Explorations in Ethiopian Linguistics: complex predicates, finiteness and interrogativity

Explorations in Ethiopian Linguistics brings together twelve contributions on linguistic problems at the interface of morphosyntax and semantics/pragmatics in Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic languages of Ethiopia. The first section of the volume consists of two articles on interrogativity in Amharic and Baskeet. Their main concern is the morphosyntax and use of yes/no and content questions, and the morphology of interrogative pronouns. The second section assembles four chapters dealing with complex predicates in Amharic, Koorete, Zargulla and Xamtanga. They point out the semantic/pragmatic differences between complex predicates and their monoverbal counterparts, the morphosyntactic properties of the component verbs, and the differences between complex predicates and multi-clausal constructions. The six contributions of the third section are dedicated to issues of finiteness in Libido and various Ethiosemitic languages including Amharic, Gəʿəz, Gurage languages and Tigrinya. The studies show that a high degree of linguistic variability occurs in finiteness marking in these languages. In discussing verb forms that are neither fully finite nor fully infinite they provide further support for the hypothesis that finiteness should be considered a relational - scalar rather than an absolute - binary category. Most articles are based on presentations made at the 18th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies held from 29 October until 2 November 2012 in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, and, thus, reflect recent research trends in the description of Ethiopian languages

Explorations in Ethiopian Linguistics: complex predicates, finiteness and interrogativity

Explorations in Ethiopian Linguistics brings together twelve contributions on linguistic problems at the interface of morphosyntax and semantics/pragmatics in Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic languages of Ethiopia. The first section of the volume consists of two articles on interrogativity in Amharic and Baskeet. Their main concern is the morphosyntax and use of yes/no and content questions, and the morphology of interrogative pronouns. The second section assembles four chapters dealing with complex predicates in Amharic, Koorete, Zargulla and Xamtanga. They point out the semantic/pragmatic differences between complex predicates and their monoverbal counterparts, the morphosyntactic properties of the component verbs, and the differences between complex predicates and multi-clausal constructions. The six contributions of the third section are dedicated to issues of finiteness in Libido and various Ethiosemitic languages including Amharic, Gəʿəz, Gurage languages and Tigrinya. The studies show that a high degree of linguistic variability occurs in finiteness marking in these languages. In discussing verb forms that are neither fully finite nor fully infinite they provide further support for the hypothesis that finiteness should be considered a relational - scalar rather than an absolute - binary category. Most articles are based on presentations made at the 18th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies held from 29 October until 2 November 2012 in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, and, thus, reflect recent research trends in the description of Ethiopian languages

Singing the individual : name tunes in Oyda and Yopno

Music beats spoken language in identifying individuals uniquely in two disparate communities. In addition to their given names, which conform to the conventions of their languages, speakers of the Oyda (Omotic; SW Ethiopia) and Yopno (Finisterre-Huon; NE Papua New Guinea) languages have “name tunes,” short 1–4 s melodies that can be sung or whistled to hail or to identify for other purposes. Linguistic given names, for both communities, are often non-unique: people may be named after ancestors or contemporaries, or bear given names common to multiple individuals. But for both communities, name tunes are generally non-compositional and unique to individuals. This means that each new generation is likely to bring thousands of new name tunes into existence. In both communities, name tunes are produced in a range of contexts, from quotidian summoning and mid-range communication, to ceremonial occasions. In their use of melodies to directly represent individual people, the Oyda and Yopno name tune systems differ from surrogate speech systems elsewhere that either: (a) mimic linguistic forms, or (b) use music to represent a relatively small set of messages. Also, unlike some other musical surrogate speech traditions, the Oyda and Yopno name tune systems continue to be used productively, despite societal changes that have led to declining use in some domains

Converbs, Medial Verbs, Clause Chaining and Related Issues

This volume grew out of a workshop on "Converbs, medial verbs, clause chaining and related issues" held at Leiden University on 8th December 2006, which was cosponsored by the Swiss National Science Fotmdation (SNF) project "Functional typology of Ethiopian languages" (no. 100012-\09306). That occasion brought together specialists working on a range of languages spoken in a circle that spans from New Caledonia via India to Ethiopia and Mozambique. All while struggling to find a common language to talk about phenomena that are so pervasive in our respective languages of investigation, our discussions greatly benefited from the pooling of experiences in fields between which scientific exchange is often obstructed by the boundaries of various traditions. Far from adhering all to one theory or perspective, we hope that bringing together the following articles in one volume will provide new data and insights for tile already lively discussion around converbs, medial verbs and related issues. We wish to thank the editorial board of the Frankfurter Afrikanistische Blatter for accepting this volume in their journal and for their willingness to publish articles that go beyond African languages. In the same vein, we wish to thank all contributors to this volume, and especially our non-Africanist colleagues that have crossed one or more continental and disciplinary divides by publishing in this journal. Special mention and thanks are due to Sascha Völlmin, who did the layout of the whole volume. Finally, we hereby gratefully acknowledge the financial and logistical support of the workshop by the Institute of African Languages and Cultures, Leiden, and the Swiss National Science Foundation

Healthcare Access and Quality Index based on mortality from causes amenable to personal health care in 195 countries and territories, 1990-2015 : a novel analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background National levels of personal health-care access and quality can be approximated by measuring mortality rates from causes that should not be fatal in the presence of effective medical care (ie, amenable mortality). Previous analyses of mortality amenable to health care only focused on high-income countries and faced several methodological challenges. In the present analysis, we use the highly standardised cause of death and risk factor estimates generated through the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) to improve and expand the quantification of personal health-care access and quality for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2015. Methods We mapped the most widely used list of causes amenable to personal health care developed by Nolte and McKee to 32 GBD causes. We accounted for variations in cause of death certification and misclassifications through the extensive data standardisation processes and redistribution algorithms developed for GBD. To isolate the effects of personal health-care access and quality, we risk-standardised cause-specific mortality rates for each geography-year by removing the joint effects of local environmental and behavioural risks, and adding back the global levels of risk exposure as estimated for GBD 2015. We employed principal component analysis to create a single, interpretable summary measure-the Healthcare Quality and Access (HAQ) Index-on a scale of 0 to 100. The HAQ Index showed strong convergence validity as compared with other health-system indicators, including health expenditure per capita (r= 0.88), an index of 11 universal health coverage interventions (r= 0.83), and human resources for health per 1000 (r= 0.77). We used free disposal hull analysis with bootstrapping to produce a frontier based on the relationship between the HAQ Index and the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a measure of overall development consisting of income per capita, average years of education, and total fertility rates. This frontier allowed us to better quantify the maximum levels of personal health-care access and quality achieved across the development spectrum, and pinpoint geographies where gaps between observed and potential levels have narrowed or widened over time. Findings Between 1990 and 2015, nearly all countries and territories saw their HAQ Index values improve; nonetheless, the difference between the highest and lowest observed HAQ Index was larger in 2015 than in 1990, ranging from 28.6 to 94.6. Of 195 geographies, 167 had statistically significant increases in HAQ Index levels since 1990, with South Korea, Turkey, Peru, China, and the Maldives recording among the largest gains by 2015. Performance on the HAQ Index and individual causes showed distinct patterns by region and level of development, yet substantial heterogeneities emerged for several causes, including cancers in highest-SDI countries; chronic kidney disease, diabetes, diarrhoeal diseases, and lower respiratory infections among middle-SDI countries; and measles and tetanus among lowest-SDI countries. While the global HAQ Index average rose from 40.7 (95% uncertainty interval, 39.0-42.8) in 1990 to 53.7 (52.2-55.4) in 2015, far less progress occurred in narrowing the gap between observed HAQ Index values and maximum levels achieved; at the global level, the difference between the observed and frontier HAQ Index only decreased from 21.2 in 1990 to 20.1 in 2015. If every country and territory had achieved the highest observed HAQ Index by their corresponding level of SDI, the global average would have been 73.8 in 2015. Several countries, particularly in eastern and western sub-Saharan Africa, reached HAQ Index values similar to or beyond their development levels, whereas others, namely in southern sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and south Asia, lagged behind what geographies of similar development attained between 1990 and 2015. Interpretation This novel extension of the GBD Study shows the untapped potential for personal health-care access and quality improvement across the development spectrum. Amid substantive advances in personal health care at the national level, heterogeneous patterns for individual causes in given countries or territories suggest that few places have consistently achieved optimal health-care access and quality across health-system functions and therapeutic areas. This is especially evident in middle-SDI countries, many of which have recently undergone or are currently experiencing epidemiological transitions. The HAQ Index, if paired with other measures of health-systemcharacteristics such as intervention coverage, could provide a robust avenue for tracking progress on universal health coverage and identifying local priorities for strengthening personal health-care quality and access throughout the world. Copyright (C) The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Zayse and Zargulla language

[Extract] Zs. and Zg. are regarded as two dialects of the same language (hereafter: Zargulla-Zayse, Zg.-Zs.). They are classified under the East ↗ Ometo branch of ↗ Omotic. The dialectal variation between them includes lexical differences such as Zg. zumá vs. Zs. bocé 'mountain', Zg. haáʾe vs. Zs. baadé 'mouth', Zg. kiine vs. Zs. ʾatté 'back', Zg. ʾóotso vs. Zs. kábbe 'work [noun]', In grammar, the differences include: plural-marking by -ir in Zs. as in tolkó 'hyena' vs. tolkír 'hyenas' and by -edél -ede in Zg., e.g., séga 'goat' vs. segedé. In Zg. definiteness is marked by suffixes (s. below) whereas in Zs. it is marked by pro-clitic prnouns ʾe (masc. sg.), ʾi (fem. sg.) and ʾu (pl.), e.g., gárma 'a lion' vs. ʾe-gárma 'the lion'. In the present entry, most examples are from Zg. Data on Zs. are from Hayward (1990; 1999)

Oyda: multi-media documentation of the Oyda language

Oyda is the name by which the language and its speakers, as well as the area in which the people reside, is known. Oyda elders relate the origin of their ethnic and language name to the homonym ?oida 'a seat'. By this identification their ancestors allegedly wanted to indicate the comfort and hospitality that the place seemed to offer to them after their long travel from southeastern and northwestern direction, when they declared: 'this is the place to be, this is the seat'

Omotic

The term 'Omotic' is used to refer to a group of languages and dialects, all of which are found within the Ethiopian territory, mainly in the south-central and western areas (see map 6.1). The largest concentration of Omotic languages is in a more or less contiguous area in the southwest, within the administration domain of the Southern Ethiopian Nations, National and Peoples' Regional State (SNNPRS). Outside of this state there are Omotic-language enclaves among speakers of other languages. These enclaves include the Shinasha, who live in the midst of Amharic-speaking areas of Gojjam, just north of the Blue Nile. Within Omotic, the linguistically closest groups to the Shinhasa (a Gonga language) are Kafa and Shakacho ('Mocha'), which are spoken further south in the Kafa region. Other isolated Omotic-speaking people are the Anfillo/Mao and Hozo-Sezo in the western Oromiya nd Benishangul-Gumuz regions. The Yen people, farther northeast in the Omotic area, are surrounded by speakers of Cushitic and Semitic (Gurage)languages. The Dizi form another omotic 'island', surrounded fully by the Surmic languages Me'en, Baale, and Surma. Such scattered settlement of Omotic groups seems to indicate a former contiguous, and perhaps larger, distribution of Omotic languages (see Fleming 1984; Hayward 1995)

Compound verbs and ideophones in Wolaitta revisited

[Extract] Complex predicates, subsuming what are known as particle+'say' verbs, compound verbs, and ideophonic constructions are widely attested in the Ethiopian Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic languages. They are reported for Amharic (Leslau 1945, 1995; see also Amberber, this volume), Awngi (Hetzron 1969), Bench (Rapold 2006), Hamar (Lydall 2000) Qafar (Hayward 1994, Somali(Dhoorre and Tosco 1998), and Wolaitta (adams 1983, Lamberti and Sotille 1997, Amha 2001, Amha and Dimmendaal 2006a, Amha, this volume), among others. Appleyard (2001) and Cohen, Simeone-Senelle and Vanhove (2002) have highlighted the importance of the construction for (historical)-comparative studies of Afroasiatic as it can account for a number of innovations in the verbal system of Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic languages.\ud \ud The construction involves two predicative elements, which could be labelled temporarily: P(redicate)1 + P(redicate)2. P1 is often represented by a verbal form with restricted inflectional possibilities, e.g. by the converb (also known as gerundive), ideophonic verb, or a derived verbal stem. In some languages, e.g. Qafar (Central Cushitic), P1 may be a noun, an adjective, or a postpositional phrase (cf. Hayward 1994). P2 is a fully inflecting verb if the complex predicate is the head of a clause

Wolaitta

Three strategies are used for participant identification in Wolaitta, an Omotic language spoken in south Ethiopia. These include direct marking, i.e., participant marking on nominals themselves through case affixes; participant marking on the verb and word order. Of the three, direct marking is the most reliable diagnostic for identifying participant roles since case marking is obligatory in the language and a number of structural and semantic cases are morphologically distinguished. Moreover, non-canonical marking is limited. Verbal marking is also obligatory and robust in the language as distinct person marking morphemes are used in different types of constructions. However, this second diagnostic means is restricted to A/S roles; O and other participant roles are not marked on the verb. Word order can be indicative of participant roles in a restricted sense. SOV is the most frequently used word order and it designates pragmatically neutral assertions, questions or commands. However, word order by itself is not a reliable means for participant identification since it can be altered for focus and topicalization purposes. Like in most other Omotic languages, in Wolaitta texts long sentences with a series of dependent clauses are frequent. Verbal marking extends also to such dependent clauses, since some of the verbs that head dependent clauses are morphologically marked to indicate whether the S/A of the verb in the dependent clause is the same or different from the S/A of the matrix clause. Thus, the three strategies combined work efficiently in processing the role of each participant in such 'paragraph long sentences'