and non-canonical forms of conditionals have been identified. The canonical forms consist of conditional markers in their antecedent clauses. The non-canonical forms are composed of two independent clauses conjoined by such conjunctives like alyam, ɨnǰi and ɨnna. kǝ-, ɨndǝ- and bɨ- are identified as conditional markers. kǝ- occurs with main verbs or with their auxiliaries in the perfective aspect, whereas ɨndǝ- occurs only with the auxiliary hon- and its reduced forms in the same perfective aspect. bɨoccurs with main verbs or their auxiliaries in the imperfective aspect. The semantic-based classification of Amharic conditionals is dealt with in light of Thompson et al.‟s (2007) typology. It is shown that Amharic real conditionals are marked by kǝ- (and sometimes by ɨndǝ-). Except predictives which may take any of the three conditional markers, other types of unreal conditionals are marked by bɨ-. Counterfactuals differ from hypothetical conditionals in that they mostly contain nor-o as a marker of counterfactuality in their antecedent clauses. Concessive conditionals are characterized by the focus suffix -mm and the adverb ɨnkwa(n) „even‟ which mostly co-occur in antecedent clauses. Exceptive conditionals are characterized by bǝk‟ǝr (bǝstǝk‟ǝr) or ɨnǰi in their antecedent clauses and the choice between these is determined by polarity type of the antecedent clause.
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    Copula Constructions and Information Structure in Muher
    (Addis Ababa University, 2023-07) Workie Musa Arega; Baye Yimam
    The main objective of this study is to describe copula constructions and information structure in Muher. This study employed a qualitative descriptive research method. Data have mainly been accessed through elicitation by consulting purposively selected Muher native speakers. Both elicitation and recording of free speech and narratives have been employed as major datagathering tools. Besides, data have been extracted from the Muher corpus compiled by the NORHED project, and some stories in Muher. The linguistic data were presented in three-line interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glossing. Phonemic transcription is employed by using IPA consistently. This study identified the copular morphemes -n for equation and non-past or -ja for the third person singular feminine, nən- for existential and non-past, and bannə- for past in the affirmative main clause, where nən-and bannə- are followed by MVMs. nən- and bannə have both BE and HAVE interpretations. In their BE interpretation, they are inflected for subject agreement. The predicates that nən- appears with is PPs with a locative function, but bannəshows up with all predicates i,e. NPs, PPs, and As. In their HAVE interpretation both nən- and bannə are inflected for object agreement. The complement to the present tense copula -n is a noun phrase, prepositional phrase, or adjectival phrase. In negation, the verbs anxən- „not become‟, jǝnnə „there is no‟ and annəbbər „didn‟t exist‟ are used as copula although they are not “true” copulas. Although questions in Muher follow the same structure as declarative clauses, they are constructed using rising intonation and/or with -we. Based on the semantic, morphosyntactic and pragmatic functions, the affirmative present tense copular clauses are equative, predicational, specificational, identificational, locative, possessive, and presentational. Muher encodes topic prosodically, lexically, morphologically and syntactically. In Muher, the word order of the direct and indirect objects is relatively free. However, Topic is established in the clause-initial position where a non-subject argument or constituent is fronted via syntactic topicalization. If an NP is mentioned as a subject, it is always the topic sentence initially; salient topics are not overt NPs but only marked by person markers on the verb. Topic-comment sentences are pragmatically and prosodically unmarked for their information structure since the clause-initial constituent is the topic of the clause. Besides, Muher employs various strategies to mark topic. For instance, contrastive topic can be marked morphologically by the morpheme -mma which is commonly an emphatic topic change. Although the functionality of -ʃ in Muher is much wider, it is also used to mark contrastive topic. Syntactically, topic is marked through basic word order change, topicalization (fronting), passivization, cleft constructions, and left and right dislocations. The constituent that becomes a topic through clefting and dislocations are also the element that receives focus. In Muher, focus is prosodically marked by intonation, and lexically by looking at answers for Wh-question words. Morphologically, focus can be marked by using the morpheme -m that subsumes completive, additive, expanding, replacing, parallel, restricting, and selective focus types. Although the basic word order of Muher is SOV, focus can be marked syntactically via basic word order change or scrambling, and by clefting. Focus domain, in Muher, can be the subject of the clause (argument focus), the subject and the predicate (sentence focus), or only the predicate (predicate focus).
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    Development of Morphological Analyzer for Amharic Compound Words
    (Addis Ababa University, 2013-01) Yobannes Abebe ; Baye Yimam
    The purpose of this study is to develop morphological analyzer for Amharic compound words. A number of researchers attempted to develop morphological analyzer for Amharic si nce 2000 (Abiyot, 2000; Tesfaye, 2002; Saba and Gibbon, 2005; Gasser, 20 II) and their analyzers provide a very good performance. However, as far as the researcher has noted, nothing is reported on their findings and results about analysis of compound words. For this reason, the researcher <. decided to develop morphological analyzer for Amharic compound words using rule-based approach on the basis of two-level morphology. A morphological analyzer is a computer program that takes a word or string of charcters as input and delivers an analysis as output. Amharic, in addition to simple words, uses compound words such as Me UO'}7 ... :f ayyar-mangadocc 'a irli nes', uo"h uo"l']9" malk-a-malkam ' beautiful', ,,)f7~~ laj -a-garad ' vi rgi n', etc. The developed anlyzer can recognize and deliver the given compound word with its word class, each constituents of the compound word with their POS and grammatical functions of the attached suffi xes. The study covers all compound categories in Amharic (i .e. compound nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs) with their grammatical and syntacti cal information. The grammatical features included in this work are number, gender, person, case, and defi niteness. In identifying and analyzing compound nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, the system performs well and the sample used to the development and test set can be considered as representative of Amharic compounds. However regarding compound verbs, it covered only the main verbs, verb to 'say' and to 'do', and some of their variations, not all. In this study, algorithms that can identify and analyze Amharic compound words are developed from scratch. The performance of the system is evaluated using the training and test sets. The system accuracy on the test set is 98.67% and its precision and recall are 100% and 98.5%, respectively.
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    A Discourse Analysis of Jaarsummaa, a Traditional Method of Dispute Resolution by Community Elders: Arsi Oromo in Focus
    (Addis Ababa University, 2013-06) Alemu Disassa ; Baye Yimam
    A Discourse Analysis of Jaarsummaaa, a Traditional Method of Dispute Resolution by Community Elders: Arsi Oromo in Focus Alemu Disassa Mulleta Addis Ababa University, 2013 This dissertation reports the result of a critical analysis of the discourse jaarsummaa among Arsi Oromo of Ethiopia. Although it has been used for centuries as a major resource in resolving conflicts among Oromo people, little attempt has been made to uncover the interactional features of jaarsummaa. Previous studies were mainly descriptive and outcome oriented. They did not address the issue of social power relationship in jaarsummaa discourse. Hence, this study adopts a discourse analytic approach to explicate the complexities and subtleties involved jaarsummaa discourse focusing on its genre structure, persuasive discourse strategies of the elders, social/gender power relationship, and major approaches of mediation employed by the elders. To this end, twelve actual jaarsummaa sessions were audio-recorded from three districts of West Arsi Zone, and data on the broader socio-cultural background of jaarsummaa were collected through observation, field notes, and interviews. A socio-cultural approach to discourse analysis has been utilized to analyze both textual and contextual aspects of jaarsummaa. The analyses reveals that jaarsummaa among Arsi Oromo has a rather stable macrostructures with distinct communication patterns and purposes. It has four major phases and several moves and steps, the sequential occurrence of which is regulated by uumee/seera ambaa ‘traditional norms and laws’ of the society. The analyses also indicates that the elders use a number of persuasive discourse strategies that help them make emotional appeal to disputants’ through positive presentation of self and the jaarsummaa program. To legitimize their persuasion, the elders often appeal to societal norms, religious discourse, and the government discourse. Iv The findings also show that husbands have absolute power over their wives and such male power dominance has been legitimized and sustain by the mainstream discourses of the target society. Further, it was found out that the elders seem to have total power over disputants. In addition to their rhetorical power, the elders employ their moral power, social power, informational power, and positional power given to them by courts. In spousal dispute mediations, the elders aggressively persuaded the wives to accept the final decisions by using various discourse strategies such as naturalizing the conflict and the subsequent reconciliation of the couples, ignoring and mitigating major concerns of the wives, and making promises to stop the husbands from further abuses. Other economic and socio-cultural factors also coerced the wives to accept the decision. The analysis also shows that the elders start with problem solving approach and move on to therapeutic approach of mediation. Based on the above findings, recommendations such as having female mediators as representatives, educating and economically empowering women, giving awareness raising trainings for the elders on issues of gender rights and equalities, have been suggested as part of an attempt to refine the jaarsummaa practice. Finally, replication of same studies with large corpus, analysis of discourse of Gadaa court, comparative studies of court referred and normally held jaarsummaa cases and cases from urban and rural areas were suggested as potential focuses of further research in the area.
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    Discourse Analysis of wəddi mən, Oral Game of Honeymoon in the Eastern Tigrai
    (Addis Ababa University, 2020-08) Hagos Gebre-Egziabher ; Baye Yimam
    In the rural areas of the Eastern Tigrai, when people visit the honeymooners, they often prefer to play an oral game called wəddi mən, which means 'whose son is...', and functionally, 'whose bridegroom/ bride is..., fiancé/ fiancée is...', as an entertainment and socio-linguistic event. This paper investigates on the Discourses that are used in wəddi mən. The main objective of this research is to thematically describe the Discourses of wəddi mən and their functions. wəddi mən is an event that has currently been replaced by some modern entertaining games such as play cards and modern music. Because this socio-linguistic practice is still oral, it has seriously been endangered. Therefore, it needs to be researched and transformed into written status. Thus, this work may be playing its role in documenting this oral language use for the first time. Conceptually, this research considered Osisanwo's (2005) Discourse features cited in Osoba & Sobola (2014: 203). These features are: conversation, Discourse participants, opening and closing of Discourse, holding floor, turn-taking, overlapping, speech errors, repair mechanism, role sharing, elicitation in talk, and adjacency pairs. Halliday's theory of systematic functional linguistics (SFL), an approach and theory that views languages as a social phenomenon which is more concerned with the functions and meanings than with the structural aspects of languages, is theoretically framed to this research. This research is designed based on the descriptive approach of qualitative research design. The data for this research are gathered from the remote rural areas of purposely selected six Weredas of the Eastern Tigrai. The main tools for gathering the data for this research have mainly been ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews. This study found out different sociolinguistic and cultural practices reflected by the Discourses used in wəddi mən. It has thematized the Discourses based on their functions and meanings. The participants portray the issues of power assignment, power hierarchy, power exercise and power transfer in their interactional communications using the Discourses. This research also found out the Discourses of naming and addressing in wəddi mən in reflection to the cultures of naming and addressing of their community. It has iii also analyzed how the participants use the Discourses that show how people make and fix appointments with other interlocutors thereby reflecting the culture of division of labor among the masculine and feminine genders in their society. Moreover, this study has found out some Discourses that reflect the attitude and the feeling of the bridegroom and the bride towards each other. Besides, it has come up with findings of taboo Discourses that are used by the participants as taboo as they are for entertainment and life skill training in their interaction. Furthermore, this research has also analyzed gendered Discourses; for example, Discourse of sex preference at first birth in their interaction as a reflection of the culture of the society. The other concept which this research has come up with is the Discourses of politeness during the interactional communications of the participants. In their communications, the participants address each other using honorific terms not to belittle their interlocutors. Finally, the participants conclude the game using the Discourses of blessing as illustrated in the Discourses in 4.17. In the game of wəddi mən, it is the bride who blesses the end of the game.
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    Documentation & Description of Amharic Dialects
    (Addis Ababa University, 2018-08) Mengistu Tadesse ; Baye Yimam
    This study attempts to describe and document phonological, morphological and lexical variation of Amharic regional dialects spoken in rural parts of Gojjam, Wollo, Gonder and North Shewa. These research areas were selected by purposive sampling. The preselected criterion for participant selection in this study is the criteria known by the acronyms ―NORMFS‖ (Non- mobile Older Rural Males and Females). The researcher has taken cues from generative and structural linguistic theories under the description methodology and procedure. Elicitation and audio-video recording were used as major data collection instruments to make good documentation and description of Amharic dialects. In phonetic inventory of Amharic dialects, seventy six possible consonant segments including three implosives [], [], [ɗ] and one velar fricative [ɣ] have been identified. Lenition and fortition, palatalization of non-palatal phones, geminating ungeminated segments, vowel harmony and metathesis that involve reordering of sounds within different Amharic dialect areas also have been attested. Regarding morphology, the numbers and verbal clauses can take the plural marker [-oʧʧ] instead of taking definite marker /-u-t/ and few nouns can be pluralized through partial and total reduplication features in the Gojjam dialect. In addition, there are many words which are unique to different Amharic dialect areas, and some of the lexical items that the current researcher has obtained from Gonder and Wollo dialects can be used as a resource for the enrichments of Amharic. It is observed that without any geographical barrier or distance, there would be great phonological, morphological and lexical variations. The case of Debark and Dembiya of Gonder is an example for such incident. On the other hand, areas like Amanuel, Denbecha and Feresbet areas of Gojjam, Debark and its neighboring areas of Gondar and some areas of south Wollo, despite the geographical barriers and inaccessible distance, mostly speak similar varieties. Therefore, the classification of Amharic dialects is not as such simple without marking and drawing dialect continuum and isoglosses of phonological, morphological and lexical varieties. This is a task which awaits further research.
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    Documentation and Description of Code Switching in Oromiffa and Harari Language
    (Addis Ababa University, 2015-05) Nadia Ali ; Baye Yimam
    In a multi lingual community like Ethiopia, people often switch from one language to another in their daily conversations and code-switching often reflects the social or cultural identities of the speakers. The switch to a particular language in the bilingual dialogue can also be employed as an effective medium to indication ethnic identity. The aim of this paper is concerned to document and to give description of code-switching in Oromo and Harari speech community. This study has deployed the sociolinguistic approach, as Gumperz, (1982) states which raise the question why it is practiced and the driving force towards code switching at the very beginning. Focus group discussion and Semi structured interview was also used as the main instruments of the research data collection. Digital tape recorders were also the instruments used for audio data collection. Iv Since Dire Dawa is one of the cities of Ethiopia, a place where from different nations and nationalities living in it, which makes it a multilingual city, code switching is a widespread phenomenon among speakers of different indigenous languages. As a result, it is very common to hear the alternation of codes, especially from Oromo to Harari language. In this paper, some of the major sociolinguistic issues in Oromo-Harari code-switching are raised and discussed
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    Female Disempowerment: Some Expressions in Amharic
    (Addis Ababa University, 2012-11) Aschalew Bililigne ; Baye Yimam
    By examining various language expressions about women one can see to some extent how women are perceived in a certain culture. This thesis is conducted in order to examine Amharic proverbs and literal expressions that refer to females. Although there are expressions that empower women, they are not the concern of this study. The data are collected through participant observation and introspection since the researcher is a native speaker of the language. Besides, different books have also been consulted as secondary sources of data. Since the Amhara society is patriarchal the expressions are analyzed based on the “dominance” theory which assumes that social norms are established dominantly by men and because of this the social and political systems see and treat women as not equal to men. The expressions which are analyzed under various themes illustrate that women are inferior, talkative, ill-natured, dependent, etc. In some contexts, women themselves accept the superiority of men. They are marginalized and systematically forced to be powerless. As a result, they have little political, social, economic, etc. participation in the society. Key words: gender, sex, dominance, gender-ideology, patriarchy, disempowerment, socialization, gender-segregation
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    Functional Categories in Afaan Oromo a Minimalist Approach
    (Addis Ababa University, 2006-07) Gemeda Hunde ; Baye Yimam
    This thesis is on the func tional categories of Afaan Oromo based on Chomsky's recent theory ( 1993) to ( 1995b). the Minimalist Programme and its subsequent de\elopments . In the thesis an attempt is made to identify different functi onal categories in Afaan Oromo and sho'" their structures in simple clause structures. The thesis cons ists of four chapters. Chapter one deals ,,'ith a brief introduction to the language and the people. Statement of the problem. objecti"es of the study, the methodology used and the significance of the study are also included in this chapter. The effo rts made so far to study the language and the a,ailable records of lingui stic information on the language ha"e been discussed. The theoretical frame,,'ork employed for the study is introduced. The o,en'iew of the )\!inimali st Programme and the difference bet"'een the GO\'ernment-Binding (GB) and :vlinimali st Programme (MP) Models are presented. CllJpter t"'o is about the functional categori es of Afaan Oromo, The major functional categorie s such as Pronouns. Determiners. Tense . . -\greemenl. :\egation. FocLis and Modal . .!..u:\iliaries ha\e been ident ified and the ir reali zations are discussed. Chapter th ree deals " 'ith case, The morphologically realized cases in the language are identiti ed, The differen t case markers and case forms are presented , The case markers are sutti:\es such as -ni for nominati"e case, I-f for datie. -nl for instrumental and 1-01 for accus3 ti" e case . In this language. the case markers may appear on both the noun and the adjecti,'e Which modities them. Structural case is also discussed, Finally. in chapter four the summary and conclusion are gien.
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    A Grammar of Haro with Comparative Notes on the Ometo Linguistic Group
    (Addis Ababa University, 2004-02) Hirut Woldemariam ; Baye Yimam
    The aim of this study is two-folded. The first one is providing a thorough description of the Haro language, while the second one is offering some comparative and historical notes on the Ometo linguistic group, which Haro belongs to. The two aspects complement each other. The data for the comparative analysis is derived from the description of Haro. Presenting the Haro data within a comparative framework, on the other hand, discloses more facts about the Haro language and the relationship it has with the others. Although it particularly emphasizes on the morphological domain, the description, however, also covers the phonological and syntactic structures of the language. Haro is an interesting language from typological and historical perspectives. For instance, the Haro language shows an intricate system of focus marking that affects the morpho-syntactic properties and categorization of a verb. The language has a three-way number-marking system that distinguishes among the singular, paucal and plural number values. The numeral system of Haro is not attested to anywhere else in the Ometo linguistic group. An elaborated system of mood and modality is also observed in Haro. The second part of the study, dealing with comparative and historical notes on certain morphological aspects of the Ometo languages, adds to our understanding of the Ometo linguistic group. It shows how certain grammatical aspects in the Ometo languages operate. It also reconstructs the archaic systems for the Proto-Ometo language. Issues addressed in the second part include the system of terminal vowels of nominals, the system of number marking of nouns and the system of definite marking vii of nouns. In addition, the pronoun systems across the Ometo languages are investigated, in which the short and long pronoun paradigms in the Ometo languages are particularly explored, properties of the two sets of pronouns are characterized, the relationship between the two sets is described and an etymological interpretation that relates the third person singular pronouns with the remote demonstrative is offered. Furthermore, an investigation into the numeral system of the Ometo languages is made. A historical quinary numeral system is reconstructed and etymological interpretations are provided for the quinary base as well as some of the basic numerals. The quinary base, which stands for the value of ‘five’, is etymologically related to the quantifier expression ‘many’. From the comparative notes, the relationship among the different sub-branches and different members of Ometo is disclosed. Haro, together with a few other members, appears to be conservative, preserving two gender-sensitive archaic definite markers, which have been lost totally or partially from most of the other members of Ometo.
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    An Investigation of the Ancient Manuscript of Ratu~A HaYmanot as a Source of Historical, Religious and Cultural Events
    (Addis Ababa Universiy, 2007-03) Haddis Tikuneh ; Baye Yimam
    This thesis concerns the study of the ancient manuscript, " R:}(ufa Haymanot." The reason why this manuscript is selected is that it consists of immense collections of annual homilies attributed to Ratu\'a Haymanot (the writer), Aksumite Bishops, and foreign Archbishops and to an unknown writer. The other reason that led to this study is the fact that the manuscript of Retuahaymanot has not been critically studied as there is no published work or thesis on it. The focus of the study is on both forms and contents of the MSRHT the manuscript ofTana Qirqos (MSRHT) and theillanuscript ofHayq Estifiinos (MSRI-IH). The researcher formulated a hypothesis that the manuscript of Ratufa Haymanot could be a very rich source of historical, religious and cultural events. The method used for the study is a comparative method where the two manuscripts were compared for their similarities and differences between them. Regarding similarities, the entire homilies of both manuscripts deal with similar concepts and show punctuations, numbers and graphic marks. Concerning their differences, each manuscript has independent characteristics. The manuscript of Tana Qirqos is different from modem Geez texts and its accusative and genitive structures are ambiguous. The MSRHH, on the other hand, preserves the ancient forms of Geez orthography and caihgraphy. Regarding the s ite o{ quotations, bOlL m3l~•~scr .. pts use the same style. The quotation mark of the MSRI-IH is a star (*) while that in the MSRHT is an inverted coma (l). The placement of the punctuations of the MSRHH is found inside the columns and at the left margins. Numbers differ from recent Geez writings since they show no bars on top and bottom of numbers while modem writings use bars. There are sound changes in nouns and adjectives in both MSRHT and MSRHH. The content 311alys is deals with historical, religious and cultural events. The historical events cover the history of famous persons such as Meropius, Ella Amida, Ezana, Abba Salama, Constantine the Great, Queen Helena, Mark the evangelist, St.Mary and Abraham. In the religious study, the Biblical words, phrases sentences, and paragraphs are studied with metaphorical and literal explanations. Many express ions that refer to VIII theo logical questions have been given logical explanations. For example, the question, "Why was Christ crowned with thorn?" is explained in terms of the fact that the thorn symbo lizes the cursing of the earth and that the earth becomes new and its fruit blessed. The other explanation refers to why Christ was born in a manger. The writer of MSRH says that Chri st was born in the wilderness in order to teach us never to seek honor and high statu s, never to worship idols, but to know God. The explanation for the question why Chri st washed the feet of His disciples is explained according to the MSRH, with refercnce to the power of the disc iples to go and preach the Gospel without fatigue. Ethiorian cultural features are reflected in several parts of the homily which re late to weekly and annual holidays. The celebrations are classified into God's and Saint's hol idays To cclebrate God 's holiday is a supernatural law that eyery human being should observe, and the ceremonial feasts of the Saints are considered as implements of moral virtu e. The study shows that the manuscript ofR:>tu!'ii Haymanot is a great source of historic a i, relig ious and cultural values.
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    Language Use in Aksum Linguistic Landscape
    (Addis Ababa University, 2013-06) Teklay Guesh ; Baye Yimam
    The purpose of the study is to examine the language use in Aksum linguistic landscape. In order to meet this purpose the required data are collected through photographing, observation, semi-structured interviews held with business owners and customers. The result of the study has been analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to determine the order of languages, prominence of languages, translation, transliteration, mixing of languages, characteristics of multilingual signs and language choice in the government and private signs. According to the findings, Amharic and Tigrigna are the most prominent languages in the linguistic landscape. The distribution of these languages differs across government and private agencies in the language choice and categories on signs. In the government signs Tigrigna is more visible. This might be due to the language policy practices of the government agencies. Amharic is dominant in private signs. This is due to the objective of business owners to attract customers who come from different parts of Ethiopia. The findings also show that English is visible in the public space due to status as an international language and the fact that Aksum is a tourist destination. The study reveals that Tigrigna signs show structural variations in the position of heads in phrases. There is also code-mixing in translation of texts in signs. There are word for word translations and transliterations of texts in signs.
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    A Linguistic Analysis of Amharic Proverbs of Advice
    (Addis Ababa University, 2014-12) Yidnekachew Geremew ; Baye Yimam
    The research had the objective of describing Amharic proverbs of advice from the linguistic point of view. The description included syntactic patterns, stylistic features, and pragmatics of the proverbs. A descriptive method was used for the study of the structure of the proverbs. The proverbs were selected and garnered from written sources, namely Mekuriya (1982) ‘Proverbs’, and Birhanu (1995) ‘Amharic proverb collections’. Based on the research objectives, the findings of the analysis of the proverbs are summarized as follows. In terms of syntactic patterns, the study shows that most Amharic proverbs of advice are complex-declarative clauses. Most of the phonetic and stylistic features have been observed. Of these alliteration, rhyme, assonance, ellipsis, parallelism and reduplication are the widely used features that made Amharic proverbs of advice poetic, memorable, and powerful conveyer of message. Furthermore, the study showed that the proverbs are used for advice in relevant contexts, situations, audience and topic that inform and/or advise. Finally, as a concluding remarks, the researcher recommends that other studies be done on the linguistic aspects of other speech acts.
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    The Morphology of Endegan
    (Addis Ababa University, 2003-06) Eyassu Nega ; Baye Yimam
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    Morphology of Eža
    (Addis Ababa University, 2002-05) Fekede Menuta ; Baye Yimam
    Eža is one of the least studied ‘Gurage Languages’ of the Ethio-Semitic family. This study aims to provide descriptive account of its morphology. Thus, the inflection and derivation of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and numerals are considered. Some compound nouns and adjectives are also identified. It is shown that nouns are inflected for number, gender, definite article, and different types of cases. Affixes deriving nominals such as abstract, gerundive, result, group identity, agent and instrument are identified. Forms of pronouns and their inflections are discussed. Subject and object agreement pronominal affixes are shown. Verbs are grouped based on their radical and stem patterns. It is found that the verbs are inflected for person, gender, number, aspect, tense, and mood. Affixes and stem patterns that derive verbs including passive, reflexive, causative, frequentative, reciprocal, reciprocal causative, frequentative passive, frequentative of the reciprocal, and causative of the frequentative reciprocal are shown. Types of adverbs and their derivations are discussed. It is claimed that some time adverb deriving affixes show past and future time. Adjectives are grouped into seven semantic fields and four ways of deriving them is shown. It is found that adjectives are not inflected for number and person but can be inflected for definite article. Numerals that have simple lexical representation are found to be only twelve. The other numerals of the language are derived from the simple numeral sets. Finally, summary of the main findings of the study
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    Nominal Functional Categories in Tigrinya
    (Addis Ababa University, 2003-06) Esayas Tajebe ; Baye Yimam
    Key Words: Nominal Syntactic features: Determiners, Definite, Agreement, and other related Nominal Functional Categories; their Syntactic Projections inside DPs. The study is devoted to nominal functional categories in Tigrinya within the theory of the minimalist program. It centers on identifying the status and syntactic projections of the constituents in the internal structure of noun phrases in Tigrinya, and tries to give a unified account which links the following properties of Tigriny nominal phrases. Most determiner phrases of Tigrinya have two synonymous forms. These forms can be determined by an overt or covert features of the functional heads checked by head noun. Definiteness which is marked by a deictic or Agrs morpheme and not by a lexical article, acts like a syntactic feature on a par with the -feature, whereas indefiniteness in is not marked at all. Certain determiners with overt -features are strong and occur in different syntactic positions in the extended functional projection. Possessive forms are derived from an overt genitive case assigner or from head spec agreement in Tigrinya. Under the framework of Chomsky’s, (1995) Minimalist Program, and Kayne, (1994) Linear Constraint Axiom (LCA) a unifying account is given by assuming three functional head projections. The functional heads have independent projections where different features are checked and licensed. Thus, Do of DP for the definiteness feature of the head noun is licensed, Ko of KP is a position for the dummy genitive case assigner, and Agro is the position where feature of the head or of the possessor is checked. Finally, the proposed structure of Tigrinya nominal functional categories that includes lexical and functional projections