Language Change in Tigrinya: A Historical Study Based on Early Tigrinya Texts
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Date
2010-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Thi s study exa mi nes some hi stori cal linguistic fcaturcs o r ca rly Ti grinya
(Ethiosemitic). Thc aim of this investigation is to analyze and describe sounds.
words and phra se~; of the old forms of the language gathered from ea rly
dictionaries, grammar books and manuscripts, mainly from two late nin etecnthcentury
works by J)abtara Fdssaha-Giyorg is, Tarix ityop 'ya " I·:thiopian hi sto ry"
and a travel diary e ntitled T'oblahta " impression " , and to comparc thcm to the
present-day language.
Given its scope and objectives, this thesis contains four chapters. The first chapter
introduces the stud/, including the background of the research , statement of the
problem, objective of the study, significance of the research, scope of the study,
methodologJ; emplc·yed for the researc h, and rev icw of related literaturc. Chaptcr
two contains a gene ,'al di scussion of semantic change and grammaticalization.
Chapter three prese nts the ma in part of the research, the .data and data analysis:
language change and grammalicali zati on in Ti grinya. As examplcs o fthc find ings I
can mention, in e,)n trast to the claims of some Ethiosemiti sts likc [ktaon.
Ullendorff and others, that the occurrence of palatal sounds in modern Tigrinya
words has increased markedly compared to the Tigrinya of Dabtara F ;)ss~ih aGiyorgis.
Al so spira ntized letters appear occas ionally (but only occasionally) in the
texts: they are expli': itly written in the nouns box '''ismot [gloss?]. box 'oj'aj' Igloss
and '0 'onox'H'i 'jeWo~ l s' ; apparently, the change k > x is attested in on ly oneexample: 'axd::a ·summe r '. In verb forms whe re spira nti zati on would be ex pected
in the modern lang uage, no spiranti zat ion is written in the tex ts.
The fin al chapter presents a summary and conc Igloss
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Linguistics