Documentation and Grammatical Description of Gwama
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Date
2021-06
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AAU
Abstract
This dissertation was begun with the intention of describing the Grammar of Gwama and
presenting annotated multimedia documentation of riddles, tales, and cultural practices of the
ethnic group. To comprehensively describe the language and produce multimedia
documentation, corpus data were collected from Gwama speaking group using different data
collection methods. The data sources were communicative events such as elicitations,
observed communicative events, and staged communicative events. The data were results of
four stages of fieldwork activities. In the four-round fieldworks, consultants from different
villages of Mao-Komo Special Woreda took part in this study, and the main sites of data
collection were Tongo, Zebsher, and Asosa.
The linguistic description of the language is presented in this dissertation in six chapters
excluding the introductory one, which gives an overview of the Gwama ethnic group and
their language. The issues covered in six chapters are phonology, noun morphology,
pronouns, verb morphology, modifiers, and syntax. The phonology chapter presents
consonant and vowel phonemes of the language, syllable structure, tone, phonological
processes, and morphophonological processes. Gwama has 22 consonant phonemes, and the
glottal stop /ʔ/ has a marginal status. These phonemes consist of six stops (/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/,
and /ɡ/), four ejectives (/p’/, /t’/, /k’/, and /s’/) four fricatives (/f/, /s/, /z/, and /ʃ/), four nasals
(/m/, /n/, /ɲ/, and /ŋ/), two liquids (/l/ and /r/), and two glides (/w/ and /j/). All these
consonants appear in all environments except the fricatives /z/ and /h/, the nasal /ŋ/, and the
glide /w/. The alveolar fricative /z/, the glottal fricative /h/, and the glide /w/ are not attested
word finally, whereas the velar nasal /ŋ/ is not recorded word initially. The language allows a
sequence of two consonants word medially and finally. Dominantly occurring consonant
cluster (C1C2) is formed from a sonorant and an obstruent. In a bunch of lexemes having
consonant sequence, a phoneme that appears first (C1) is nasal, and in limited instances such
a phoneme is lateral. A consonant that dominantly appears next (C2) can be a stop, a fricative,
or a nasal phoneme. There are five phonemic vowels along with equal number of long
counterparts in the language. The schwa /ə/ and the front open-mid vowel /ɛ/ seem to have
phonetic status. In fact, the schwa is mainly attested in connected speeches. Gwama has both
open and closed syllable structures. In this regard, the syllable template of the language can
be (C)V(V)(C)(C). The language is tonal, and three contrastive level tones (High (H), Mid
(M), and Low (L)) are identified. Long vowels seem to have a rising (LH) and a falling (HL)
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tones, which requires further investigation. Tone in Gwama has lexical and grammatical role.
Phonological processes such as labialization, assimilation, and vowel nasalization undergo
word internally. The morphophonemic processes such as vowel deletion and reduplication are
common in Gwama.
The noun morphology of the language covers inflectional and derivational issues. The
Gwama nouns are not morphologically marked for gender. Gender is identified through either
with gender identifying definite markers –te/-e for masculine and –to/-o for feminine or
suffixing gender-identifying lexemes kikjata „female‟ and kikeːzi „male‟. Prepositios serve as
analytic case markers. The language is not rich in its derivational morphology. A relatively
productive way of noun formation is compounding. Similar to other Koman languages,
Gwama has subject and object personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, reflexive pronouns,
demonstrative pronouns, and interrogative pronouns. Subject and Object pronouns are
identical. Verb morphology of the language includes issues like inflection and derivation,
aspect/tense, and copula constructions. The language has different forms of modifiers, such
as adjectives, adpositions, and numerals. The constituent order of phrases and clauses
indicate that Gwama follows SVO structure, though sometimes SOV word order appears
during conversations. Finally, it seems important to suggest that those who took the initiative
in developing orthography and preparing teaching materials may consider this document as
data source
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Grammar of Gwama