Yimam, Baye (Professor)Ahmed, Abdu2019-02-052023-11-082019-02-052023-11-082010-09http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/16248This 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.endescribing conditional constructions in AmharicThesis