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This thesis explores three fundamental issues in the phonology and morphology of Ethiopian Semitic languages: mobile morphology, reduplication and epenthesis. In each chapter I draw on comparative evidence from different Ethiopian Semitic languages, an approach which provides greater insight into how the languages vary with respect to these three issues, and how the issues themselves are best analyzed. / The first issue is that of 'mobile morphology' a term I coin to describe the ability of a particular morphological category to be realized on various segments within a stem. The two major types in the South Ethio-Semitic languages are palatalization and labialization. I develop an analysis of palatalization in five different languages which relies on a hierarchy of preferred targets, along with a number of constraints regulating the appearance of palatalization within the stem. / Ethio-Semitic languages have several different types of reduplication. I draw a distinction between phonological and morphological reduplication and argue that phonological reduplication should be viewed as copying rather long-distance geminate structures created by spreading. I also examine the interaction of reduplication with mobile morphology and I present an analysis of double reduplication, showing how languages will avoid the creation of double reduplication relationships. / I develop an analysis of epenthesis which contrasts the behaviour of one set of languages which epenthesize following final consonant clusters with other languages which epenthesize between consonant clusters. I show that while all Ethio-Semitic languages follow the same general pattern, this may be overridden by templatic constraints and more importantly, by sonority considerations holding of adjacent syllables in coda-onset sequences. This last observation is important because it shows that while languages may on the whole violate heterosyllabic contact constraints, in particular circumstances, the constraints will be obeyed, giving rise to an emergence of the unmarked scenario.

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The Amharic proverb 'Chickens dream only of grain' could easily describe our own lack of imagination when thinking about poultry. In the sectors of agriculture and development, there is growing recognition of how chickens could be used in poverty alleviation, as a source of income and protein, and a means of gender empowerment. However, interventions do not always achieve their goals, due to a lack of understanding of the local context in which chickens will be consumed. In Ethiopia, chickens have an ongoing role not just as economic tools, but in relationships between people and with the religious and spiritual realm. During a period of fieldwork of one year in the Amhara region, in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, I explored the roles that chickens play in the household and wider society. The association between poultry and women, reflected in both practice and language, is changing in peri-urban areas, where production is commercialised, bringing into question the feasibility of improved poultry breeds as a means of empowerment of women. Beyond their economic use, the slaughter of chickens plays an important role in mediating relationships with the spirits that populate the landscape in Amhara. The consumption of chickens reinforces relationships within a household, social networks, and ultimately as a form of building nationality. The types of chickens chosen for these forms of consumption demonstrates strong preferences, and may explain the resistance to improved chicken breeds that have been introduced since the 1950s. The practices around chickens also give some insight into some of the ways in which Amhara society is changing.

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Inaugural-Dissertation--Freie Universität Berlin, 1972. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 268-277).

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / The purpose of this thesis is to study the press in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is an ancient kingdom, but very little is known about her, still less about her press. Probably there is not much to be known, for the press is still in its infancy, and source material is scarce and fragmentary. The justification for this kind of study lies in the paradoxical truth that since so little is known, so much more has to be written. An attempt of this nature has to start somewhere with the hope that the beginning would not be the end. [TRUNCATED]

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