User:Sumiaz/Amharic

Romanization systems:

Best predictor of conjugations? Example is "to break."

1. "Base form" (no meaning), e.g. ስብር sbr

   Pro: Gives an underlying form that predicts all others.

   Con: It is an abstraction with no equivalent in spoken Amharic.

2. "Theme" (3sg. masc. perfect), e.g. ሰበረ säbbärä

   Pro: Most available form in dictionaries and grammars.

   Con: Cannot predict tri-radical verbs without sub-classes.

3. "Infinitive" (verbal noun), e.g. መስበር mäsbär

   Pro: Slightly fewer rules necessary to conjugate compared to the "theme" form.

   Con: Infinitive has more affixes than the "theme" form.

Verbs are marked for person (first/second/third), number (singular/plural), gender (masculine/feminine), aspect (perfect/imperfect), mood (indicative/imperative/interrogative/optative), voice (active/passive), and polarity (positive/negative). Verbs always agree with the subject and optionally with the object. Tenses are expressed through auxiliary verbs.

• Trigeminal verbs are split into types A, B, and C. Quadrigeminal verbs are split into types 1 and 2. The classification helps to predict conjugation, and are not associated with verb meaning.

Adapted from Trommer J, "A feature-geometric approach to Amharic verb classes." PDF

• Gemination class refers to the number of forms that have consonant doubling: 1 = perfect only; 2 = perfect and imperfect only; 3 = all forms.
• Vowel class refers to the distribution of a and ä.

Polite pronoun subjects are conjugated as third-person plural.

Example here is the transitive verb ፈለገ fällägä "to want, seek".

Notes

• -ው -(ä)w is rendered as -ት -t after /o/ and /u/.

Example here is the transitive verb ፈለገ fällägä "to want, seek".