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Dawro-Verb-Morphology-And-Syntax Dawro 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 II © Sigurd Hanserud 2018 Dawro verb morphology and syntax – A description Sigurd Hanserud http://www.duo.uio.no/ Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo III 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. IV V 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. VI 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 VII 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 VIII 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 IX 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 ......................................................................................................
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