Cover not available
Part of
Grammatical and Sociolinguistic Aspects of Ethiopian Languages
Edited by Derib Ado, Almaz Wasse Gelagay and Janne Bondi Johannessen †
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 48] 2021
► pp. 245–268

Reduplication in Oromo

| Addis Ababa University

The morphological processes of reduplication in Oromo involve copying a root or a stem, entirely or partially. The latter requires replication of a prosodic CVC template from the left side of the base. The process may require adapting the onset of the adjacent syllable as a coda of the prosodic template. The copied portion, reduplicant, of a root or a stem is prefixed to the latter. However, if the base consists of a geminate or a cluster, the prefixing of the copied reduplicant would be constrained to a CV by a dissimilation rule. In a total reduplication, as in partial reduplication, the copied root or stem is placed to the left of its base. The word classes amenable to total reduplication are nouns, determiners, numerals, adverbs and adpositions, while those agreeable to partial reduplication are adjectives and verbs. Functionally, reduplicated nouns assume a predicative role and adpositions an adverbial role. The reduplicative forms of the other word classes are limited to their respective canonical functions, essentially with the sense of augmentation in terms of quantity, frequency or intensity.

Keywords: reduplication, partial, total, prosodic, copy
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Nominal reduplication
    • 2.1Nouns
    • 2.2Determiners
    • 2.3Adjectives
      • 2.3.1Type I Adjectives
      • 2.3.2Type II adjectives
    • 2.4Numerals
    • 2.5Co-occurrence of reduplicative nominals
  • 3.Verbal reduplication
    • 3.1Type I Verbs
    • 3.2Type II verbs
  • 4.Adverbial reduplication
  • 5.Adpositional reduplication
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations and symbols
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 23 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.48.11maz
References
Banti, Giorgio
1988 Two Cushitic systems: Somali and Oromo. In Autosegmental Studies on Pitch Accent, Harry Van der Hulst & Norval Smith (eds), 11–49. Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauer, Laurie
2003 Introducing Linguistic Morphology, 2nd edn. Edinburgh: EUP.Google Scholar
Bender, M. Lionel & Mulugeta Eteffa
1976 Galla. In Language in Ethiopia, M. Lionel Bender, J. Donald Bowen, Robert L. Cooper & Charles A. Ferguson (eds), 130–148. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Desta Tekle Weld
1970 addis Yamara Məzgəbə K’alat (A New Amharic Dictionary). Addis Ababa: Artistic Printing Press.Google Scholar
Diessel, Holger
1999 Demonstratives: Form, Function, and Grammaticalisation [Typological Studies in Language 42]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fabb, Nigel
2001 Compounding. In The Handbook of Morphology, Andrew Spencer & Arnold M. Zwicky (eds), 66–83. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
F.D.R.E. Population Census Commission
2008 Summary and Statistical Report of the 2007 Population and Housing Census.Google Scholar
Fikadu Belda Kebede
2014 Dissimilation in Oromo Phonology. International Journal of Innovative Research & Development 3(13): 187–196.Google Scholar
Gragg, Gene B.
1976 Oromo of Wellegga. In The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia, M. Lionel Bender (ed), 166–195. East Lansing MI: African Studies Center, Michigan State University.Google Scholar
Griefenow-Mewis, Catherine
2001 A Grammatical Sketch of Written Oromo. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Habte Bulti
2003 Analysis of tone in Oromo. MA thesis, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa.Google Scholar
Hayward, Richard J. & Gemetchu Megerssa
1996 Nominal Tone in Western Oromo. In Voice and Power: The Culture of Language in North East Africa, Richard J. Hayward & Ioan M. Lewis (eds), 21–36. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Katamba, Francis & Stonham, John
2006 Morphology, 2nd edn. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lloret-Romanyach, Maria-Rosa
1988 Gemination and Vowel Length in Oromo Morphophonology. PhD dissertation, Indiana University at Bloomington.Google Scholar
Matthews, Peter H.
1991 Morphology (2nd ed.). Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, John J.
2006 Prosodic morphology. In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 10, Keith Brown (ed.), 182–190. Oxford: Elsevier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, John J. & Prince, Alan
1988 Quantitative transfer in reduplicative and templatic morphology. In Linguistics in the Morning Calm 2, The Linguistic Society of Korea (eds) 3–35. Seoul: Hanshin.Google Scholar
1993 Prosodic morphology: Constraint interaction and satisfaction [Linguistics Department Faculty Publication Series 14]. Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts. [URL]> (17 August 2020).
2001 Prosodic morphology. In The Handbook of Morphology, Andrew Spencer & Arnold M. Zwicky (eds), 283–305. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Edith A.
1978 Reduplicative constructions. In Universals of Human Language, Vol. 3: Word Structure, Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), 297–334. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Owens, Jonathan
1980 Observations on tone in the Booran dialect of Oromo. African Language Studies 17: 141–196.Google Scholar
1985 A Grammar of Harar Oromo. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.Google Scholar
Payne, Thomas E.
1997 Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shimelis Mazengia
2015 Nominalization via Verbal Derivation: Amharic, Tigrinya and Oromo. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Spencer, Andrew
1991 Morphological Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2001 Morphological operations. In The Handbook of Morphology, Andrew Spencer & Arnold M. Zwicky (eds), 123–143. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stroomer, Harry
1995 A grammar of Boraana Oromo (Kenya), (Kuschitische Sprachstudien 11.) Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Tosco, Mauro
2000 Cushitic overview. Journal of Ethiopian Studies 23(2): 87–121.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Garoma, Eba Teresa
2024. Demonstratives in Afaan Oromoo. Cogent Arts & Humanities 11:1 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.