Language structures: Sidaama (Sidamo) Kazuhiro Kawachi
1. Introduction
Sidaama belongs to the Highland-East branch of the Cushitic language family, which is subsumed under the Afro-Asiatic language phylum.1 It is spoken in the Sidaama Zone of South- Central Ethiopia, whose capital, Hawassa, is located 273 km south of Addis Ababa by car. According to the 2007 Ethiopian Census, the population of the Sidaama people was 2,966,377. They are the fifth largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, and Sidaama is the language spoken by the fifth largest number of speakers in Ethiopia.
Sidaama is primarily a spoken language. Even though the literacy campaign from the mid 1970’s to 1991 promoted the use of the Ge’ez-based, Ethiopic writing system for Sidaama, and the Sidaama started to use the Latin alphabet system for it in 1992, when the current central government came to power and allowed the speakers of non-Semitic languages to develop their own writing systems, the literacy rate at present is still very low.
The language of instruction at school in the Sidaama zone was Amharic until 1992, but since the new Ethiopian government permitted the use of local languages for primary education in this year, the language of instruction at public primary schools has been Sidaama, though that at other types of schools has remained English.
There are two major groups of dialects of Sidaama, Highland and Lowland dialects, which differ lexically and phonologically. The Highland dialects are considered more authentic than the Lowland dialects, which have been influenced by other languages, especially Amharic.
There are not many in-depth previous studies on this language, though there is a grammatical sketch of Highland-East Cushitic languages by Hudson (1976), grammars of Sidaama by Moreno (1940), Teferra (2000), and Kawachi (2007), a Sidaama-English dictionary by Gasparini (1983), a collection of words translated between Highland-East Cushitic languages and English by Hudson (1989), and papers by Kawachi (2008, 2009, 2011, etc.).
2. Phonology
2.1 Segmentals
Sidaama has five short vowel phonemes (/i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, /u/) and their long counterparts. All Sidaama words end in vowels.
Sidaama has the consonant phonemes in Table 1. The maximum number of consonants that
1 Sidaama is also often mistakenly called Sidamo, which was used around 1980 to refer to the province that included the Sidaama zone and other neighboring zones.
can occur successively in Sidaama is two. Consonant clusters only occur intervocalically across syllables. The large majority of consonant clusters are ‘sonorant––obstruent’ or ‘glottal stop–– sonorant’. All the Sidaama consonants can be geminated. Gemination can occur as a grammatical process.
Place of articulation
Manner of articulation
Bilabial Labio- dental
Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop
Plosive Ejective Implosive
b p’
t d t’ ɗ
k ɡ k’
’
Affricate Ejective
č ǰ č’
Fricative f s (z) š h
Nasal m n ñ
Tap/Flap r
Lateral Approximant
l
Approximant w y
Table 1 : Sidaama Consonant Phonemes
2.2 Morphophonemic Rules
There are different types of morphophonemic rules in Sidaama, such as those concerning epenthesis, metathesis, assimilation, glottalization, and gemination (Abebe Gebre-Tsadik 1985, Kawachi 2007). They are, for the most part, motivated by the phonotactics of this language.
2.3 Suprasegmentals 2.3.1 Syllables and Moras
Phonological structures of Sidaama words can be analyzed in terms of either syllables or moras. The syllable structures possible in Sidaama are V(V), V(V)C, CV(V), and CV(V)C. The mora structures possible in Sidaama are V, CV, and C – C occurs as the first component of a geminate or consonant cluster.
2.3.2 Pitch Accent
Sidaama is a pitch-accent language. Prominence is indicated by high pitch, which is not associated with the duration of the vowel. The location of high pitch in the citation form of a noun or adjective is normally its penultimate vowel segment (e.g., beétto ‘child’).
2.3.3 Intonation
Intonation differentiates sentence types in Sidaama.
In declarative sentences ending with a verb predicate, a high pitch occurs on the penultimate or final vowel segment of the main verb, depending on the suffix. In those ending with a noun or adjective predicate, pitch is normally high on the penultimate vowel segment of the noun or adjective, and is lowered toward the end of the sentence.
In positive yes-no questions ending with a verb predicate (without the interrogative marker), a pitch higher than in their declarative counterparts occurs in the vowel segment of the verb where a high pitch would occur if the sentence were declarative. In negative ones, pitch is very high on the penultimate vowel segment of the verb, and remains high in the final vowel segment, regardless of the type of suffix. In both positive and negative yes-no questions ending with a noun or adjective predicate, the ultimate vowel segment of the predicate noun or adjective usually has a very high pitch, but a very high pitch occurs on the predicative noun-phrase clitic if the speaker expresses his/her surprise.
In WH-questions, the predicate at the end of the sentence has a flat pitch.[CHECK ADJ/N PRED]
3. Parts of Speech
3.1 Open Classes 3.1.1 Nouns
In Sidaama, nouns usually come at the end of noun phrases, and may be marked with affixes for case, number, and gender. There are abstract nouns that are usually accompanied by a modifier to form a non-argument: specifically, about twenty locational nouns (e.g., ɡiddo ‘inside’, aana ‘top’, alba ‘front’, mereero ‘middle’, mule ‘nearness’), the comitative noun ledo, and ɡeešša
‘degree, extent’. 3.1.2 Verbs
Main verbs contain either one of the aspectual suffixes in addition to the subject person and number suffix or one of the mood suffixes. Both the aspectual and mood suffixes have different forms depending on the person and number of the subject. Subordinate verbs contain either the converb suffix or one of the infinitive suffixes, as well as the subject person and number suffix.
Sidaama verb forms showing a transitivity contrast usually follow one of the three patterns.
First, intransitive verbs accompanied by the causative suffix are often their transitive counterparts (e.g., e’- ‘enter’/ee-s- ‘move something in’). Second, the forms of transitive verbs with the passive suffix may act as intransitive verbs (e.g., hiikk’-am- ‘get broken’/hiikk’- ‘break something’). Third, pairs of idiomatic expressions where y- ‘say’ and ass- ‘do’ follow an otherwise meaningless or onomatopoeic element show a transitivity contrast (e.g., dolli y- ‘lie down’/dolli ass- ‘lay down someone/something’). Sidaama has only a limited number of intransitive-transitive pairs of morphologically unrelated lexical verbs that seem to show a semantic contrast.
There are a small number of transitive verbs (mostly of feeling) that can take an impersonal third-person singular masculine subject, which usually emerges only as the subject suffix on the verb.
Sidaama verbs, which are all dynamic rather than stative, can be classified into action or state-change verbs depending on the possibility of their use in the continuous aspect and the meaning of each of their three aspectual forms, as in Table 2.
verb type aspect
Action verbs (e.g., dod- ‘run’)
State-change verbs (e.g., uurr- ‘stand up’) Present progressive ongoing action gradual state-change
Continuous * continuous state up to the present
Recent or distant perfect completed action completed state-change/current state as a result of the state-change
Table 2 : Aspectual Differences between the Two Types of Dynamic Verbs
3.1.3 Adjectives
Setting aside numerals, Sidaama has only a limited number of non-derived, true adjectives, though it has many adjectives derived from verbs or nouns.
Sidaama adjectives share some morphosyntactic properties with nouns and some with verbs. Similar to nouns, many adjectives can form constituents that have grammatical relations in sentences (i.e., argument noun phrases), and can be accompanied by modifiers. Also like nouns, adjectives are marked with case and gender.
Many adjectives can be modified by degree adverbials (e.g., lowo ɡeešša [large degree]
‘very much’), and can be used in comparative constructions. These properties are also found in a limited number of verbs.
3.1.4 Adverbs
The class of lexical adverbs in Sidaama, many of which are time adverbs, is small in size compared to the other open classes. Most of them are invariant in form under any syntactic
environment, and do not take any inflectional suffix.
3.2 Closed Classes
As closed-class categories, Sidaama has pronouns (personal, reflexive, and reciprocal pronouns), demonstratives, and clitics.
Most of the demonstratives, which crosscut different parts of speech and take different forms depending on their grammatical function and gender (preserving the proto-Afro-Asiatic demonstrative t (FEM) vs. k (MASC) contrast), make a three-way distinction: ‘close to the speaker’,
‘close to the listener or known to the speaker and listener from a previous discourse’, and ‘far from both the speaker and listener’.
Sidaama has one proclitic and a number of enclitics.
The negative proclitic di= attaches usually to the beginning of a clause-final constituent, or sometimes to that of a constituent in the preverbal focus position.
Out of a number of enclitics, two are used to form noun phrases. One of them, =ta (FEM)/=ha (MASC), which apparently originates from the proto-Afro-Asiatic t (FEM)/k (MASC), attaches to (i) genitive noun phrases or relative clauses to form (parts of) argument noun phrases, (ii) adjectives, noun phrases, genitive noun phrases, or relative clauses to form predicates, or (iii) clauses to form clausal complements. (The plural form =re, which can be used for animate entities, is limited to (i).) When it attaches to a predicate noun, its form is determined by whether the noun is common or proper, and if it is common, whether it is accompanied by any modifier, the possessive pronominal suffix, or both (‘Modified’, henceforth) (=ti), or neither (‘Unmodified’, henceforth) (=te (FEM)/=ho (MASC)) (Kawachi & Tekleselassie in press).
The other noun-phrase enclitic =wa attaches to a genitive noun phrase or a relative clause to form a noun phrase that refers to a location, goal, or source (e.g., hakko kinč-i=wa [that.M.GEN rock-GEN.M.MOD=place] ‘at/to that rock’). When =wa is bound to a genitive noun phrase for an object, the object is treated as a location.
4. Morphology
4.1 Affixes and Reduplication
Sidaama is an agglutinative language, where almost all derivational morphology and all inflectional morphology involve affixation. The reduplication of a verb root to express repeated or intensified actions is not uncommon, but not productive.
4.2 Morphological Case-marking System
Sidaama is an accusative language. It uses suprafixes (high pitch on the final vowel
segment) for the accusative and oblique cases, suffixes for the nominative, dative-locative, allative, and ablative-instrumental cases, and both a suprafix and a suffix for the genitive case. The suprafixes and the suffixes concern the ordinary, syntactic notion of ‘modification’ and the unusual notion of
‘Modification’ (section 3.2), respectively.
The Modification distinction as well as gender determines the choice of the allomorphs of some of the case suffixes. For example, the nominative suffix on Unmodified masculine common nouns is -u, as in (0), whereas that on Modified ones is -i, as in (0) and (0).
(0) beett-u da-ø-ino.
child-NOM.M come-3SG.M-PERF.3
‘A/the boy came.’
(0) (a) ku’u
that.M.NOM
(b) buš-u
bad-NOM.M
(c) isé
3SG.F.GEN
(d) ise saɡalé u-i-t-ino
3SG.F.NOM food.ACC give-EP-3SG.F-PERF.3
beett-i da-ø-ino.
child-NOM.M.MOD come-3SG.M-PERF.3
‘(a) That boy/(b) A/the bad boy/(c) Her son/(d) A/the boy who she gave food to came.’2
(0) beett-i-se da-ø-ino.
child-NOM.M.MOD-3SG.F.POSS come-3SG.M-PERF.3
‘Her son came.’
The allomorphs of the nominative, genitive, and dative-locative case suffixes are listed in Table 3.
2 Nevertheless, the use of the allomorph of the nominative suffix for Unmodified masculine nouns -u is possible even when the masculine noun is modified by the adnominal demonstrative (e.g., in (0a), (ku’u beett-u). However, this applies to neither the genitive nor dative-locative case suffix.
case gender Modification
Nominative Genitive Dative-locative
FEM MASC FEM MASC FEM MASC
Unmodified -ø -u -te -u -te -ho
Modified -i -ø -i -ra
Table 3: Allomorphs of the Nominative, Genitive, and Dative-locative Case Suffixes
Note that -u and -i replace the final vowel of a stem noun, whereas -te, -ho, and -ra are added to a stem noun. Note also that -ra, one of the allomorphs of the dative-locative suffix as well as the allative suffix, and -nni, the ablative-instrumental suffix, which is not listed in the table, are each added to a genitive noun stem (e.g., anɡa-te-nni [hand-GEN.F-INST]).
The syntactic modification distinction plays a role in suprafixation. Nominative forms of unmodified nouns have high pitch on their penultimate vowel segments, whereas their accusative, oblique, and genitive forms have high pitch on their final vowel segments. When modified by adnominal demonstratives or adjectives, nouns usually have flat pitch accent, and the modifiers follow the pitch accent pattern of the case of the noun phrase.
4.3 Suffix Orders
Any Sidaama word follows the order of ‘root–derivational suffix(es)–inflectional suffix(es)’ when it contains both types of suffixes (Greenberg 1963: 93). The ordering relationships of the noun suffixes and those of the adjective suffixes are shown in (0) and (0), respectively.
(0) Noun suffixes
ROOT Nominalizing Case
(Nominative/ Genitive)
Possessive Case
(Dative-locative/Allative/ Ablative-instrumental) Abstracting
Number Gender
(0) Adjective suffixes
ROOT Adjectivizing Number Case Gender
One of the derivational processes and one or both of the inflectional categories listed for the first noun suffix slot in (0) are often expressed by a portmanteau morpheme, but more than one
suffix cannot be used simultaneously for more than one of these categories.
As in (0), after the adjective root, the adjectivizing suffix precedes the number suffix, which in turn precedes the case suffix. The ordering relation between the gender suffix on one hand and the adjectivizing and the number suffixes on the other is indeterminate. Some of the adjectivizing suffixes also show a gender contrast.
When two or more types of derivational verb suffixes co-occur, they follow the order in (0). The passive and reciprocal suffixes, which occupy the same slot and have the same shape, do not occur together. The causative/double-causative suffix and the middle suffix are listed together for the final slot, because the order of the causative/double-causative suffixes and the middle suffix can differ, depending on the meaning of the middle suffix.
(0) Derivational verb suffixes ROOT Verbalizing Passive/
Reciprocal
Causative/Double Causative Middle
While the object person and number suffix, which comes after any other inflectional verb suffix, the subject person and number suffix immediately follows the verb stem for any person- number combination other than the first and second person singular, for which the aspectual or infinitive suffix occurs between the verb stem and the subject person and number suffix.
5. Syntax
5.1 Grammatical Relations
In Sidaama, grammatical relations are coded by case marking and verb suffixes. Subjects, direct objects, and indirect objects are in the nominative, accusative, and dative cases, respectively. The pronominal subject suffix on the verb provides information on the person and number of the subject. The pronominal object suffix on the verb usually but not necessarily indicates the primary object. Strictly speaking, it refers to the human event participant who the speaker perceives as the most prominently affected by the event either positively or negatively.
Sidaama has an imperative construction and subject-control constructions, which characteristically involve the notion of subject. In two multi-verb constructions including the converb construction, the subjects of the main verb and the subordinate verb(s) have to be the same. The cleft construction can cleft any type of constituent other than the subject. Constructions to which direct objects are relevant in Sidaama are a passive construction and a direct-object control construction.
5.2 Word Order
The word order is predominantly SOV. The focus position is immediately before the verb. OSV and other orders are possible only when the preverbal constituent is in focus. VS and VSO word orders emphasize the action or state change that the verb expresses.
In Sidaama, an adnominal constituent usually precedes the noun that it modifies. When more than one type of modifier occur in a noun phrase to modify the noun, the most preferred order is: adnominal demonstrative––numeral––adjective––genitive noun phrase––relative clause––noun.
Other orders require the noun-phrase enclitic, =ta (FEM)/=ha (MASC) (section 3.2). It attaches to the end of a genitive noun phrase or a relative clause when either of these modifiers is immediately followed by another modifier before the noun that it modifies, or attaches to the end of a numeral, a genitive noun phrase, or a relative clause when any of these modifiers, which conveys new information, is placed after the noun that it modifies.
In this language, the subordinate clause, which ends in a verb consisting of the subject person suffix and another suffix or an enclitic, precedes the main clause, which ends in a verb made up of the subject person suffix and one of the aspect or mood suffixes.
Sidaama also shows the ordering relationships in (0).
(0) (a) Standard of comparison–comparative marker–adjective/verb (b) Manner adverb–verb
(c) Complement clause–complementizer (d) Interrogative word–verb
5.3 External Possessor Constructions
Sidaama has two types of external possessor constructions (EPCs), oblique EPCs and dative EPCs, where the possessor and the possessum do not form a constituent. In the oblique EPCs, the possessum noun phrase, which could be translated literally as ‘with respect to the possessum’, is in the oblique case, and in the dative EPCs, the possessor noun phrase is in the dative case. Possessive relations in either construction can also be expressed by internal possessor constructions (IPCs), in other words, within noun phrases. The predicate of either type of EPC may be an adjective, an intransitive verb, or a transitive verb. In the oblique EPCs, the possessor noun phrase assumes the syntactic role that the possessum noun phrase in the IPC counterpart would fill, whereas in the dative EPCs, the possessum noun phrase is in the same syntactic status as in the IPC counterpart. The possessor in the oblique EPC and the possessum in the dative EPC each serve as subject when the predicate is an adjective or intransitive verb and as object when the predicate is a transitive verb. Transitive examples of the oblique and dative EPCs and their IPC counterpart are shown in (0a), (0b), and (0c), respectively.
(0) (a) t’arap’eesa lekka table.ACC leg.OBL
ise (b) t’arap’eesa-ho lekka hiikk’-i-t-ino.
3SG.F.NOM table-DAT.M leg.ACC break-EP-3SG.F-PERF.3
(c) t’arap’ees-ú lekka table-GEN.M leg(ACC)
‘She broke the leg of the table.’
(lit., ‘She broke (a) the table with respect to the leg/(b) the leg to the table/(c) the table’s leg.’)
The types of possessor-possessum combinations possible in the dative EPCs are (i) animate entity–body part, (ii) animate entity–kinsmen, (iii) animate entity–artifact/belongings, and (iv) inanimate entity–part, whereas those possible in the oblique EPCs are only (i) and (iv), though the oblique EPCs also allow the possessum to be a property or abstract entity that the possessor has.
