Documentation And Grammatical Description Of Gwama

This dissertation was begun with the intention of describing the Grammar of Gwama andrnpresenting annotated multimedia documentation of riddles, tales, and cultural practices of the rnethnic group. To comprehensively describe the language and produce multimedia rndocumentation, corpus data were collected from Gwama speaking group using different data rncollection methods. The data sources were communicative events such as elicitations, rnobserved communicative events, and staged communicative events. The data were results of rnfour stages of fieldwork activities. In the four-round fieldworks, consultants from different rnvillages of Mao-Komo Special Woreda took part in this study, and the main sites of data rncollection were Tongo, Zebsher, and Asosa. rnThe linguistic description of the language is presented in this dissertation in six chapters rnexcluding the introductory one, which gives an overview of the Gwama ethnic group and rntheir language. The issues covered in six chapters are phonology, noun morphology, rnpronouns, verb morphology, modifiers, and syntax. The phonology chapter presents rnconsonant and vowel phonemes of the language, syllable structure, tone, phonological rnprocesses, and morphophonological processes. Gwama has 22 consonant phonemes, and the rnglottal stop /ʔ/ has a marginal status. These phonemes consist of six stops (/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/,rnand /ɡ/), four ejectives (/p’/, /t’/, /k’/, and /s’/) four fricatives (/f/, /s/, /z/, and /ʃ/), four nasals rn(/m/, /n/, /ɲ/, and /ŋ/), two liquids (/l/ and /r/), and two glides (/w/ and /j/). All these rnconsonants appear in all environments except the fricatives /z/ and /h/, the nasal /ŋ/, and the rnglide /w/. The alveolar fricative /z/, the glottal fricative /h/, and the glide /w/ are not attested rnword finally, whereas the velar nasal /ŋ/ is not recorded word initially. The language allows a rnsequence of two consonants word medially and finally. Dominantly occurring consonant rncluster (C1C2) is formed from a sonorant and an obstruent. In a bunch of lexemes having rnconsonant sequence, a phoneme that appears first (C1) is nasal, and in limited instances such rna phoneme is lateral. A consonant that dominantly appears next (C2) can be a stop, a fricative, rnor a nasal phoneme. There are five phonemic vowels along with equal number of long rncounterparts in the language. The schwa /ə/ and the front open-mid vowel /ɛ/ seem to have rnphonetic status. In fact, the schwa is mainly attested in connected speeches. Gwama has both rnopen and closed syllable structures. In this regard, the syllable template of the language can rnbe (C)V(V)(C)(C). The language is tonal, and three contrastive level tones (High (H), Mid rn(M), and Low (L)) are identified. Long vowels seem to have a rising (LH) and a falling (HL) rnviiirntones, which requires further investigation. Tone in Gwama has lexical and grammatical role.rnPhonological processes such as labialization, assimilation, and vowel nasalization undergo rnword internally. The morphophonemic processes such as vowel deletion and reduplication are rncommon in Gwama. rnThe noun morphology of the language covers inflectional and derivational issues. The rnGwama nouns are not morphologically marked for gender. Gender is identified through either rnwith gender identifying definite markers –te/-e for masculine and –to/-o for feminine or rnsuffixing gender-identifying lexemes kikjata „female‟ and kikeːzi „male‟. Prepositios serve as rnanalytic case markers. The language is not rich in its derivational morphology. A relatively rnproductive way of noun formation is compounding. Similar to other Koman languages, rnGwama has subject and object personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, reflexive pronouns, rndemonstrative pronouns, and interrogative pronouns. Subject and Object pronouns are rnidentical. Verb morphology of the language includes issues like inflection and derivation, rnaspect/tense, and copula constructions. The language has different forms of modifiers, such rnas adjectives, adpositions, and numerals. The constituent order of phrases and clauses rnindicate that Gwama follows SVO structure, though sometimes SOV word order appears rnduring conversations. Finally, it seems important to suggest that those who took the initiative rnin developing orthography and preparing teaching materials may consider this document as rndata source

Get Full Work

Report copyright infringement or plagiarism