A Sketch Grammar of Wolaytta

Abstract

Wolaytta is an Omotic language of the Afroasiatic family (or phylum) spoken in southwestern Ethiopia. The aim of this paper was to create a grammatical sketch of the language. After offering basic background information on Wolaytta, I report that the language has 29 consonant phonemes and 5 vowel phonemes, the latter of which can be combined to form a long vowel or diphthong. I also briefly describe the notation employed by natives and an accentual system of Wolaytta. Most words in Wolaytta consist of a lexical stem and a grammatical ending. This paper lists the endings of each word class and mentions their uses. Suffixes that are used in word formation are also discussed. As for syntax, Wolaytta is a typical OV language, although its appositive construction may obscure the fact that modifiers precede their modified heads. The agreement between the subject and the predicate verb is generally determined by the form, not by the meaning, although there are some exceptions. Wolaytta prefers quotations in which direct and indirect speech is mixed. A nominalizer can be the head of a relative clause in which the substituted noun occurs. Finally, this paper touches on honorifics, rhymes, and oral literature in Wolaytta.