This dissertation investigates transitivity alternations, with particular reference to Amharic. The lexical-semantic and morphosyntactic properties of morphological causatives, experiencer predicates, applicative constructions and complex predicates formed by light verbs are examined in detail. It is claimed that transitivity alternations are an artefact of Event-type alternations and follow from universal principles such as Event Headedness. It is argued that the valency difference between various verb classes reduces to whether the Root of the verb is specified or underspecified for Event Headedness. / Two levels of phrase structure, l-syntax and s-syntax, are recognized in the study. It is argued that productive causatives are generated in s-syntax, whereas morphological causatives which are sensitive to the Event-type of the Root are generated in l-syntax. A unified structural analysis is given for a number of superficially unrelated constructions including Subject Experiencer predicates, perception verbs and possessive predicates. It is argued that the quirky Case and agreement properties of such predicates can be handled by motivating inherent Case assignment. This analysis is further extended to account for the benefactive applicative of unaccusatives. / The role of light verbs in transitivity alternation is explored in detail. It is shown that light verbs are independent verbs that spell-out Event-types. The study argues that the polysemous relationship between predicates is best accounted for by a single argument structure rather than by positing multiple lexical entries.

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The Amharic language is the Official language of over 70 million people mainly in Ethiopia. An extensive literature survey and the government report reveal no single Amharic character recognition is found in the country. The Amharic script has 33 basic characters each with seven orders giving 310 distinct characters, including numbers and punctuation symbols. The characters are visually similar; there is a typeface, but no capitalization. Beside this there is no any standard font to use the language in the computer but they use different fonts developed by different stakeholders without keeping a standard on their own way and interest and this create a problem of incompatibility between different fonts and documents.This project is to investigate the reason why Amharic optical character recognition is not addressed by local and international researchers and developers and finally to develop Amharic optical character recognition uses the features and facilities of Microsoft windows Vista or 7 using Unicode standard.

Thesis (doctoral)--Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, 1913. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The aim of this thesis is to present from the historical perspective the Ethiopian Amharas as a nation, which, even though they are not forming majority of the state, they had and still have major impact on the Ethiopian society. They also maintained influence on other nations mainly thanks to the Amharic language, which became the official language of the whole of Ethiopia. The structure of the work is divided in such a way in order to include all the relevant phases that are related to the history and life of the Ethiopian Amharas. The compilation of the work is based on the theoretical analysis and the study of the literature. In the thesis I give a brief overview of the history, including the legend of the origin of the Solomon dynasty, to which the Amharas still avow. In the view of the fact that significant role in Ethiopian society plays also the affiliation of most of the Amharas with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, I deal with its history and hierarchies. I also apprise of the religious rituals, feasts and celebrations. In individual parts I follow up the historical roots of Amharic and its relevance to a particular language group. Role of Amharic is analyzed with respect to the educational system in Ethiopia, I am also referring to its role in connection with the so-called Amharization...

In this thesis I attempt to model, that is, computationally reproduce, the natural transmission (i.e. inflectional regularities) of twenty present tense Amharic verbs (i.e. triradicals beginning with consonants) as used by the language’s speakers. I root my approach in the linguistic theory of network morphology (NM) and model it using the DATR evaluator. In Chapter 1, I provide an overview of Amharic and discuss the fidel as an abugida, the verb system’s root-and-pattern morphology, and how radicals of each lexeme interacts with prefixes and suffixes. I offer an overview of NM in Chapter 2 and DATR in Chapter 3. In both chapters I draw attention to and help interpret key terms used among scholars doing work in both fields. In Chapter 4 I set forth my full theory, along with notation, for generating the paradigms of twenty present tense Amharic verbs that follow four different patterns. Chapter 5, the final chapter, contains a summary and offers several conclusions. I provide the DATR output in the Appendix. In writing, my main hope is that this project will make a contribution, however minimal or sizeable, that might advance the field of Amharic studies in particular and (computational) linguistics in general.

This thesis investigates the syntactic features, functions, and diachrony of a complex predicate called ‘the inceptive construction’ which is based on a grammaticalised use of the converbs ‘get up’, ‘pick up’, ‘grasp’, and ‘take’. The languages under investigation are Amharic, Argobba, Harari, Zay, and Selt’i. The data collection that was analized consists of elicitations, audio recordings, and written texts. The analysis shows that the converbs identify the initial phase of the event encoded by a following verb. The converbs are further associated with nuances like volition, surprise, and emphasis. The rise of such interpretations as surprise and emphasis appears to depend mainly on context, while volition is inherent to the construction. The languages generally do not show much variation. However, there is a notable difference in some co-occurrence restrictions. Moreover, there is a difference in the presence/absence of certain converbs mainly in Harari and Zay, which is clearly a matter of preference between individual consultants. Regarding the origin of the inceptive construction, collocation, frequency, and speakers’ conception of the action of the converbs are possible factors that lead the verbs to grammaticalize into markers of the inception phase. Only some traces of the construction are found in an old Amharic text from the 15th century. The converb is the main verb form used in the inceptive construction, although other verb forms are allowed which may take a coordinating conjunction (in the cases of Amharic and Argobba) and an iterative/simultaneity marker (‘while’). The Amharic conjunction =nna ‘and’ links the light verb with the reference verb in the inceptive construction, but is also used in causal(purposive) and conditional coordination. The criteria of tense iconicity and variable positions indicate that =nna is a coordinating conjunction in the former, but a subordinator in the latter. Lastly, the converb in Amharic is shown to become insubordinated, i.e. the main verb or auxiliary it depends on gets ellipsed over time and it comes to function as a main verb. An insubordinated converb is used in the expression of surprise/exclamation, interrogation, rhetorical questioning, wishing, and the resultative/perfective. The point is it is still possible to use the notion of ‘converb’ in the inceptive construction as this is a separate historical process.

Amended bibliography in back pocket. / Bibliography: leaves 409-426. / xix, 426 leaves : ill. (chiefly col.), maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Philosophy, 1996

Diese Lesematerialien sind für Deutsch-Muttersprachler konzipiert worden, die Amharisch lernen wollen. Die vorliegenden Geschichten wurden von Studenten aus verschiedenen Landesteilen Äthiopiens zusammengetragen und zeichnen sich besonders durch ihre literarische Gestaltung aus.

Der Artikel geht auf einen Vortrag zurück, der im Rahmen einer Ringvorlesung des Fachbereiches Orientalistik der Universität Hamburg mit dem Titel « Die Afro-Asiatischen Sprachen » an der Universität Hamburg gehalten worden ist. Bei der Übertragung des Vortrages in das Medium eines Artikels wurde versucht, die Spuren des anders gearteten Genres so weit wie möglich zu tilgen. Völlig ist das nicht gelungen – vielleicht lies sich der Artikel aber so auch etwas besser.