The Marked Nominative in Dhaashatee – The Language of the Burji in Southern Ethiopia Johanna Voith student number: s2192543 submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Research Master of Arts in Linguistics Supervisor: Prof. Dr. M. Mous Second reader: Dr. S. Petrollino Date of submission: 10th August 2020 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Maarten Mous who suggested that I could work on Dhaashatee when I said I would like to do fieldwork in Ethiopia – and would probably have been able to send me almost anywhere in Africa. I thank Ongaye Oda, professor at Dilla University and alumnus of Leiden University, for making it possible for me to come to Dilla, and for providing accommodation during my stay. I thank Yetebarek Hizekael, the director of the Institute of Indigenous Studies at Dilla University, who was always ready to make phone calls and write letters to help me find speakers of Dhaashatee – which turned out to be a little more complicated than expected. I thank those in charge at the College for Teacher Education in Dilla and the Burji Administration Office in Soyama for supporting my research and putting me into contact with the appropriate people. I thank Degu Sode, the director of the Dhaashatee Department of the College for Teacher Education in Dilla for sharing his knowledge and always being available for questions. I thank Mame Sisay, teacher at the same department, who took me to her home town Soyama for one week, which was the highlight of my stay in Ethiopia – not only in terms of data collection. I also thank her relatives for their hospitality. I thank my Dhaashatee speakers Mame Sisay, Solomon Siba, Samuel Marko and Ayelech Melese. Most of all I am indebted to Durio Guba and Abebe Argamo for their time and patience in answering all of my strange questions. I thank all the people I met in and around the university and the food and coffee houses of Dilla for their company, our conversations and for sharing their culture with me. Special thanks go to Alemu, Branu, Mesay, Musa, Tarekegn and Wendimagegn. I thank the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for funding my master's studies at Leiden University, including my research in Ethiopia, and Leiden University for providing the technical equipment for the fieldwork. Finally, I thank my boyfriend Arne for cooking delicious food while I was working on this thesis during the crazy corona times of 2020. Den Haag, August 2020 ii Abstract The Highland East Cushitic language Dhaashatee (often referred to as “Burji”) has two ways of marking the nominative on common nouns: (1) the “long nominative”, marked by the suffixes -ku (m) and -shi (f), and (2) the “short nominative”, marked by the suffix -i (m) or vowel shortening (f). In past publications, the usage of the two forms has been linked to definiteness. However, different authors do not agree as to which nominative is definite and which one is indefinite. The goal of the present study was to shed more light on the conditions that determine the choice of one or the other nominative in stories. For the bulk of the data, previous hypotheses have been confirmed according to which modified subjects are marked by the short nominative, while unmodified ones are marked by the long one. Yet, the choice of the nominative is not only based on syntactic principles, but also on discourse-related ones – i.e. whether a participant is newly introduced or re-appears. Thus, an unmodified subject may be marked by the short nominative if the referent has appeared in the story before, while a modified subject may be marked by the long nominative if it appears for the first time. What requires further research is the question under which conditions the discourse-related principle may override the syntactic one. iii Table of contents Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................ii Abstract......................................................................................................................................iii List of tables and figures...........................................................................................................vii 1. Introduction...........................................................................................................................1 2. Background............................................................................................................................2 2.1 History, culture and current situation of the Burji...........................................................2 2.2 Dhaashatee – the language of the Burji..........................................................................6 2.2.1 Terminology............................................................................................................6 2.2.2 Classification..........................................................................................................7 2.2.3 Dialects...................................................................................................................9 2.2.4 Language situation...............................................................................................10 2.2.5 Earlier work on Dhaashatee.................................................................................10 3. Grammar sketch...................................................................................................................12 3.1 Phonology.....................................................................................................................12 3.1.1 Consonant inventory............................................................................................12 3.1.2 Vowel inventory...................................................................................................14 3.1.3 Orthography.........................................................................................................14 3.1.4 Phonotactics and syllable structure.....................................................................15 3.1.5 Stress....................................................................................................................16 3.1.6 Phonological processes........................................................................................17 3.1.6.1 Assimilation..............................................................................................17 3.1.6.2 Palatalisation............................................................................................19 3.1.6.3 Vowel shortening and devoicing..............................................................21 3.1.6.4 Vowel epenthesis and consonant deletion..............................................21 3.1.6.5 Glide insertion..........................................................................................21 3.1.6.6 Vowel assimilation...................................................................................22 3.2 Morphology...................................................................................................................23 3.2.1 Nominal morphology...........................................................................................23 3.2.1.1 Gender.....................................................................................................24 3.2.1.2 Number....................................................................................................25 3.2.1.3 Case..........................................................................................................26 3.2.1.3.1 Dative........................................................................................28 3.2.1.3.2 Comitative and Instrumental....................................................28 3.2.1.3.3 Ablative.....................................................................................29 3.2.1.3.4 Locative.....................................................................................29 3.2.1.3.5 Vocative.....................................................................................31 3.2.1.3.6 Possessive.................................................................................31 iv 3.2.1.3.7 Proposed case system of Dhaashatee......................................33 3.2.2 Verbal morphology...............................................................................................34 3.2.2.1 Tense and aspect......................................................................................34 3.2.2.1.1 Simple verb forms.....................................................................36 3.2.2.1.1.1 Simple past.............................................................36 3.2.2.1.1.2 Imperfect................................................................37 3.2.2.1.1.3 Imperfect stative....................................................37 3.2.2.1.2 Compound verb forms..............................................................38 3.2.2.1.2.1 Present continuous................................................38 3.2.2.1.2.2 Non-past continuous..............................................39 3.2.2.1.2.3 Present perfect.......................................................40 3.2.2.1.2.4 Pluperfect...............................................................41 3.2.2.1.2.5 Pluperfect continuous............................................42 3.2.2.1.2.6 Past stative.............................................................43 3.2.2.1.2.7 Habitual-iterative...................................................44