1. Family: Afro-Asiatic
  2. Genus: Semitic

Amharic

WALS coordinates: 10° N, 38° E

spoken in Ethiopia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Amharic
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone No tones
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders Two
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
      Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      The Associative Plural Unique affixal associative plural
      Definite Articles Definite affix
      Indefinite Articles Indefinite word same as 'one'
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns In 3rd person + 1st and/or 2nd person
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
      Number of Cases 2 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Distributive Numerals Marked by reduplication
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Action Nominal Constructions Possessive-Accusative
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect Other perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb OV
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun
      Position of Polar Question Particles Final
      Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Final subordinator word
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and RelN
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
      Passive Constructions Present
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Double negation
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Locational
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Comparative Constructions Locational
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Identical
      Finger and Hand Different
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha