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Qààmîsték Ʋúúrsìté /qààmîsték ʋúúrsìté/ The Sound Pattern of Aari Marie Iversdatter Røsok MA Thesis in Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies University of Oslo Autumn 2016 I II /qààmîsték ʋúúrsìté/ The Sound Pattern of Aari Marie Iversdatter Røsok MA Thesis in Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies University of Oslo 10.11.16 III © Marie Iversdatter Røsok 2016 /qààmîsték ʋúúrsìté/ The Sound Pattern of Aari Marie Iversdatter Røsok http://www.duo.uio.no/ Printing: Reprosentralen, University of Oslo IV Foreword The title of this thesis /qààmîsték ʋúúrsìté/ means I hear with my ears in the Aari language. In this thesis, I present a description of the phonology of Aari. The title is appropriate for two reasons. Firstly, the meaning of the sentence pertains to the act of listening, an important aspect when studying the phonology of a language, and something I got great exercise in while working on this thesis. Secondly, the sentence features in the discussion of tone in this thesis, and is an interesting piece of data in that respect. V VI Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisors Professor Rolf Theil and Associate Professor Åshild Næss for all their guidance throughout the process of writing my thesis. Thank you for guidance on matters of everything from phonology, African linguistics and descriptive work to academic writing, support and motivation. I also thank Anders Vaa for his supervision during the first semester of this thesis, and for his help with everything related to going into the field for the first time. Thank you to Dr Binyam Sisay Mendisu, Associate Professor of Linguistics at the Addis Ababa University, for his help in organising my trips to Ethiopia, and for putting me in contact with Melkeneh Seid and Commander Mohammed. I am very grateful to Commander Mohammed for working with me as the native speaker of Aari from whom I collected my data. I greatly appreciate his collaboration and close work with me in the time I spent in Addis Ababa, and his willingness to teach me about the Aari language. Thank you, also, to Melkeneh Seid for all his help during my stays in Addis Ababa. I greatly value his help with things related to this thesis, like providing me with literature and data on Aari phonology and lending me his office to work in. But also for showing me the city of Addis Ababa, and introducing me to Ethiopian food, culture and history. Thank you to Aida Leistad Thommassen for answering all my questions on Ethiopia, and fieldwork when commencing this work. Thank you to Iver Johansen for proofreading my thesis and answering my questions on academic writing. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and fellow master’s students at ILN André, Eline, Malene, Linn Iren, Teodor, Sara, Mina, Solveig and Solveig, Viktoria, Nina, and everyone else for making life at the study hall so enjoyable. Thank you for all our fun times and great conversations in the break room, and for sharing in this experience with me. VII VIII List of abbreviations 1 first person H high tone 2 second person L low tone 3 third person LOC locative ACC accusative M masculine adj adjective n noun adv adverb neg negator AP Autosegmental Phonology num numeral COM commitative OCP Obligatory Contour Principle CONT continuous PST past tense COP copula PL plural BLT Basic Linguistic Theory POSS possesive DEF definite prep preposition dem demonstrative pron pronoun det determiner REL relative F feminine SG singular IMP imperative TBU Tone Bearing Unit INFV infinitive TV Terminal Vowel INTR interrogative v verb IPA International Phonetic Alphabet IPFV imperfective IX List of Figures Figure 1.1 Map of Omotic Languages and Dialects in Southwest Ethiopia………………….....10 Figure 1.2 Classification of Aari…………………………………………………………….......12 Figure 5.1 AP representation of tone association on unmarked nouns………………………….98 Figure 5.2 AP representation of /dùùtíst/my foot……………………………………………….98 Figure 5.3 AP representation of /bùqá.íst/my knee …………………………………………….99 Figure 5.4 AP representation of tone association on marked nouns…………………………….99 Figure 5.5 AP representation of /àfístěk/ with my mouth ………………………………………99 Figure 5.6 AP representation of /qààmîsték/ with my ears ……………………………………100 Figure 5.7 AP representation of /áfîsték/with my eyes ………………………………………...101 Figure 5.8 AP representation of /núkîsték/with my nose (expected result in 5.8a and actual result in 5.8b)……………………………………………………………………………...101 Figure 5.9 AP representation of /lòqmíndǎ/tasty ……………………………………………..107 Figure 5.10 AP representation of /ʃíʔíkàn/ to wash …………………………………………...109 Figure 5.11 AP representation of /ʦ'ááftá/ wrote (analysis 1) ………………………………...110 Figure 5.12 AP representation of expected finds of /ʦ'ááftá/ wrote and /áískàn/ to break ……… (analysis 2)………………………………………………………………………..110 Figure 5.13 AP representation of /ʦ'ááftá/ wrote (analysis 3) ………………………………...111 List of Tables Table 1.1 Consonant inventory of Aari according to Hayward (1990) …………………………23 Table 1.2 Consonant inventory of Aari according to Melkeneh (2013) ………………………..23 Table 2.1: Consonant inventory of Aari ………………………………………………………..29 Table 3.1 Vowel inventory of Aari ……………………………………………………………..64 Table 4.1 Consonant sequences in codas in Aari ……………………………………………… 80 Table 4.2 Consonant sequences of two consonants in Aari …………………………………….82 Table 5.1 Noun suffixation ……………………………………………………………………..97 1 List of Spectrograms Spectrogram 2.1 /sééqsè/ hurt ………………………………………………………………….40 Spectrogram 2.2 /ʔándʒ/ blessing ………………………………………………………………48 Spectrogram 2.3 /ʋùrá/ why are you not listening ……………………………………………...61 Spectrogram 2.4 /ʋúrrà/ cat …………………………………………………………………….61 Spectrogram 2.5 /dàkkí/ empty …………………………………………………………………62 Spectrogram 2.6 /ʧ'àmmá/ silence ……………………………………………………………...63 Spectrogram 3.1 /màtá/ head, hair ……………………………………………………………..73 Spectrogram 3.2 /mááná/ woman ………………………………………………………………73 Spectrogram 3.3 /bùqá/ knee …………………………………………………………………...73 Spectrogram 3.4 /dùùtí/ foot ……………………………………………………………………74 Spectrogram 5.1 /kóná áksì/ this dog …………………………………………………………..89 Spectrogram 5.2 /bùùdíst ɡóʋáɡòʋdé/my heart is beating ……………………………………..90 Spectrogram 5.3 /hámíɡèr/ in the field …………………………………………………………93 Spectrogram 5.4 /màtíst/ my head, my hair …………………………………………………..102 Spectrogram 5.5a) /ʔáánìst/ my hand………………………………………………………….103 Spectrogram 5.5b) /ʔáánì/ hand ……………………………………………………………..103 Spectrogram 5.6 /àʦîsték/ with my teeth ……………………………………………………...104 Spectrogram 5.7 /àɗmístěk/ with my tongue ………………………………………………….104 Spectrogram 5.8 /ɡààʒmíndǎ/ tall …………………………………………………………….105 Spectrogram 5.9 /lòqmíndǎ/ tasty …………………………………………………………….106 Spectrogram 5.10 /ìʦmíná lòqmíndǎ/ the food is tasty ……………………………………….113 Spectrogram 5.11 /lòqéná/ the water …………………………………………………………113 Spectrogram 5.12 /ààqéntòòfrí/ tree bark …………………………………………………….114 Spectrogram 5.13 /léémálèèmdít/ sleeping …………………………………………………...115 Spectrogram 5.14 /múúzólàqá ístèdòqdé/ I have one banana ………………………………..116 2 3 Table of Contents Foreword ...................................................................................................................................................... V Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................................... VII List of abbreviations ................................................................................................................................... IX List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................... 1 List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................ 1 List of Spectrograms ..................................................................................................................................... 2 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 9 1.1 Thesis statement ............................................................................................................................ 9 1.2 The Aari language and people .................................................................................................... 10 1.2.1 Classification ....................................................................................................................... 11 1.2.2 Variation ............................................................................................................................. 12 1.2.3 Written Language ................................................................................................................ 12 1.2.4 The Aari people ................................................................................................................... 13 1.3 Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 13 1.3.1 Linguistic fieldwork ............................................................................................................ 13 1.3.2 My fieldwork ...................................................................................................................... 15 1.3.2.1 Equipment and settings ................................................................................................... 17 1.4 Theory
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