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Causative of the ‘Passive’ in Amharic Bezza Tesfaw Ayalew University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1. Introduction Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. Like other Semitic languages, Root-and- Pattern is an important derivational device of the verbal system of the language. Root-and-Pattern morphology provides the templates for the combination of the root consonants with the theme vowels to derive basic stems, which may be actual or potential verbs. Affixation applies to the outputs of the Patterns to derive verbs with functions such as passive and causative. In general passive verbs are derived by attaching the prefix ‘t-’. Causative verbs are derived variably by applying ‘a-’, ‘as-’, or ‘at-’. The description of ‘a-’ is relatively simple; it applies to basic non-agentive stems to derive simple causative/agentive or transitive verbs. The description of ‘as-’ is more complicated. First, the distribution of ‘as-’ is not limited in terms of agenitivity of the base; it is known to apply on agentive and non-agentive stems. Second, the causative meaning of a derived ‘as-stem’ is deduced to be a realization of the causative of one or more of the stems within a system of derived stems, whereas the affix applies only on the basic stem. The example below illustrates the system of derived stems of a verb, based on the most common stem Pattern (labeled ‘basic stem’), to elaborate the traditional description of the function of ‘as-’. 1) Basic stem Gloss t-stem a-stem as-stem as-stem interpretation a) gddl ‘kill’ t-gddl ------- as-gddl- (i) causative of the transitive (ii) causative of the passive b) wt’t’a ‘go out’ ------- a-wt’t’a as-wt’t’a indirect causative c) flla ‘boil (intr.)’ t-flla a-fella as-fella (i) indirect causative (ii) causative of the passive ‘as-’ is commonly described as causative of the transitive, where the basic stem is agentive or transitive 1a); as indirect causative, where the basic stem is non-agentive or intransitive 1b) and 1c); and as causative of the passive, where there is a passive stem in the system of derived stems 1a) and 1c). The causative of the transitive interpretation of ‘as-stem’ causatives is rather marginal in its acceptability. The so-called indirect causative and causative of the passive interpretations are essentially the same – in both situations there is an invisible (passive) doer between the causer and the undergoer. The unified function can be called indirect causation. Now, the problem is explaining how a single affix ‘as’ operates differently on agentive and non-agentive bases to bring about the same effect of indirect causation. The other affix ‘at-’, which never surfaces as such in the language, was analyzed by Leslau (1943) as a causative affix on historical grounds1. However, Demoz (1964) and Berhane (1992) described it as a composite of ‘a-’ and the ‘t-’ of a reflexive/reciprocal stem assimilating to the initial radical of the stem. Reflexive/reciprocal stems being derived by the same passive affix ‘t-’, the causative affix 1 Leslau (1943) analyzes causatives such as aggaddl ‘cause the killing each other of’ as ‘at-gaddl’ recognizing a causative affix ‘at-’ similar to the one found at surface level in other South Ethio-Semitic languages such as Gurage and Harari. © 2011 Bezza Tesfaw Ayalew. Selected Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. Eyamba G. Bokamba et al., 53-64. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 54 remains to be ‘a-’. This analysis leads toward a morphologically grounded explanation of indirectness of causation in ‘as-stem’ causatives thereby leading to a unified account of causativization in Amharic. Despite the strong intuition that ‘as-stem’ causatives are causatives of the passive, there is a long held view that there is no formal evidence for a passive base for the causativization: [Causative of the passive] is perhaps the most frequent and the most characteristic meaning of the as-stem. This is the meaning that comes most readily to mind when one thinks of the as-stem. Of course there is no overt formal evidence to show us that the stem is derived from a passive rather than the basic stem. (Demoz, 1964: 38) In this paper I argue that there is formal evidence to show that the so-called ‘as-stem’ causatives can be re-analyzed as ‘a-stem’ causatives of ‘passive’ bases. For this purpose, passivization and causativization of the outputs for all the derivational Patterns of Amharic verbs will be examined. In order to provide a background of verb derivation in Amharic, the two important devices of word formation, namely, Root-and-Pattern morphology and affixation, will be briefly discussed in section 2. Basic and derived stems will be analyzed in terms of their Argument Structure (a-structure) to determine whether a derived causative can be passivized and the other way around (section 4). Derived causative stems with causative of the passive or indirect causative interpretation are examined for possible intermediate passive morphology in their formation. A critical review of the previous studies is presented in section 3. Section 5 concludes the paper. 2. The Derivational Paradigm of Amharic Verbs Like all the Semitic languages, the prototypical root of Amharic contains three radicals. Those with a greater or fewer number of radicals are explained by historical changes of root extension and reduction (for the discussion on the tendency of root extension and reduction see Yimam (1999)). Four basic templates can be recognized as derivational patterns (see Bender & Hailu (1978) and Podolsky (1982) for the verbal patterns). Traditionally the radicals of the templates in their order of occurrence are schematically represented with numerals. In Table 1, for simplicity of demonstration, only tri- radical roots and the productive valency-changing affixes are represented. Also for economy of space, derivational Pattern-IV (-123223-) is omitted. In fact, this Pattern is the less productive of all the Patterns and it only takes ‘a-’ or ‘t-’, not ‘as-’ or ‘at-’. A root can rarely derive actual stems in all of the Patterns without affixation. In comparison with Patterns I or III there are fewer actual stems derived from Pattern-II before affixation. In some cases Pattern-II could be an alternate form of Pattern-III. The meaning associated with the derivational Patterns cannot be neatly analyzed. However, in relative terms, Patterns I and II complement each other in realizing a simple meaning of the root, whereas Patterns III and IV seem to multiply, intensify, or extend the action or effect of the simple stem in various ways. For example, nt’t’l- means ‘separate or single out something (once)’, nt’at’t’l- means ‘separate many things from each other’, and a-nt’lt’t’l- means ‘separate something intensely (= pick out) / hang’. ‘a-’ and ‘t-’ can apply to the outputs of any of the Patterns to derive, respectively, causative and passive/reflexive stems, unless restricted for semantic incompatibility with a particular base. ‘as-’ is generally restricted to outputs of Pattern-I with a few exceptions2. ‘at-’ is found only with verbs formed by Patterns II and III. 2 If a verb has a derived stem in Pattern-II, then it will not have one in Pattern-I, and the Patten II stem will be the simple form of the verb and may take ‘as-’. 55 Pattern-I Gloss Pattern-II Gloss Pattern-III Gloss Affix -1223- -1a223- -12a223- *drrg- ---------- darrg- ‘apply’ *drarrg- ‘a-’ a-drrg- ‘do’ *a-darrg- a-drarrg- ‘doI’ ‘as-’ as-drrg- ‘cause X3 be done’; ---------- ---------- ‘cause Y do X’ ‘at-’ ---------- ad-darrg- ‘cause doR’ ad-drarrg- ‘cause doR’ ‘t-’ t-drrg- ‘be done’ t-darrg- ‘be applied; doR’ t-drarrg- ‘doR’ nt’t’l- ‘single out’ *nat’t’l- nt’at’t’l- ‘separateI’ ‘a-’ *a-nt’t’l- ---------- *a-nat’t’l- *a-nt’at’t’l- ‘as-’ as-nt’t’l- ‘cause X be singled’;---------- ---------- ‘cause Y single X’ ‘at-’ ---------- ---------- an-nat’t’l- ‘cause separateR’ an-nt’at’t’l- ‘cause separateR’ ‘t-’ t-nt’t’l- ‘be singled’ t-nat’t’l- ‘be separatedR’ t-nt’at’t’l- ‘separateR’ gddl- ‘kill’ *gaddl- gdaddl- ‘killI’ ‘a’ *a-gddl- ---------- *a-gaddl-4 *a-gdaddl- ‘as-’ as-gddl- ‘cause X be killed’; ---------- ---------- ‘cause Y kill X’ ‘at-’ ---------- ---------- ag-gaddl- ‘cause killR’ ag-gdaddl- ‘cause killR’ ‘t-’ t-gddl- ‘be killed’ t-gaddl- ‘killR’ t-gdaddl- ‘killR’ fllg- ‘search; seek’ *fallg- flallg- ‘seekI’ ‘a-’ *a-fllg- ---------- *a-fallg- *a-flallg- ‘as-’ as-fllg- ‘cause X be sought’; ---------- ---------- ‘cause Y seek X’ ‘at-’ ---------- ---------- af-fallg- ‘cause seekR’ af-flallg- ‘cause seekR’ ‘t-’ t-fllg- ‘be sought *t-fallg- t-flallg- ‘seekR’ Table 1: The Derivational Paradigm of Amharic Verbs 3. Previous Studies Every scholar who wrote on Amharic verb derivation agrees that ‘a-’ and ‘as-’ introduce some kind of causality to the derived stem. The descriptions and comparisons of these affixes focused mainly on the transitive property of their base, and on the directness of causation with respect to the ultimate event expressed in the derived verb. Various scholars (Dawkins,1960; Demoz, 1964; Leslau, 1967, 1995; Appleyard, 1972; Bender & Hailu, 1978 among others), characterized ‘a-’ relatively consistently along those criteria, that it derives simple transitive and direct causative stems out of intransitive and non-causative bases. This function of ‘a-’ has been explained in terms of a change in the argument structure of the base, i.e., adding an agent (Berhane, 1992) or a causer (Amberber, 1996). The other affix ‘as-’ is described as deriving causative of the transitive (Appleyard, 1972; Leslau, 1967 and 1995), double causative (Appleyard, 1972; Bender & Hailu, 1978), indirect causative (Dawkins, 1960), and causative of the passive (Demoz, 1964 and Leslau’s 1967, 1995).

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