Table Of ContentDawro verb morphology and syntax
A description
Sigurd Hanserud
MA Thesis in Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies
November 2018
Dawro verb morphology and syntax
A description
Sigurd Hanserud
MA Thesis in Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies
November 2018
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© Sigurd Hanserud
2018
Dawro verb morphology and syntax – A description
Sigurd Hanserud
http://www.duo.uio.no/
Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo
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Abstract
This Master’s thesis is a descriptive study of verb morphology and syntax in Dawro, an
Omotic language spoken in Ethiopia. The data material was gathered during two fieldtrips to
Ethiopia where I spent most of my time in the city of Hawassa interviewing native speakers of
Dawro. An additional source of data was a translation of the New Testament into Dawro. I
describe aspects of Dawro morphology in general and Dawro verb morphology and syntax in
particular. The main contributions of the thesis are descriptions of previously undescribed
morphology and the behaviour of verbs in dependent sentences and in clause-chains.
Throughout the thesis, I am in critical engagement with the few previous works there are on
the language, and I provide some novel remarks on the segmentation of finite verbs. The
description is not exhaustive, but it does expand on the collected linguistic knowledge of
Dawro. Underexplained features of the language still remain, and previously undescribed
features of the language emerge.
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Acknowledgements
Few projects see the light of day without help, especially not projects about describing
languages previously unknown to oneself. First, a great thanks to Professor Emeritus Rolf
Theil for help and pointers in the early stages of this project and for referring me to Binyam
Sisay Mendisu, to whom I am deeply grateful for help with all things Ethiopia, good
conversation, and telling me about Dawro. I thank the Bible Society of Ethiopia, represented
by Dr. Haileyesus Engdashet and Getnet Fikre in Addis Ababa, and Ato Alemneh Shigute of
the Hawassa branch for practical help, blessings and contacts in Hawassa. At Addis Ababa
University I thank Derib Ado and Moges Yegizu for help and for access to Dawro-related
material at AAU. Thanks to the team of the UiO-AAU project “Linguistic capacity building in
Ethiopia” for letting me listen in on the workshop at AAU in October 2017 and for letting me
join you to dinner. A particular thanks to Kristin Hagen for help with ELAN. In Hawassa, I
thank Alex Menta, for enthusiastically driving me around on his bike, putting me in contact
with a wide range of wonderful people and speakers of Dawro, as well as enjoyable lunches
and dinners. I also would like to thank the Dawro Zone Educational Department for
interesting conversation and providing me with the tri-lingual dictionary and learning
materials for Dawro native language instruction. And of course, to the two groups of people
without which there would really be nothing: First, thanks to all the Dawro people who spent
their time with me telling me about Dawro, answering my questions about Dawro, translating
into Dawro and correcting my attempts at speaking Dawro. Galatay, S’ossi immo! Thank you
for translating from Amharic the sermons heard at church on Sundays, and the Sunday
lunches afterwards. Second, thanks to those two who set the deadlines, corrected my written
language, pointed the way, and told me when I was not making sense: my advisors Patrick
Georg Grosz and Åshild Næss.
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List of abbreviations and conventions
1 first person EQ equative
2 second person F feminine
3 third person FOC focus
ABL ablative FOR for (benefactive/oblique)
ABS absolutive FUT future
ACC accusative IMP imperative
ANT anterior IND indicative
BUT but INDIR indirect
CAUS causative INF infinitival
COM comitative INS instrumental
COMP complementizer INT interrogative
COMPLETE complete INTENS intensive
COND conditional IO indirect object
CONJ conjunction JUSS jussive
CV characteristic vowel LOC locative
CVB converb NEG negative
DAT dative NIV New International Version
DEF definite NMLZ nominalizer
DIR directional NOM nominative
DS different subject NT New Testament
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M masculine VOC vocative
O object
PART participle
PASS passive
PAST past
PER perlative
PL plural
PRES present
PROG progressive
POL polite
POSS possessive
Q question
RA right after
RECIP reciprocative
S subject
SAY say
SS same subject
SG singular
SIM simultaneous
SUBJ subjunctive
UNR unreal
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Contents
List of abbreviations and conventions ..................................................................................... VII
1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 The language and the people ....................................................................................... 1
1.1.1 Dialects ................................................................................................................. 4
1.1.2 Orthography ......................................................................................................... 6
1.2 Previous literature ........................................................................................................ 7
1.3 Methods and my fieldwork .......................................................................................... 9
1.4 Contributions and outline .......................................................................................... 13
2 Sketch Grammar ............................................................................................................... 14
2.1 Phonology .................................................................................................................. 14
2.1.1 Pitch .................................................................................................................... 15
2.2 Grammar .................................................................................................................... 16
2.2.1 Nouns and nominalizations ................................................................................ 16
2.2.2 Case .................................................................................................................... 21
2.2.3 Possession ........................................................................................................... 31
2.3 Relational nouns ........................................................................................................ 32
2.4 Pronouns .................................................................................................................... 33
2.5 Demonstratives .......................................................................................................... 35
2.6 Adjectives and (manner) adverbs .............................................................................. 36
2.7 Other suffixes ............................................................................................................ 38
3 Verb morphology .............................................................................................................. 44
3.1 Roots and stems ......................................................................................................... 44
3.1.1 Stem forming passive, reciprocative, causative and intensive suffixes ............ 45
3.2 Imperative and jussive ............................................................................................... 48
3.3 Tense/aspect and person-inflected verbs ................................................................... 53
3.3.1 The present/habitual positive ............................................................................. 54
3.3.2 The past positive ................................................................................................. 57
3.3.3 The present negative ........................................................................................... 59
3.3.4 The past negative ................................................................................................ 60
3.3.5 The progressive .................................................................................................. 61
3.3.6 The future ........................................................................................................... 63
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3.4 Decomposition of the main verbs .............................................................................. 70
3.4.1 Recurring features and non-recurring features ................................................... 72
3.4.2 Characteristic Vowels ......................................................................................... 75
3.5 Converbs .................................................................................................................... 77
3.5.1 Same subject converb ......................................................................................... 78
3.5.2 Different subject converb ................................................................................... 79
3.5.3 Short converb ..................................................................................................... 82
3.5.4 Negative converb ................................................................................................ 83
3.5.5 “Right-After” converb ........................................................................................ 83
3.6 Complementizers ....................................................................................................... 84
3.6.1 Alebachew on complementizers and two other complementizers ..................... 85
3.6.2 Infinitival complementizer -(a)w ....................................................................... 86
3.6.3 Subject complementizer -we .............................................................................. 87
3.6.4 Object complementizer -wa ............................................................................... 88
3.6.5 Indirect object complementizer -wu ................................................................... 89
3.6.6 Indirect command or advice -da ......................................................................... 91
3.6.7 Question complement –entto .............................................................................. 91
3.6.8 The =ga/=gi clitic .............................................................................................. 92
3.7 Conditional morphology ............................................................................................ 96
4 Syntax ............................................................................................................................. 102
4.1 Main clauses ............................................................................................................ 103
4.2 Relative clauses ....................................................................................................... 105
4.3 Complement clauses ................................................................................................ 106
4.3.1 Complementizers that do not nominalize ......................................................... 107
4.3.2 Complementizers that do nominalize ............................................................... 110
4.4 Converb syntax ........................................................................................................ 113
4.4.1 Converb clauses and clause-chains .................................................................. 115
4.4.2 Converbs that appear together .......................................................................... 121
5 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 126
References .............................................................................................................................. 127
Appendix ................................................................................................................................ 133
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