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Gumuz Verb Morphology a Thesis Presented to The ; .. GUMUZ VERB MORPHOLOGY A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN LINGUISTICS BY ASTER ZEWDIE August 1991 ACKNO WL EDGMENTS \vould like to expr ess f.1Y hcal' tfelt appl" cciat ion and gratitude to my advisor D r. Klaus Wedekind who has bee n of invaluable assistan ce in writing t his pape t' , I would also like to e xtend Ill y wan :1Ps t thanks t o D I". Enlest C; utt , who r ead this thesis and mad e valuable comlllent.s. M y special thanks go to D l', Alel7layehu !laile. MI', Peter Unscth and A to Abebe G e bl'etsa d ik wh o ha ve s upporte d I:le wit h the r::l a l el'ials I needed. Special thanks gu t o the Ethiopiall languages l\cadc!ily for g iving l~lC the chance t o join the g l'(H..ludtc: pr ogl'dl1l l~l e , and also fo r the financial support it h ilS l~l,uJ,' to do this n'~l'dl·ch . Thanks to all [l'iends and colleagu es, \i,'hosc c·onst.l'llctivC' itll'i.tS <lnd mOl'al support made a 5uiJstanliai contl"ibution to this stud y. Finally 1 convey r:ly gr atitude to Wi t Yewoinh<Lr cge Legesse and G uene t Worede whose p at ience 1 apprec ia t ed in typing the paper. .-' ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSIT Y SC HOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES GUMUZ VERB MOHPIIOLOGY BY ASTER ZEWDIE APPROVED BY: ADVlSOR EXAMINER EXAMINER E XAMIN EH ABSTRACT This pa pe r presents the analysis of Gumuz verb morphology. The paper consists of four par ts. The first part pr esent s a brief description of the language , the people, t he review o f the liter a ture along with the objective a nd m e thod of the study. The second part deals with the phonology of Gumuz, in which 39 consona nt and 5 vowel phone mes are identified. The syllable structure , the clusters , t he suprasegmetal phoneme , t one , are discussed. The morphophonological processes that the a ffixe s und er go are also pre se nted. The third part of the pa per is concere nd with the verb inflections of t he categories person, number, tense , aspect, mood and polarity. In this section several pr efixes and suffixes are identified and described. It was found out that all forms of verbs are r egular, e xcept the ve rb to be. The fourth part summarizes what has been discussed in the preceding sections. TABLE OF CONTE NTS ACKNOWLEGEMENTS ABSTRACT 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES DEFINITIONS OF DIACRITIC MARKS AND SYMBOLS 1. INTRODUCTION 1-5 1.1. The Language a nd the People 1. 2. The Literat ure 1.3. The P r esent study 2. A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF GUMUZ PHONOLOGY 6-16 2.1. Consonant Phonemes 2.2. The Vo wel Phonemes 2.3 . The Syllable Structure 2.... The Consonant Clusters 2.5. Suprasegmentals 2. 5. 1. t one 2.b . Mo rphophonological Processes 3. VERB IN F LECTIONS 17- 32 3.1. Person 3.2. Numbe~ 3.3. Tense 3.3. 1. Past Tense 3.3.2. Future Tense 3,,1 . Aspect 3,,1 . 1. Imper fective Aspect 3 ... 2. Perfective Aspect 3. 5. Mood 3. 5.1. Impera tive 3.5.2. Jussive 3.5.3. Indicative 3. 5 A . In t erroga tive 4. CONCLUSION 33-34 BIBLIOGRAPHY 35-37 LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES CHARTI .............................. ................................................. 6 CHART II 7 TABLE I 20 TABLE II 21 TABLE III 22 TABLE IV 23 T ABLE V 25 ';ABLE VI 26 • 'L-'. BLE VII 27 DEFINITIONS OF DIAC RITIC MIIHKS liND S UMBOL S 1. C glot tal i zeu consonil n l Z. 11 uvular fl"icocltiv C' 3. / high tone , -4 . lo w t one 5. I phonological environment 6. a position in the envil'onmcnt 7. becomes or rewri t ten as -- - - ) 8. -r morphe m e boundar y 9 . t· wonl bo undar y 10. Imp. impe ra tive 1 1. Plu,.. plural n. Prest present 13. Fut. future 14. 5th. something 13. Ii t. lite ,- all,. 16. ll1orpholog iC~ll featUl"C matl"ix 17. l zer o mor pheme IS . I1ELJ . rctlupl i C~ l t ion 19 . vI. voiceless ZO o vJ. voiced Zl. ej e c t. ejective 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. The Language and the People Gumuz is one of the Ethiopian koman languages, under the Nilo­ Saharan phylum, spoken in the Western part of Ethiopia, that is in some parts of Wellega, Gojjam and Gondar along the Sudan border. Gumuz has local dialects of which Saysay, Kokit, Disoha and Jammoa are some, spoken by various c lans. The area of the Gumuz people extends from near Metemma on the Sudan Border, southward through Begemidir and Gojjam and across the Blue Nile into the Didessa valley as far as the Lekemt Gimbi road. (Bender, 197 5:62). The Gumuz people migrated from Gojjam into Wellega, for different reasons they were taken as tenants and slaves, and then started to leave Gojjam because of high t axes and conflict with Amharas, Arabs, Agaw, BUOl'O (Shinasha) and Zala (Bender, 1981 :81). The Gumuz people are known as Gumis, Ganza, meaning "eldersll. The name IIGumuz" seems t o be unknown to the Didessa valley clans, instead they are known as Baga meaning "people" and the language baga t se lit meaning (people-ear). On the other hand the most common name used by outsiders is S'ang illa, meaning "very black", a term used for any dark coloured skin. 1.2. The Literature Most of the materials written on Gumuz focus on the Gumuz people and their culture. There are very fe w pUblications written on the language. The materials on the people, culture and language are the following: Tucker A.N. and Bryan M. A., point out the areas where the Gumuz language is spoken, in "The Non-Bantu Languages of North. Eastern ,Af rica" (w ith a supplenent on the Non-Bantu languages of Southern Africa), written in 1956. - 2 - The second book written in the same year by Ernesta Cerulli, "Peoples of South-West Ethiopia and its borderland", focuses on the origin of Gumuz , their history, tradition, economy and political system. James Wendy in his book Kwanimpa "The making of the Uduk. An ethnographic study of survival in the Sudan Ethiopian Borderlands", when mentioning the comt:1on marriage system among the Koman people, t alks about the number of Gumuz people , their location and the cultura l similarity between Gumuz and Uduk, Komo and Shita. He points out the way marriages are arranged and that these marriage arrangements are m ajor political matters, both as a cause of hostilities and a means of peace making. Bender in "The Non-Semitic languages of Ethiopia", under the title tt The literature on kornan characteristics" says that the consideration of Gumuz as one of the Koman languages is questionable . And comparisons of personal pronouns among Komo, Shit a, Buldit, Uduk, Kwama, and Gumuz are presented. Based on t hese comparisons he says that Gumuz is either very deviant or not a member of the above mentioned languages a t all. The same author in "The Eastern edge of the Sahel Ethiopian NiloSahelians", mentions the division of Ethiopian peoples historical and c ultural classi fica t ion. James Wendy in UNotes on the Gumuz, their culture, history and survival", mentions that West ern Shanqilla includes the Gumuz people, and describes t he kinds of weapons they used to resist the Abyssinian incursions and to attack the Agaws. He talks about the Gumuz speaking people who claimed to have a r elationship with Funj nobility of Sennar, and the ancient connection between the Gumuz and the Nile valley. He also mentions the people, the language and its dialects, the areas spoken in, the complex nature and difficulty of the language for a for e igner. l1 Irwin Lee in rrSome Saysay sentence P atterns , g iv es lists of pronouns, paradigms of verbs classified into t ypes, in the present, past and future tense forms. Conjugations of jussive, imperative and negative forms of some verbs are presented. - 3 - M.L. Bender in "Peoples and Cultures of the Ethio-Sudan Borderlands", identifies the list of names by which the Gumuz people call themselves, and the names given to them by others. He mentions the number of Gumuz people living in Wellega and other places. He lists the number of clans, the way these clans are divided into subgroups and the d ifferent names of these sub clans. He also mentions the way these people migrated from Wellega , and the reasons for their migr ation from Gojjam. The type of marriage system these people entertain, their r eligion, the crops they plant, the domestic animals found and their staple diet are also described. "The Ethiopian Nilo-Saharans", another book by M.L. Bender, mentions the areas where the Gumuz language is spoken, the total number of speakers and clans, and the legend about the dispersal of these clans. The different names of the Gumuz people are identified. The author points out that very little has been done on this language, and gives list of words of one of the dialects of Gumuz, known as Saysay. nGumuz :a sketch of grammar and lexicon" by the above author is the first material in which some works on the Phonology, Morphology, Synt ax and Semantics of the Gumuz la nguage are shown.
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