Amharic Grammar Fundamentals

Amharic Grammar

Phonology

• Amharic has a unique set of consonant and vowel phonemes:
  • 33 consonant phonemes
  • 7 vowel phonemes
• Amharic script is an abugida, where each symbol represents a consonant-vowel pair
• Gemination: consonant lengthening is phonemically distinctive in Amharic

Morphology

• Amharic is an agglutinative language, with a system of suffixes and prefixes to indicate grammatical relationships
• Verbs:
  • Have a complex system of suffixes and prefixes to indicate tense, mood, and person
  • Can be conjugated in various ways, including:
    • Imperfective (ongoing action)
    • Perfective (completed action)
    • Jussive (command or request)
    • Imperative (direct command)
• Nouns:
  • Have a system of suffixes to indicate case and number
  • Can be marked for:
    • Nominative case (subject)
    • Accusative case (direct object)
    • Genitive case (possessor)
    • Dative case (indirect object)
    • Ablative case (means or instrument)

Syntax

• Amharic is a subject-verb-object (SVO) language
• Word order is relatively flexible, but SVO is the most common
• Clause structure:
  • Independent clauses: can stand alone as a sentence
  • Dependent clauses: cannot stand alone and must be attached to an independent clause
• Use of pronouns:
  • Amharic has a complex system of pronouns, including:
    • Personal pronouns (I, you, he, etc.)
    • Possessive pronouns (my, your, his, etc.)
    • Reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, himself, etc.)

Other Features

• Amharic has a system of honorifics, where the speaker shows respect or deference to the listener or a third party
• Use of politeness markers:
  • Amharic has a system of politeness markers, which indicate the level of respect or deference
  • Examples: -n (polite), -w (very polite), -h (very formal)