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The Nominal System of Awngi (Southern Agaw)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Robert Hetzron
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Extract

Awngi is a central Cushitic language, the southernmost representative of the Agaw group. It is spoken in the Provinces of Agawmǝdǝr and Mätäkkäl, Governorate General of Gojjam, Ethiopia, by at least 50,000 persons. This dialect group has been called by Conti Rossini ‘Awiya’. This is a misnomer; the word awíya means ‘Agaw man’ (literally: ‘son of Agaw’, see §3.4). The language itself is called by its speakers awῃi, with the derivative -ῃi (Amharic -iñña) used for languages. In my earlier publications, I simply called it Southern Agaw, but following the preference of several of my colleagues, I adopted the self-denomination ‘Awngi’.

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , February 1978 , pp. 121 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1978

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References

1 This article was written during my stay in London, while enjoying the hospitality of the School of Oriental and African Studies. I am indebted to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation which, through a generous Fellowship, made it possible for me to spend a year in the stimulating environment of SOAS.

2 Rossini, Carlo Conti, ‘Noti sugli agaw. II. Appunti sulla lingua Awiyā del Danghelà’, Giornale della Società Asiatica Italiana, XVIII, 1905, 103–94.Google Scholar

3 Sponsored by the Near Eastern Center and the African Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles.

4 Hetzron, Robert, The verbal system of Southern Agaw (Near Eastern Studies, 12), Berkeley, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1969.Google Scholar

5 Hetzron, Robert, ‘The Agaw languages’, Afroasiatic Linguistics, III, 3, 1976.Google Scholar

6 e.g. ǝγoši ‘milk’ ῃf ‘ant’, etc. In several cases, the first consonant, the one following the ǝ, is γ or ῃ, but these may also occur initially. The word-initial occurrence of ǝ before a consonant cluster, on the other hand, is predictable and non-phonemic: ǝnkonu ‘tapeworm’, ǝcci ‘worm’, etc.

7 In the dialect studied by me, the low tone occurs only in the perfect definite endings, the pl. 2/3 ending of the imperfect definite, and in the interrogative particle -m.

8 It is remarkable that most of these words are borrowings from Amharic and that some of these end in -a in Amharic which may have sounded like a feminine to the Agaw borrowers, e.g. Amh. ṭäräpäza. This must be a recent borrowing because Amharic ṭ is represented by t here, and not by c as in the older borrowings.

9 This may be a survival from the time when -i was a singulative ending, a reconstruction suggested by comparative evidence. The exact declensional features of the short plural have not been investigated.

10 Note that Gafat, a Semitic language geographically close to Southern Agaw, has ǝrrašä for‘field’.

11 It seems that this was originally a postposition. It is probably related to the noun ǝšew ‘heart’ with a figurative use as ‘inside’. -Šo may come from the translative case of this noun: ǝšewa *‘into’.

12 For the relative, which has the same endings and formal behaviour as the genitive, see Hetzron, , The verbal system of Southern Agaw, §1.2.4.1.Google Scholar

13 The accusative should be used as a classificatory criterion, because it is always vocalic, whereas the genitive and the dative consist of only consonants after a vowel.

14 Curiously, the few nominals contained in this class and pattern, are all names of animals: dúr-i ‘cock’ (dúr-a ‘hen’), fís-i ‘mole’, múr-i ‘snake’, yínc-i ‘rat’. The next pattern is also represented by one noun denoting an animal.

15 The only example of this pattern attested.

16 Only gǝmb ‘stick’, kǝb ‘gourd’, and yiw ‘wrist’.

17 Note the fate of -u: bǝrǝndu+ô = bǝrǝndô. If the consonant preceding the -u is a velar or a uvular, they merge into a labio-velar or a labio-uvular before a suffix: bǝrčǝqu ‘glass’, fem. bǝrčǝqwa pl. bǝrčǝqw-ka, but acc. bǝrčǝq-ô (since before a labial vowel there is no distinction between q and qw).

18 The only example of this pattern attested.

19 Seen. 17, above.

20 Only šǝngúrč-i ‘onion’ and ǝnzrt-i ‘spin, loom’.

21 Only one more noun in this class: fiyél-í ‘goat’, another domestic animal.

22 Only three more examples: gséῃ ‘dog’, ménč ‘much, many’, and, potentially overlapping with class (E), néw ‘calf’ (pi. néwari, with no plural in -ka).

23 One more example: sǝndáy ‘wheat’. Another nominal belongs to two classes: ǝmpl, fem, ǝmpl-á, pl. ǝmpǝl-ká, acc. ǝmp-o or ǝpl-ô ‘one’ (an adjective). By virtue of ǝmpl-o it belongs to this class, but ǝmpl-ô aligns it with sǝgl in (G).

24 The only example of this pattern attested.

25 See n. 23 for ǝmpl. What makes this word so special is the configuration -CCǝl which makes the ǝ deletion before a vowel optional. sǝglô most probably comes from *sǝg-o, i.e. an original (F).

26 The only example of this pattern attested.

27 See p. 130, n. 17.

28 One more word in this pattern, the interrogative wóšin-í. This is a morphologically composite element (wó- interrogative, -iní adjectival formative), and címarkw-í may also be an original compound (cf. ǝrkwí ‘tooth’).

29 Two more examples: čáγ-a ‘bird’, dúr-a ‘hen’.

30 One more: búnk-a ‘struggle’.

31 One more: zíban-a ‘female of dǝkkuli antelope’.

32 The only example of this pattern attested.

33 One more: sén-a ‘sister’. Note that both of these nouns are derived from masculine nouns, bún ‘coffee’ and sén ‘brother’.

34 The only example of this pattern attested.

35 Two more: berdst-a ‘vessel’ and canqún-a ‘thirst’. The first one probably has an ǝ before the plural ending, but I have not recorded its tone.

36 One more: wená ‘pregnant animal close to giving birth’.

37 The only example of this pattern attested.

38 Two more celestial bodies are found in this class and pattern: árf-á ‘moon’ and béW-á ‘star’. Four more nominals: cnc-á ‘fly’, dáb-á ‘wooden ball’, léw-á ‘right side’, séb-á ‘side-pain’, and šér-á ‘pregnant woman’.

39 The only example of this pattern attested.

40 Three more: tarénk-á ‘kind of antelope’ (I have not recorded the tone of the anaptyctic ǝ in the plural), tǝγwán-á ‘bug’, wizazr-á ‘lady’.

41 See Hetzron, R., ‘Agaw numerals and incongrnence in Semitic’, JSS, XII, 2, 1967, 169–97.Google Scholar

42 It is no wonder that the relatively closest masculine counterpart of cangéyá ‘left side’ is vocalic: cangíyí ‘left-handed’.

43 Note that this compound is considered a plural in agreement rules: ǝmplaní láῃa araγúnášínà ‘once upon a time there were a husband and a wife’ (lit.: once two husband-wife were').

44 y- before the accusative -a and the dative -ǝs, and yí- elsewhere.

45 The endings -ji were added later, as a part of the ‘renewal of plural marking in pronouns’, see Hetzron, K., Ethiopian Semitic: studies in classification, Manchester, 1972, §T.2, and cf. n. 48.Google Scholar

46 With the labial appendix before the accusative (kówa) and the dative (kús), but a mere k- elsewhere.

47 See n. 45.

48 The polite pronouns are survivals of the original plural pronouns, before the addition of -ji; see n. 45.

49 ǝntu in isolation, ǝnt- before suffixes. I did not put these in two different columns, for subject and oblique, because this is a phonetic adjustment, whereas in sg. 1/2 two independent allomorphs are involved.

50 See n. 45.

51 See n. 48.

52 Note that unlike in compounds, the final -a is dropped before the plural ending -ka. The -a is maintained in -γwa-ka.

53 Probably derived from the root ǝtti- ‘fall’, as ‘fall-out’. This suggests that Amharic duqet for ‘flour’ may also come from the root wdq ‘fall’, i.e. *wǝdqet. The i is not the result of the closure rule (§1.4); the feminine is ǝttíná.