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Northern Mao is an endangered Afroasiatic-Omotic language of western Ethiopia with fewer than 5,000 speakers. This study is a comprehensive grammar of the language, written from a functional/typological perspective which embraces historical change as an explanation for synchronic structure. The grammar introduces the Northern Mao people, aspects of their culture and history, and the major aspects of the language: contrastive phonology, tone phenomena, nouns, pronouns, demonstratives, numerals, noun phrases, verbs and verbal morphology, single verb constructions, non-final/medial clauses, subordinate clauses and alignment. The tone system has three contrastive levels, where the Mid tones subdivide into two classes which historically derive from two different sources. Nouns each exhibit two tonal melodies: one melody in citation form or other unmodified environments and another melody when syntactically modified. Extensive coverage is given to developments in the pronominal and subject-marking systems as well as the verbal system. In the pronominal and subject marking systems, innovations include the development of a dual opposition, the fusion of an affirmative verbal prefix to subject prefixes, and the development of these subject prefixes into new pronouns. In the verbal system, innovations include the development of new verbal wordforms from subordinate + final verb periphrastic constructions and a set of new subject markers from an old subordinator morpheme. The verbal system is oriented around two oppositional relations: realis vs. irrealis and finite vs. infinitive verb forms. Realis and irrealis verbs have distinct item-arrangement patterns: realis verbs take subject prefixes while irrealis verbs take subject suffixes. Realis is associated with affirmative polarity and non-future tense and may be used with many aspectual distinctions. Irrealis is associated with negative polarity, future tense, and counterfactual constructions; irrealis verbs do not express many aspectual distinctions. Finite versus infinitive verb stems are differentiated by tone. Finite verb stems are used in affirmative declarative and interrogative utterances, non-final/medial constructions and the more finite subordinate clause structures. Infinitive verb stems are used in negative declarative and interrogative utterances, non-final/medial constructions and the less finite subordinate clause structures. The work concludes with a summary of cross-constructional alignment patterns and evaluates the efficacy of a marked-nominative analysis.

Cette étude est la toute première tentative de description complète de la grammaire du hamar, une langue parlée par environ 46.500 personnes dans le sud-ouest de l'Ethiopie (Lewis 2009). L'étude est basée sur des données collectées pendant 9 mois de travail sur le terrain entre 2013 et 2014 dans les territoires des Hamar. Les données sur la langue ont été recueillies auprès de 14 locuteurs natifs dans les villages hamar, et sont composées de 50 textes de longueurs et de genres différents. Cette grammaire décrit la phonologie, la morphologie, la syntaxe et certains aspects de la pragmatique et du discours du hamar et est organisée en 13 chapitres suivis par trois annexes : l'annexe A et B se composent d'un lexique sélectionné d’environ 1 400 entrées, l’annexe C contient trois textes hamar annotés. L'analyse qui sous-tend cette monographie grammaticale suit le cadre théorique Basic Linguistic Theory (la théorie linguistique de base - Dixon 1997, 2010, 2012). / This study is the first-ever attempt at a comprehensive grammatical description of Hamar, a language spoken in South West Ethiopia by approximately 46.500 people (Lewis 2009). The study is based on 9 months of fieldwork carried out between 2013and 2014 in Hamar territories. Language data was gathered from 14 native speakers in Hamar villages, and it amounts to 50 texts of varying lengths and genres. The grammar investigates the phonology, the morphology, the syntax and somepragmatic and discourse-related features of Hamar and it is organized in 13 chapters followed by three appendices: appendix A and B consist of a selected lexicon of circa 1400 entries, appendix C includes three annotated Hamar texts.The analysis underlying this monograph grammar follows the theoretical framework of Basic Linguistic Theory (Dixon 1997, 2010, 2012).

The focus of this study is on language maintenance and shift in Maale, a minority language spoken in Ethiopia. The main aims of the study are to give an account of the underlying social factors that have contributed to language maintenance in the Maale speech community, and to investigate whether the mother-tongue literacy programme in the Maale region is going to facilitate language maintenance or contribute to language shift. The findings suggest that regional nationalism, which corresponds to ethnic nationalism in Paulston's theory of social mobilisation, is the reason why the Maale language has been maintained as a viable language in spite of centuries of political repression. The findings also indicate that the mother-tongue literacy programme currently contributes to language maintenance but it is a stepping stone to further education, which favours the learning of a second language, which could lead to possible attrition of the mother tongue. / Linguistics / M.A. (Sociolinguistics)

The focus of this study is on language maintenance and shift in Maale, a minority language spoken in Ethiopia. The main aims of the study are to give an account of the underlying social factors that have contributed to language maintenance in the Maale speech community, and to investigate whether the mother-tongue literacy programme in the Maale region is going to facilitate language maintenance or contribute to language shift. The findings suggest that regional nationalism, which corresponds to ethnic nationalism in Paulston's theory of social mobilisation, is the reason why the Maale language has been maintained as a viable language in spite of centuries of political repression. The findings also indicate that the mother-tongue literacy programme currently contributes to language maintenance but it is a stepping stone to further education, which favours the learning of a second language, which could lead to possible attrition of the mother tongue. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Sociolinguistics)