Derivation of Verbs in Eža

Abstract

Eža is one of the West Gurage languages within the Ethio-Semitic language family. It is spoken in the south-western part of Ethiopia in the Gurage Zone, particularly in the Ežana Wenene district. ‘Eža’ also designates the people who speak it. In this article I made an attempts to describe the derivation of verbs in the language. In section I, types of verbs are discussed. Verbs are grouped as Type A, Type B and Type C base on their stem patterns (germination of consonants and vowel quality). It is shown that most verbs in the language are tri-radicals. It is argued that radicals below three were originally tri-radicals and they are therefore reduced forms and that the original form can be reconstructed. Derivations of verbs have been grouped into simple derivation and complex derivation. The former refers to the derivation of verbs by affixing a morpheme or other mechanisms of internal modification such as vowel change or germination of consonants or both. The latter refers to the derivation of verbs by combining two or more affixes in addition to internal modifications. The derivation of passive/reflexive, causative, adjutative, frequentative and reciprocal are discussed under the sub title simple verb derivation. In the subsection on complex verbal derivation, verbs like the frequentative passive, frequentative o f reciprocal, frequentative causative, reciprocal causative, and causative o f the frequentative reciprocal are expounded. As the derivation process involves both affixation and changes of stem patterns, listing the derivational morphemes without the stem patterns seems skeptical. Therefore, I encourage the reader to go through the text in order to have a full understanding ofthe derivation processes.