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THE PHONOLOGY OF WOLAYTA (GENERATIVE APPROACH) A Thesis Presented to School of Graduate Studies Addis Ababa University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree Master of Arts in Linguistics b Y Yitbarek Ejigu June 9, 1983 ii ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY School--of Graduate Studies THE PHONOLOGY OF WOLAYTA by Yitbarek Ejigu 1. L. S. Approval by Board of Examiners: Chairman, Department Graduat'e Committee Advisor Examiner Examiner iii A K NOW LED GEM E N T S I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to Dro Klaus Wedekind who was my advisoro I am also obliged to Dro G~rard Despatie for having read and commentedo I express my deep sense of gratitude to Mro Peter Edward Unseth, for his priceless advice, expended time and for providing me with some valuable reading materialso His continued support in my efforts enabled me to produce this papero I also express my thanks to Woizero Enanu Fentaw for typing this thesis clearly. iv ABSTRACT The study has three main partso The first is an introduction which gives the review of literature of previous works and of the generative approacho This part also explains the purpose and scope of the study. The second part is a description of the phonology of Wolayta in detail. The possible phonetic sounds, the short and long phonemes, the allophonic and morphophonemic variants, the syllable structure and its processes including vowel harmony and supra-segmentals are discussed. The third part consists of the conclusiono It presents the summary of the preceding parts and gives remarks on further study of supra-segmentals for more complete work of Wolayta phonologyo TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages List of Charts and Figures 0000000000 ••• 000••0.00.00 ••00 vii Definitions of Diacrtic marks ••00••000000000.0000 ••000. viii List of Abbreviations ix ooooooooooooooooooooooooooe.oooooo 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. THE STATEIVJENT }\ND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF 'rHE PROBLEl'-'l. 1 0 e _ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 0000 0 0 0000 00 CI0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1020 THE PROCEDURE AND THE LIMITATIONS 000000000000 4 1 3 REVIEW OF LITERATURE 0 0 Previous Works 7 1 3 20 A Generative Approach 000000000 ••00000 26 0 0 (As exemplified by Larry MoHyman) 20 D8SCRIPTION OF THE PHONOLOGY OF WOLAYTA 2.1. THE CONSONf\NTS AND THE VOWELS 2.1.10 The Consonants 2.10101. The Consonant Sounds 0000 ••0 28 201.1.20 'I'heConsonant Phonemes 000.. 42 20102. The vowels 20102010 The Vowel Sounds 00000000000 51 20102020 The Vowel Phonemes 00000 ••00 55 201030 The Consonant and Vowel Vari~nts 201.301. Allophonic Variants .00••• 56 0. 2010302. Morphophonemic Vowel Harmony.o 61 vi THE SYLLABLE AND THE PHotJOLOGIC],LPROCESSES 202010 The Syllable Structure 0••00.0.00000000 '64 2.2020 Phoneme Distribution 000000000000000000 67 20203. Syllable Structure ~rocesses 0000000000 202,,301, Deletion and Coalescence 69 2020302. hetathesis OOOODOO.eooooooooo 69 20203030 Epenthesis 70 SUPRASEGHENTALS Stress 71 oooooooooooooooooooooeooooooOOOO Intonation 73 0000000000000000000000000000 3 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 76 0 000000000000000000000000000000 POOTNOTES 79 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 APPENDIX WORD LIST 83 0000000000000000000000000000000000 BIBLIOGRAPHY 97 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 vii LIST 01" CHARTS AND FIGURJ:::S Pages CHARTS: 1 Phonetic Chart of Consonants ooooooooooocoooo 41 2 Phoneme Chart of the Anteriors and Coronals 42 0 3 Phoneme Chart of the Non-Coronals 44 0 OOOOOQO.ooo 4 Phoneme Chart of Glottalized Consonants o 0 0 0 0 45 5 Phoneme Chart of Consonants 50 DOOOOOQlOOCOOOOOOCI 6 Phonetic Chart of Vowels 54 00000000000000000000 7 Phoneme Chart of Vowels 55 000000000000000 •• 0000 8 Syllable Distribution Chart 67 00000000000000000 9 Phoneme Chart of Juxta-positional Consonants~ 68 FIGURES: 1 PRo'ro - OI"lOTIC 9 2 PROTO - 0l'10TIC 10 3 SYLLABLE STRUC'rURE 64 000 00 00 ? • 00 00 000 00 00 00. 000 viii DEFI1HTIONS •,OF DIACI.ITIC MARKS - over, trilled sound on top of nasal consonant, palatalization on top of vowel, nasalization • under consonant, glottalization after consonant, gemination after vowel, length o under consonant or vowel, devoicing I before a syllable, main stress I (slash), phonological environment the position of a sound in the environment ~ becomes or re-written as ~ fronting of a consonant > when a consonant is back 0( alpha f.Q) Beta au· gamma ~__'/(question) rising intonation .--1 (imperative) rising intonation x the existence of the proposed sound $ syllable boundary # word boundary ## sentence boundary ~. under consonant, dental ix A B B n. E V I A T I o N S aj adjectiv.e N North an anterior na nasal as aspiration nodo no date ba back oj object C consonant p person cn continuant pI plural cr coronal pr present dl delayed release ps past Ex E.xample rd round Exso I:;xamples S South fe female sg singular fl flap sj subject gl glottal so sonorant hi high st stress im imperative with sharp sy syllable raised pitch tr trilled la lateral V Vowel In long v verb 10 low vo voice ma masculine W West n noun x In the list of references, the titles of books quoted more than twice are abbreviated as follows, in order to avoid unnecessary repetitionso TNSLE The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia, MoL. Bender ed. Michigan: Published by the African Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1976 (Monograph No.5) LE Language in Ethiopi~, Bender and et.al. eds. London: Oxford University press, 1976 0