Browsing by Author "Hirut Woldemariam"

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    Documentation and Grammatical Description of Kole
    (Addis Ababa University, 2016-04) Samuel Gonderie ; Hirut Woldemariam
    The present study deals with Kole language and its purpose is two-fold. The first one is providing a detailed description of the Kole language, while the second one is documenting the language. The documentation is used as the base for the grammatical description ofKole. Kole is an endangered Omotic language spoken in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State in southern Ethiopia. The methods used to collect the data include group discussion, elicitation, audio and video recordings. The study tried to document different genres of traditional folks and to make the grammatical description of Kole by focusing on the language's own features. Kole has twenty seven phonemes and five vowels with their long counterparts. Consonant gemination and vowel lengthening are phonemic in the language. The syllable structure of Kole can be captured by the following general formula: C1V (V) (CO-2), where CO-2 shows the range of coda. In addition to this, Kole is a tone-accent language in which high tone occurs only once persimple word. Kole is an interesting language from morphological perspectives. The overwhelming majority of simple nouns in Kole language are disyllabic. Monosyllabic nouns are not attested. Most polysyllabic nouns that are nouns with three or more syllables are attested to be polymorphemic as well. All nominals (nouns, adjectives and numerals) show terminal (root-final) vowels in their citation form. Besides, the Kole language shows an intricate system of focus marking that affects the morpho-syntactic properties and categorization of a verb. Following the focus marker, other grammatical inflections like person, ~ense, aspect and mood are suffixed to a verb. The language distinguishes between the singular and plural number values. While verbs involve one ofthe mood markers, pronouns and demonstratives necessarily take case suffixes in order to occur as phonological words. Pronouns and demonstratives can also occur as proclitics to other words. An elaborated system of mood and modality is also observed in Kole language.Regarding syntax, the most frequent word order in Kole language is SOY. The word order is not quite rigid. As has been observed from wide variety of SO V languages, Subject-Object inversion and other phenomena frequently lead to the separation of verb from the object noun phrase, which leads inevitably to the question of wheth~r a verb phrase exists in Kole language or whether it is a non-configurational language with the rule S~ NP V. A postpositional phrase in this language is a phrase that contains a postpositional element preceded by a noun phrase or another postpositional phrase complement. Unlike other phrases, the head postposition cannot stand alone as a postpositional phrase; it rather needs an obligatory complement. In Kole, four formallstructurall categories or sentence types are distinguished: these are declarative, interrogative, imperative and optative sentence types. In the description of complex sentence types such as relative clause, complement clauses, adverbial clauses, quotaive clauses, converb, switch reference and co-ordinations are identified with their illustrative examples. The second part of the study deals with the documentation of Ko Ie language. Audio and video data of the language have been documented. The documentation includes tales, legend, interviews and language game. Annotation, transcription, gloss and translation have been done on ELAN software .
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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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    Language Documentation Based Lexical Study of the Earlier Dawuro Kingdom
    (Addis Ababa University, 2016-01) Dawit Bekele ; Hirut Woldemariam
    This thesis, which is part of the project of Dawuro language documentation, investigates the changes that lexical items of the earlier Dawuro kingdom have undergone. The study collects, describes and classifies the lexical items into different semantic categories such as honorific, political and traditional. The lexical items are further categorized into different sub-categories. Analysis is given to the lexical items from the perspective of their origins, forms, occurrences as well as functions. Factors that have been responsible for the changes in the lexical items are also discussed. As the study reveals, its different linguistic and non-linguistic factors are responsible for the changes in the lexical items. Phonological and morphological changes that are responsible for changes in the lexical items have been examined in this study. The non-linguistic factors include the various socio-political and economic changes in the society. It is noted that following the end of the political system of the earlier Dawuro kingdom, several lexical items became outdated. Following attitudinal shifts of the society also many others became out of use. Various others also became replaced by other representations. In addition, there are others, which shifted their meanings as well as declined their uses. Many lexical items have undergone in their semantic reference. As the study identified, they have undergone extension of meaning or narrowing of meaning or even complete semantic shift. Based on the findings; thus, suggestions are given regarding appropriate measures which should be taken to preserve the lexical heritages in Dawuro
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    State of Language Maintenance and Language Shift among the Saho Speakers: the Case of Irob
    (Addis Ababa Universiy, 2011-03) Yared Arefaine ; Hirut Woldemariam
    This study investigates the state of stability in Saho- Tigrinya bilingualism among the Saho speaking group in Ethiopia - lrob. It has been conducted among members of the community in Oowhan - administrative center of the homeland for the lrob community. It examines various aspects of bilingualism of the target community. These include language use pattern, language attitude, and proficiency. In addition, the study describes various group and individual factors that would possibly influence intergenerational continuity of Saho in the context of the homeland (Irob Wereda) .The investigation is based on sociolinguistic data that has been obtained mainly from primary sources. To a lesser extent, it also employs pieces of information produced from secondary sources. Questionnaire is the main data gathering instrument the study uses. Yet, in supplementing and/or complementing the questionnaire data, interview, vocabulary test, and document analysis, as well as observation are made use of. The results of this study in general disclose that Saho-Tigrinya bilingualism does not seem a stable one; they rather suggest that Saho's intergenerational continuity is proceeding negatively among the lrob community. The study identifies various symptoms for a possible shift from Saho to Tigrinya. These comprise presence of functional reduction and/or restriction of the ancestral tongue in various domains; Tigrinya 's spread or intrusion in public and private life of the native community is found to be remarkable; there is language behavior variation between younger and older generations; there is a sign for higher level of language loss among youngsters etc. The study also presents various large-scale factors (historical, social, economic, socio- psychological, cultural etc.) and attempts to demonstrate how such factors could have contributed to the current unsafe state of Saho in Oowhan and/or how they would possibly affect its long-term survival in the Irob district. The thesis is organized in four chapters. The first chapter tackles with a brief description of background of the study. It includes a short introduction of the research topic, the speech community and its language, scope of the study, research methodology and the like. The second chapter presents review of literature and related works. The third chapter analyses the data for the study. In the fourth chapter, the overall discussion is first summarized and then major findings and conclusion of the study are forwarded. The chapter concludes by providing possible recommendations on the measures that ought to be taken to improve the ongoing language shift situation of Saho
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    Word Formation in Yam
    (Addis Ababa University, 1993-06) Hirut Woldemariam ; 8aye Yimam
    Complex words are f ormed by applying different word fo rmation rules to simple or derived forms. This study aims a t presenting possible ways of word formations in Yam . It also tries to describe the structures and nature of the derived forms. In- this connect ion, affixation compound ing and reduplication have been dealt with as major proce s ses of word formation . Nominals, verba ls and adjectivals are formed by attaching different affixes to different roots or stems . Compounding is another type of word formation, in which two words are combined to fo r m a new one. Moreover, more complex compounds, that is, com poun~s with three components are also possible in the language . Reduplication of words can also r esu lt in d er iv i ng new words . Reduplication of verb roots, for instance, r esults in intensive and frequentative forms. Changing tone patterns of existing words is also a possible word formation process, though not as productive as the others..',~ : Der ived words behave differently from their Of> base forms phonologically , morphologically , ~ syntactically and semantically.