Copulas in Kambaata

The paper elaborates on the synchronic functions and formal features of the non-locative copulas -ha/-ta and -VV-t in Kambaata. It discusses the intricate distribution rules of the copulas and the relationship between proximal demonstratives, case/gender markers and copulas

Motion events in Kambaata

published 2008International audienceBased on oral and written text data, the present article investigates in which morphosyntactic constituents the semantic components of a motion event (i.e. path, manner, figure and ground of motion) are realised in Kambaata. Although the path of motion is lexicalised in many verb roots, the analysis points out the great importance of case morphemes on ground NPs for the encoding of path. Furthermore, the study illustrates how complex motion events are broken up into semantic sub-components and how these sub-components are expressed in separate converbal clauses

Kambaata children's songs and word games: Or what can we learn about the grammar of Kambaata by analysing marginal literature genres?

34 pagesThe present article analyses children's songs and word games of the Cushitic language Kambaata and follows up on the question whether this text genre can contribute useful data for a grammatical analysis of this little known language. The corpus of nine texts, which are glossed, translated and annotated, constitute the core of this article. Recordings of the texts are made available online

Negation in Highland East Cushitic

Highland East Cushitic (HEC) is a small group of five closely related languages and their dialects in Southern Ethiopia, in which not less than eight non-cognate negative morphemes are attested. In this paper I take a comparative look at the forms and functions of these negative morphemes. A HEC language has at least two negative morphemes to differentiate the negation of declarative and non-declarative verbs. Kambaata and Hadiyya, which have the greatest number of negative morphemes among the HEC languages, apply different negation strategies to declarative main verbs, imperative verbs, jussive verbs, converbs and relative verbs

Expressing future time reference in Kambaata

Kambaata (Highland East Cushitic) is an aspect-marking language with a prominent opposition between perfective and imperfective aspect. The absolute location of an event in time (tense) is expressed by devices other than verbal inflection or inferred from the aspectual value of a verb. The present article discusses the devices that are applied to encode future in Kambaata. Firstly, imperfective verb forms can be interpreted as expressing future reference. Secondly, the language has grammaticalised two purpose constructions into imminent and/or intentional future constructions. Furthermore, certain converb forms can be used to express that events in subordinate clauses are later in time than events expressed in the matrix clause. A comparison with related languages shows that Kambaata is a typical Highland East Cushitic language, as far as the means used to encode future time reference are concerned

Diamond Prototypes for the ATLAS SLHC Pixel Detector

Vertex detectors at future hadron colliders will need to cope with large particle fluences. Diamond is a particularly radiation hard material and exhibits further properties that makes it an attractive material for such detectors. Within the RD42 collaboration several chemical vapor deposition diamond samples are being studied in the form of strip and pixel detectors. While the quality of the poly-crystalline diamond samples is constantly increasing and the feasibility of producing wafers has been demonstrated, recently a single-crystal diamond pixel detector has been assembled and characterized in a 100 GeV particle beam at CERN. Results on performance, detection efficiency, spatial resolution and charge collection are reported here together with the latest radiation damage studies.Comment: 3 pages, 8 figures, 1st International conference on Technology and Instrumentation in Particle Physics (TIPP09

Notes from the Field: Baskeet Phonological Sketch and Digital Wordlist

National Foreign Language Resource Cente

Categorial hybrids in Kambaata

forthcoming in: Journal of African Languages and LinguisticsThe paper discusses three categorial hybrids in the East Cushitic language Kambaata, viz. negative participles, agent adjectives and verbal nouns, all of which are shown to combine properties of two word classes (lexical categories) systematically. Unlike their affirmative counterparts, Kambaata negative relative verbs qualify as verbal adjectives (participles), because, apart from having verbal inflectional morphology and a completely verbal argument structure, they have also acquired adjectival morphology to indicate case/gender agreement with their head nouns. The combination of verbal and adjectival features is less balanced for agent adjectives, which retain fewer properties of the verbs they are based on; they are still able to govern objects and adverbial clauses, though. Kambaata verbal nouns behave almost entirely like verbs in relation to their dependents but as nouns in the clause they are arguments of. I argue that the negative participle formation and the verbal noun formation are inflectional processes which change the word form word class from verb to adjective and verb to noun, respectively, but which preserve the properties of the lexeme word class (Verb). In contrast, the agent adjective formation is analysed as a derivational process with a greater impact on lexeme word class

Purpose-encoding strategies in Kambaata

International audienceThe Highland East Cushitic language Kambaata employs five different purpose-encoding strategies. Purpose clauses can be headed by switch reference-sensitive purposive verb forms or by dative-marked verbal nouns. A third type of purpose clause is modelled on a similative clause and contains a relative verb to which an enclitic 'like' is added. Two less common strategies are the converb and the quotative strategy. The present article gives a detailed account of the syntax of purpose clauses (and complex sentences) as well as the morphology of the verb forms used in purpose clauses. It also discusses which formal devices are shared between purpose and complement clauses and between purpose clauses and indirect commands (jussive clauses). Finally, the purpose-encoding strategies applied in Kambaata are compared to those in closely related Highland East Cushitic languages

Perception verbs and taste adjectives in Kambaata and beyond

International audienceThe present article is a study of shared lexicalisation patterns in the Ethiopian language area. It discusses how the semantic field of physical perception and the semantic field of taste are carved up in the Highland East Cushitic language Kambaata and in genetically related and/or geographically adjacent languages