1,216 research outputs found
Manner, quality, degree and quantity demonstratives in Kambaata
No full textInternational audienceThis presentation on Kambaata (Cushitic) follows the questionnaire on manner, quality, degree and quantity demonstratives in Ethiopian languages developped by Ronny Meyer and Yvonne Treis
The Attenuative Derivation in Kambaata
No full textPaper presented in the Workshop "Attenuated qualities in a cross-linguistic perspective", organised by Guillaume Segerer and Yvonne Treis, 30 August 2018International audienc
The Attenuative Derivation in Kambaata
No full textPaper presented in the Workshop "Attenuated qualities in a cross-linguistic perspective", organised by Guillaume Segerer and Yvonne Treis, 30 August 2018International audienc
The use of manner demonstratives in discourse: A contrastive study of Wan (Mande) and Kambaata (Cushitic)
No full textAccepted for publication in: Næss, Åshild, Anna Margetts & Yvonne Treis (eds.) (forthcoming). Demonstratives in Discourse. Berlin: Language Science Press.This chapter compares manner demonstratives in two unrelated African languages, Kambaata (Cushitic, Ethiopia) and Wan (Mande, Côte d'Ivoire). Both languages have specialized manner demonstratives yet differ strikingly in their typological profile and in the way the manner demonstratives behave syntactically. Through systematic comparison of data from both languages, similarities, which are likely due to common semantic mechanisms of meaning extension, and differences, which are likely due to structural differences between the languages, are identified. It is argued that, despite the shared core meanings, manner demonstratives belong to different syntactic classes in Kambaata and in Wan. The difference in syntactic category helps account for the striking dissimilarities in the range of attested extended uses
Kambaata-Amharic code-switching: Focus on the morphological integration of verbs
No full textInternational audienceIn this paper, we study the integration of established and adhoc Amharic loans into the morphology of Kambaata (Cushitic/Ethiopia). The work is based on an archived natural corpus of Kambaata conversations, recorded in 2023 in the Kambaata-speaking area in southwestern Ethiopia (Treis 2024-2025). Interestingly, the corpus is practically devoid of alternational code-switching, but shows a high degree of insertional code-switching (cf. Muysken 2007), by which Amharic lexemes are inserted into the frame constituted by the rules of Kambaata. In this context, it is especially interesting to see how Kambaata deals with the templatic morphology of Amharic verbs. As the data shows, Kambaata generally uses the Amharic perfective base (e.g. fäqqäd- ‘permit’) and interprets it as a root in its morphological system. This perfective-based root is then inflected for all persons, moods (indicative, imperative, jussive, apprehensive) and aspects (perfective, imperfective, perfect, progressive), e.g. faqqad-dáa’a (permit-3F.IPFV) ‘she permits’. If an Amharic perfective base ends in a vowel (e.g. Amh. qädda ‘fetch water’), either a glottal stop is added (Kamb. qadda’-) or the vowel is deleted (Kamb. qadd ) to adjust the base to the obligatorily consonant-final Kambaata verbal root form. We demonstrate furthermore how speakers borrow derived Amharic verbs (and treat them as roots) or apply Kambaata derivational morphology to an Amharic base. In the final part, we show that both simple and derived ideophones are borrowable. The Amharic support verbs alä and adärrägä are replaced by their Kambaata translational equivalents yú ‘say’ and a’ú ‘do’ (Meyer 2024, Treis 2024). ReferencesMuysken, Pieter. 2007. 12. Mixed codes. In Peter Auer & Li Wei (eds.), Handbook of multilingualism and multilingual communication, 315–340. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110198553.3.315.Meyer, Ronny 2024. Ideophones and verbal constructions with the verb ‘say’ in Amharic. In: Aimée Lahaussois, Julie Marsault & Yvonne Treis (eds.). Ideophones: Honing in on a descriptive and typological concept (Special issue of Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads) 4(1). 201-243. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2785-0943/16466 Treis, Yvonne. 2024. Ideophones in Kambaata (Cushitic): Grammar, meaning and use. In: Aimée Lahaussois, Julie Marsault & Yvonne Treis (eds.). Ideophones: Honing in on a descriptive and typological concept (Special issue of Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads) 4(1). 147–200. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2785-0943/16393.Treis, Yvonne 2024-2025. Documentation of Kambaata. Deposit of audio-recordings on https://cocoon.huma-num.fr
Introduction:demonstratives in Discourse
No full textOver the last decades, there has been extensive discussion in the typological literature of the functions and uses of demonstratives. It is well established thatdemonstratives are not restricted to referring to items in situational use based on concrete spatial parameters, but that discourse deictic, anaphoric/tracking, and recognitional uses are also common, if not universal, functions of demonstratives (see Himmelmann 1996; 1997; and Diessel 1999 for systematic overviews).Studies have shown that many parameters beyond location and configurationof referents and speech-act participants play a role in demonstrative choice. Inparticular, directing the addressee’s attention towards a target entity and priorknowledge of a referent either through the previous discourse or from the realworld have been identified as relevant (see e.g. Burenhult 2003; Dawuda 2009;Diessel 2006; Enfield 2003; Hanks 1990;1992; 2005; 2009; Küntay & Özyürek 2006; Özyürek 1998). The diachronic development from demonstratives to other types of markers with grammatical and discourse functions has also been extensively discussed (see again Himmelmann 1996; 1997; Diessel 1999). This volume investigates discourse functions of demonstratives, that is, the typeof functions demonstratives perform when they develop into discourse markers.1The notion of discourse marker is not very clearly defined, and the question thusarises which functions they comprise, how they can be described, and to what extent demonstratives and their functions match this description. In a broad-brushapproach, discourse markers can be described as morphemes which deliver ameta-commentary on the discourse and establish and negotiate intersubjectivity.That is to say, discourse markers perform functions like directing attention as ameans of establishing and maintaining joint attention, enabling the addressee totrack participants through the discourse, indicating which parts of the discoursethe speaker seeks to foreground and which are to be taken for granted, but alsoindicating the interlocutors’ epistemic stance towards or evaluation of a particular portion of discourse (Englebretson 2007). Discourse markers communicateinformation like hey, I’m starting something new here, or you know this already, or this is the important bit, and here is what I think about this. They aid interlocutors in managing and navigating the discourse and in positioning themselves with regards to what is being said
Au bord du silence: Chants traditionnels du pays baskeet
No full textRécit de mission de terrain« C’est par hasard que j’ai rencontré Kantso Kammo. Et j’ai connu son histoire plus tard. A l’époque, je ne savais pas. » La rencontre avec ce chef de clan, l’un des derniers gardiens des chants et des contes de sa communauté, est décisive pour Yvonne Treis. Linguiste et intéressée par le Baskeet, une langue omotique parlée en Ethiopie, la chercheuse comprend la richesse et la fragilité extrême de cette culture qu’elle vient à peine de découvrir. Parcourant la campagne, elle se consacre alors à recueillir des traditions langagières et musicales aujourd’hui au bord de disparaître
The social lives of lived and inscribed objects: a Lapita perspective
No full textAs James Cook and his men on the Resolution and Discovery sailed through Polynesia and the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America, they were treated to a number of welcome rituals and ceremonial performances. In this paper the author looks beyond the immediate face value of objects to a more rounded understanding of objects and their agency. The author suggests rethinking objects as social interventions and possible events rather than as portals to archaeological information. To do this I will develop a distinction drawn by feminist philosopher Elizabeth Grosz (1994) between lived and inscribed bodies and employ this distinction as a conceptual tool for thinking about the agency of objects, particularly Lapita pottery
Review Language Contact and Language Change in Ethiopia von Yvonne Treis
No full textThe present book is one of the many outcomes of research carried out at the University of Mainz on language contact phenomena in the Ethiopian Linguistic Area. While a previous book edited by Joachim Crass and Ronny Meyer concentrated on copulas, focus morphemes and deictic elements (Crass & Meyer 2007), the present work does not have a particular thematic focus; rather it deals with various contact-induced and internally motivated language change phenomena in Omotic, Cushitic and Ethiosemitic languages. Apart from the introduction by the editors, the book contains six articles. In the following sections, the articles will be summarised and assessed individually. The review will end with a general evaluation of the book
Questionnaire on manner, quality degree and quantity demonstratives in Ethiopian languages
No full textThis questionnaire is meant to help linguists working on Ethiopian languages to investigate the morphology, syntax, use and origin (history) of the little investigated manner, quality, degree and quantity (MQDQ) demonstratives and to analyse the formal and functional links among these demonstratives and between them and other demonstrative types in the language. The questions are organized in five sections: (1) Background on the demonstrative system and the expression of similarity and equality, (2) Manner demonstratives, (3) Quality demonstratives, (4) Degree demonstratives and (5) Quantity demonstratives. Apart from analytical questions, the question also contains example sentences in English, Kambaata (Cushitic) and Amharic (Semitic). This questionnaire has been developped for the one-day workshop on MQDQ-demonstratives (27/09/2019, organised by Ronny Meyer & Yvonne Treis) at the Seminar of the NORHED-Project "Linguistic Capacity Building - Tools for the inclusive development of Ethiopia" in Langesund, Norway, 23-27 September 2019
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