Language Change In Tigrinya A Historical Study Based On Early Tigrinya Texts

Thi s study exa mi nes some hi stori cal linguistic fcaturcs o r ca rly Ti grinyarn(Ethiosemitic). Thc aim of this investigation is to analyze and describe sounds.rnwords and phra se~; of the old forms of the language gathered from ea rlyrndictionaries, grammar books and manuscripts, mainly from two late nin etecnthcenturyrnworks by J)abtara Fdssaha-Giyorg is, Tarix ityop 'ya " I·:thiopian hi sto ry"rnand a travel diary e ntitled T'oblahta " impression " , and to comparc thcm to thernpresent-day language.rnGiven its scope and objectives, this thesis contains four chapters. The first chapterrnintroduces the stud/, including the background of the research , statement of thernproblem, objective of the study, significance of the research, scope of the study,rnmethodologJ; emplc·yed for the researc h, and rev icw of related literaturc. Chaptcrrntwo contains a gene ,'al di scussion of semantic change and grammaticalization.rnChapter three prese nts the ma in part of the research, the .data and data analysis:rnlanguage change and grammalicali zati on in Ti grinya. As examplcs o fthc find ings Irncan mention, in e,)n trast to the claims of some Ethiosemiti sts likc [ktaon.rnUllendorff and others, that the occurrence of palatal sounds in modern Tigrinyarnwords has increased markedly compared to the Tigrinya of Dabtara F ;)ss~ih aGiyorgis.rnAl so spira ntized letters appear occas ionally (but only occasionally) in therntexts: they are expli': itly written in the nouns box '''ismot [gloss?]. box 'oj'aj' Iglossrnand '0 'onox'H'i 'jeWo~ l s' ; apparently, the change k > x is attested in on ly oneexample: 'axd::a ·summe r '. In verb forms whe re spira nti zati on would be ex pectedrnin the modern lang uage, no spiranti zat ion is written in the tex ts.rnThe fin al chapter presents a summary and conc Igloss

Get Full Work

Report copyright infringement or plagiarism