The enclitic -mm in Amharic: reassessment of a multifunctional morpheme (1).(Report)

Abstract

In this article we examine the enclitic -mm in Amharic and its claimed functions as topic marker and coordinative conjunction. The enclitic -mm has multiple translations into English, and would thus seem to constitute a multifunctional morpheme. In contrast to previous analyses, we argue that the several interpretations of enclitic -mm in discourse are due to different context-dependent readings of its single function, namely as contrastive focus marker.

1. Introduction

The enclitic -mm in Amharic has been claimed to fulfill several discourse-pragmatic and grammatical functions. On the one hand it is referred to as a marker of topic, topic change or focus (Blejer 1986: 186; Bliese 1988: 619; Gasser 1983: 114, 128; Hetzron 1973). On the other hand it is also referred to as a coordinating conjunction with noun phrases and as a marker of indefinite pronouns (Blejer 1986: 185ff.; Leslau 1995: 882ff.). Kapeliuk (1978, 2001) and Gasser (1985) analyze the enclitic as a connective element on the discourse level. Hetzron (1973: 4-5, 8), furthermore, proposes that the same enclitic -mm is also involved in the circumfixal negation of matrix clauses in the indicative mood. According to Hetzron it also functions as a prefixal nominalizer with relative verbs in the imperfective aspect.

Amharic is an Ethiosemitic language spoken in Ethiopia by approximately 80% of the population (cf. Meyer and Richter 2003: 40; Girma 2001). Structurally it belongs to Heine's type D languages (Heine 1975: 36f.), i.e., it is a subject-object-verb (SOV) language with modifying elements preceding the head. Amharic is not a language that possesses obligatory focus markers in syntax like, for instance, Somali (cf. Saeed 1984) or Zay (cf. Meyer 2002, 2005: 291). Focus in Amharic, or more generally the pragmatic status of a sentential constituent in the sense of Chafe (1976: 27), is mainly controlled by pragmatics and not by grammar, i.e., its expression is optional. (2) Information structuring applies both on the sentential and on the extra-sentential level. While on the sentential level a single sentence is the frame of reference for discourse markers, on the extra-sentential level constituents of at least two sentences are set into relationship to one another.

2. Interactions between sentence topic and the morpheme -mm

According to Hetzron (1973) and Blejer (1986), one of the main functions of-mm is to mark the topic of a sentence. Kapeliuk (1978: 275) and Girma and Meyer (2007), in contrast, do not consider it a topic marker because topics in Amharic are marked syntactically by fronting them into the sentence-initial position. In an SOV language like Amharic the sentence-initial position is usually filled by the subject. However, any nonverbal phrase can occur in sentence-initial position and become the topic of the sentence if it is definite in the sense of being identifiable in the discourse, as in the following examples: (3)