Browsing by Author "Yigezu, Moges (Phd)"

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    Assessment Of Selected Phonological Issues In The Speech Of Down's Syndrome Individuals
    (AAU, 2006) Kebede, Amanuel; Yigezu, Moges (Phd)
    Regardless of the language, a ll children can acquire essentia l components of their respective language by about the age of three or four. However, not a ll children can do this. Particularly, among the menta lly challenged people, Down's syndrome individuals cannot achieve this level. This is, however, d ue to some physiological, n eurological as well as psychosocial problems. Amharic mother-tongue Down's syndrome individuals, similar to many other Down's syndrome individuals speaking other la n guages, are known for their language problems. Although there are important individual differences, it seems possible to specify some language defects holding true for these specific types of people. These kinds of individuals are highly identified with poor a rticulation as well as stuttering. It is obvious that good production of speech depends upon the speech organs being the appropria te size and working effectively. Nevertheless, in addition to some problems in n erve coordination, Amha ric s peaking Down's syndrome individuals do not seem to have 'normal' ora l cavity that would result in normal speech. Hence, due to some physiological anomalies in the oral cavity, they commit a number of phonological errors. Pa rticularly, they have great difficulties in articulating some palatal and ej ective sounds.
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    A Brief History of Writing Systems Used for Afan Oromo and the Evaluation of its Current Orthography
    (AAU, 2008-09) Imana, Temesgen; Yigezu, Moges (Phd)
    The purpose of th is study was to assess the historical development of writing for Afan Oromo and to conduct the evaluation of the current orthography. The study focuses on how the Latin based orthography eventually came to be chosen and on the evaluation of the current orthography. To this effect, the descriptive survey method was employed. Sample schools were selected from three Oromia zones: West Shoa, South West Shoa and North Shoa. The subjects of the study were 60 fourth grade students and 30 primary school teachers. Simple random sampling technique was employed to select the woredas and schools. And systematic sampling was used to select the subjects of the study. Questionnaire, interview, observation and document analysis were used to obtain the necessary data. The gathered data were analyzed by employing percentage, mean and narration. The Afan Oromo Orthography, Qubee, was officially implemented 16 years ago to reduce the vernacular language for the first time as a popular literacy. The Latin based alphabet, Qubee, has been a point of controversy in view of the socio-political importance of the Ethiopic script in Ethiopia. In fa ct, Qubee was developed as a form of resistance against the hostile language policy prevailing in the country under past regimes except Derg to some extent. As a result, the design and implementation of the 0/1hography has been full of a rash and emotionality rather than the objective analysis and evaluation of the 0/1hography to work fur its imp rovement. Th erefore, Qubee has critical drawbacks in its design and implementation. In its design, it has challenges such as elongated word length because of doubling monographs to in dicate gemination and vowel length. It has also a drawback that it lacks a fixed convention of alphabetic order. Regarding its implementation, in addition to the lack of rep etition and emphasis, some contents such as print concepts and handwriting are absent from the literacy implementation. In addition, important preconditions such as trained man power, well prepared textbooks and teaching aids are not yet fulfilled. Accordingly, possible solutions are made to the respective challenges pertinent to the orthography such as the indication of gemination could be possible by using capital letters, on-the-job tra ining had better be provided for teachers, textbooks should be revised in this respect and tea ching aids preparation had better take place in schools of Oromia Regional State. VI
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    The Syllable Structure And Syllable Based Morphophonemic Processes In Dorze: Representations Based On Moraic Phonology
    (AAU, 2010-06) Birku, Abel; Yigezu, Moges (Phd)
    The objective of this study was to describe and di scuss the sy llable structure and sy llable based morphophonemic processes in Dorze. The language under study, Dorze, is an Omotic language spoken in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region. The methodology used is an informant method where data were recorded and elicited from informants. It has been identified that Dorze has 26 consonant and 5 vowel phonemes. Vowels IiI and I~I are variants of I ii and leI respectively. As discu ssed in chapter two, there are also cases of consonant gemination and vowel lengthening in which both are contrastive. Regarding the syllable types, there are 8 kinds of sy llable shapes identified for Dorze: V, ev, eve, evve, evee, evvee, ve and evv. Furthermore, both heavy and light syllable shapes are also found. The theoretical framework employed to analyze the syllable structure was the Moraic account of Autosegmental phonology. The Moraic theory claims that the only intervening element between the syllable node and the segmental root node is the mora. The cuncept of heavy and light syllable is also another assumption that is used to best explain segmental length distinctions. It also claims that there is a case of compensatory lengthening involving deletion of a segment and lengthening of another so as to compensate for the deleted segment. Syllable and sy llable related Issues were also treated. More specifically, basic constituents of the syllable, types of the syllable, phonotactic constraints and syllabificat ion processes in light of the Moraic theory were discussed. Following Clements and Keyser (1983), Dorze is identified as type IV language where a vowel alone can const itute a sy llable. Furthermore, the phonotactics of Dorze was also discussed where onset is an optional element and is filled by only one segment while a maximum of two consonants are allowed at syllable final position.