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Gender and number morphology in Ethio-Eritrean semitic languages

Paper · 2021 · Tesfay Tewolde Johannes

Summary

Published in volume 7 (2021) of the journal Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali, this article by Tesfay Tewolde Yohannes examines how gender and number marking relate to each other in the Ethio-Eritrean Semitic (EES) languages. It focuses on Tigrinya, Amharic and Tigre, with additional material from Gɨʕɨz, Harari and others. The work is a descriptive and comparative study built on glossed example forms and earlier Semitic scholarship, notably Hasselbach (2007) and Buccellati (1996). It does not use a corpus or computational methods. The author follows the old Semitic vowels -ā (feminine) and -ū (masculine), together with -t and the number element n, into EES and identifies their descendants -ačč, -očč, -o and -ot as plural markers. The main claim is that gender and number markers depend on each other, can act like noun classifiers, and that the gender use is probably older than the number use. The diachronic link between the two is left for future research. The study matters for anyone modelling Semitic agreement, because it shows a single suffix often carrying person, gender and number together.

Key points

  • In verb endings, one element can carry several features. Tigrinya kɨna breaks down into k (2nd person), ɨ (primary feminine), n (number) and a (secondary feminine). In other forms, -a and -u mark 3fpl/3mpl or fpl/mpl.
  • Amharic has no gender distinction in the plural, so -u simply marks plural. Tigre uses -a, -w and -o (< aw), and Gɨʕɨz uses -ā and -ū.
  • EES nouns rarely show gender overtly. Gender becomes visible through agreement on targets such as verbs, determiners, pronouns, the numeral "one", possessives and adpositions. Amharic -it also has a diminutive function.
  • The plural markers listed for EES are: -ā/a, -āt/at, -ačč, -ū/u, -očč, -o, -ot, -n/m, -an, -yan, -yat and ɂn.
  • Plurals can stack. Amharic liq takes a possible plural (liqawɨn), then a double plural (+t), then a multi-plural (+očč). Number suffixes attach to the head of compounds, which is right-headed in Amharic and left-headed in Tigrinya.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. A single suffix can pack person, gender and number together, so these features should be stored as one bundle with a breakdown of which piece contributes which feature.
  • I2. Gender is often invisible on the noun and shows up only on agreeing words. The paper treats the noun as the trigger and the other words as targets, so gender is inferred from the targets.
  • I3. Plural marking attaches to the head of a compound, and the head can sit on either side depending on the language.
  • I4. Plurals built in layers (possible, double, then multi-plural) are modelled as successive structural layers, not as one flat suffix.
  • I5. Following Arregi and Nevins, the paper treats syntax as fixing only sisterhood and dominance, with linear order of inflections settled after syntax.

For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

  • I1 (tokens): English morphology in crate en could record such cumulative feature bundles with their origin (for example, -s carrying both 3sg and present), which keeps the analysis explainable.
  • I2 (frames): coreference could recover a referent's gender or number from agreeing pronouns and determiners, as evidence linked to the trigger noun, instead of guessing it from the noun alone.
  • I3 (tree): when converting UD treebank dialects or checking parses of noun compounds, the parser could use the position of number marking as a signal for which word is the head.
  • I4 (tokens): the lemmatizer could keep a layered derivation history for stacked affixes, so that every peeled suffix can be explained step by step.
  • I5 (back): generation from the meaning graph could first build an unordered tree and then apply a separate, explainable linearization step for word and affix order.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

 Institutions

🎓Addis Ababa UniversityAddis Ababa · Ethiopia11 works · 34 citations🎓University of FlorenceFlorence · Italy5 works · 1 citation

📚 Shelves 2The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).Arts and Humanities · 9,296 worksLanguage and Linguistics · 9,206 works

🧭 Topics 2Research subjects and languages the work is about.Semitic languages · 1,484 worksMorphology · 277 works

Cite

Cite as Tesfay Tewolde Johannes. 2021. Gender and number morphology in Ethio-Eritrean semitic languages. Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali 7.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.13128/qulso-2421-7220-12006

@inproceedings{johannes2021gender,
  title = {{Gender and number morphology in Ethio-Eritrean semitic languages}},
  author = {Tesfay Tewolde Johannes},
  booktitle = {Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali 7},
  year = {2021},
  doi = {10.13128/qulso-2421-7220-12006},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.13128/qulso-2421-7220-12006}
}

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