Pronouns in Argobba

This study focuses on the morphosyntactic properties pronouns in Argobba, an endangered Ethio-Semitic language. The data for this study is collected from Shonke, where the language is used widely and actively by elders and the young generation. The study found that the subject, interrogative and demonstrative pronouns are primitive whereas the possessive, object and reciprocal pronouns are derived. It is also argued that the derived pronouns are lexicalized in the present day Argobba. Reflexive meaning is expressed by the base dÈmah ‘head’ and hÈms ‘soul’ suffixing possessive pronouns. Likewise, reciprocity is expressed by reduplicating dɨmah and hɨms with the connector morpheme li.

not independent languages." (Leslau, 1997:131) also brings to a close by saying "The mutual intelligibility combined with many common features between Amharic and Argobba leads me to the conclusion that Argobba is an Amharic dialect".
However, counter to the assumptions forwarded by the above mentioned scholars, other researchers bear out that Argobba is an independent language. Waldron (1984:50) claims that although Argobba is closely related to Amharic, it is a distinct language. Likewise Wetter (2006Wetter ( , 2010, Getahun (2009Getahun ( , 2010 among others assert that Argobba is an independent language.
The main objective of this research is to describe the morphosyntactic properties of Argobba pronouns. The data for this study is from Shonke and Telha where there are fluent Argobba speakers. They call their language Argobba afɨčči 'Argobba's mouth'.
Pronouns in Argobba come out in two forms: independent and dependent pronouns. The independent pronouns are free lexical elements which take different syntactic positions carrying out different grammatical functions in a sentence. The dependent ones are attached to verbs and nouns. Those which attach to verbs are subject and object agreement pronoun affixes whereas those which attach to nouns are possessive pronoun suffixes which signify the possessor of the thing designated by the noun that the pronoun suffix is attached to.
This study comprises eight sections. In section 2, 3 and 4, subject, object and possessive pronouns are discussed respectively. In section 5, interrogative pronouns are addressed. Section 6 deals with reflexive and reciprocal pronouns. Section 7 focuses on demonstrative pronouns. Finally, section 8 sums up the discussion.

Subject pronouns
In Argobba, the following are independent personal pronouns which are associated with subject. The subject pronouns take a subject position in a sentence structure as shown in (2)  Based on the data collected from Aliyu Amba and Ankober, Leslau (1997:20), identifies the following subject pronoun forms. As can be observed from (3), the 1sg, 3sg and 3pl personal pronouns have completely different forms from the ones in (1). That is, the 1sg is an in Shonke and Telha but ´y(y) in Aliyu Amba and Ankober. Likewise the third person pronoun forms Èwwat 'he', Èyyat 'she' and Èll´m 'they' in Shonke and Telha are kÈssu, kɨssa and kÈss´m respectively in Leslau's data from Ankober and Aliyu Amba. Notice that the pronoun forms kÈssu 'he' and kÈssa, in Leslau's data, are similar to the Amharic Èssu 'he' and Èss w a 'she'. This clearly shows that Leslau's data is strongly affected by Amharic, the dominant language in the areas.
We also find the following list of subject pronouns in the SLLE Linguistic Report 22, 1994, pp16. It is noted in the report that the Argobba informants in Shewa Robit, where the data was collected, had come from Shonke. In this case, one may anticipate that the subject pronouns will be similar, if not identical, to the ones in (1) from Shonke. However, as is ① In Leslau (1997), the vowels /ä/ and // are used for mid central vowel and high central vowel respectively. observed from (4), there are some remarkable differences. For instance, the 3m and 3f subject pronouns, which are Èwwat and Èyyat respectively in (1), appear as iwwat and ijjat respectively in the SLLE Linguistic Report. As the data for this study asserts, these pronouns are possessive pronouns not subject pronouns. As to the 3pl pronoun form ÈlläB in (4), the Argobba informants for this study completely rejected it. It seems that the word is wrongly transcribed.
With regard to the grammatical features of the independent subject pronouns, it is worth mentioning that the pronouns could be dropped in a sentence without affecting the basic meaning. As we can see in the immediately following discussion, the subject agreement affixes on the respective verbs identify the subject pronouns. The subject independent pronouns are phonetically realized to give emphasis to the subject. Compare the structures in (5a) and (5b) below. In (5), the example in (5a) but not in (5b) could also have the meaning 'it is SHE, not anybody else, who went to Kemissie today.' In Argobba, besides the above mentioned independent subject pronouns, there are a set of subject agreement pronoun affixes which are attached to verbal stems. The subject agreement affixes can be a prefix or a suffix depending on the aspects of the verbal stems. Consider the following examples for perfective, gerundive and imperfective verbal stems derived from the consonantal root s -b -r 'break'.
s´bb´r -y ① In the Argobba variety spoken in Shonke and Telha, the 3ms subject agreement in the perfective verb form is -ø; whereas in the Argobba variety spoken in Gacheni, Aliyu Amba and surrounding areas, the pronoun agreement is -a.
(7) Gerundive Stem As is observed from the examples in (6) and (7), the subject pronouns are suffixes in perfective and gerundive verbs. In the imperfective stem (8), with the exception of 1s, there are prefixes which are attached to the verbal stem, and suffixes attached to the auxiliary. As can be observed from the examples in (8) again, for 3ms pronoun, there is no phonetically realized suffix agreement pronoun following the auxiliary. In the contrary, there is no auxiliary for 1pl pronoun.
In Argobba, like in other sister languages such as Amharic, the subject agreement pronouns are obligatory. What makes Argobba different from Amharic, for instance, is the prefix agreement pronouns in the imperfective verb forms are optional. Furthermore, in the imperfective stem, the subject is commonly identified from the subject pronoun suffix attached to the auxiliary. For instance, s´br-Èll-tStS 'She breaks / will break' is more acceptable than tÈ-s´br-Èll-tStS.
Before closing this subsection, let us make one final remark about the subject pronoun affixes with the gerundive verb forms. The verb forms can go with the past auxiliary Èmb´r 'was/were'. In this case, both the verb stem and the auxiliary carry suffix pronoun agreements as exemplified in (9). ① The 2s subject pronoun suffixes in the gerundive stem are -x and -S which are -ex and -eS respectively in the perfective stem.
Notice that the pronoun suffixes attached to the auxiliary are identical to the ones attached to the perfective verb stem.

Possessive pronouns
Based on the data collected from Shonke and Telha, the following are the possessive personal pronouns in the language. When we closely look at the pronouns in (10), with the exception of the 1sg and the second person possessive pronouns, the rest are similar to the subject pronoun forms shown in (1). The 1sg and the second pronouns have completely different forms from their subject pronoun counterparts. However, the 1pl and the third person pronouns are interrelated. Let us compare the two pronoun forms side by side as follows.
Èll´m 'they' ill´m 'their' As can be learnt from these examples, the phonetic similarity between the subject and the possessive pronouns shows that they have close relationship.
With the exception of the second person, the rest of the possessive pronouns uniformly begin with the vowel /i/. This uniformity along with their similarity in form with the subject pronoun forms doubtlessly inspires one to be inquisitive to closely examine the internal structures of the pronouns. Following Getahun (2009) In light of this, it may seem plausible to argue that the possessive pronouns are derived from their corresponding independent subject pronouns and the genitive morpheme -'of '. Hence the possessive pronouns inna, iwwat, ill´m and iyyat are derived in the following manner. (13) It seems that the derivation rule in (13) can be applied to the derivation of the second person possessive pronouns ax 'your (m)', aS 'your (f)' and axum your (pl.)' using phonological processes such as deletion and spirantization.
As the language does not allow a sequence of two vowels, the genitive will be deleted; because the initial sound of the subject pronouns ank 'you(m)', antS 'you(f)' and ankum 'you(pl)' is /a/. Next, n-deletion and spirantization will take place. The arguments raised so far lead us to claim that possessive pronouns in Argobba are not primitive but derived. It should, however, be noted that synchronically the pronouns are lexicalized items.
In Leslau (1997), there is no possessive pronoun at the lexical level. According to him, possession is expressed by y-+ noun/ pronoun structure. For instance, the possessive form yank 'your' is constituted by y-'of' and ank 'you'. As both y-and ank can co-occur with other constituents forming different phrase structures, it is possible to argue that yank 'your' is not at a lexical but at a phrasal level. This supposition is substantiated by the genitive NP structures in the language. That is, the y-+ noun structure is used to express different genitive meanings such as locative, temporal, source etc. as exemplified in (14) below. Another issue that confirms the proposed idea is that the structures observed in (Leslau, 1997) are exactly the same as the ones in Amharic. In Amharic, the genitive prefix y´co-occurs with pronouns and nouns to express possessive and other genitive meanings. Hence, it is plausible to argue that the structure to express possession in Leslau (1997) is due to the influence of Amharic.
Another source of data for possessive pronoun is the SLLE Report 22, 1994, pp16. In the Report, however, the data is confused and wrongly transcribed. For instance, the pronoun form iwwat, which is treated as the 3m subject pronoun is also considered as the 2m possessive pronoun. Similarly we also find ijjat considered ambiguously to denote 3fs subject and possessive pronoun. The 3ms possessive pronoun is wrongly transcribed as iwat. The data for this study, therefore, asserts that the data in the report is not reliable to stand for the pronouns in the language.
More to the point, there are dependent pronouns which are suffixed to nouns. The following are the possessive suffix pronouns with the noun È© 'brother'.
Unlike the independent pronouns, these pronoun suffixes are attached to possessed nouns. The independent possessive pronouns specify the following head noun in an NP structure. Compare the structures in (16) for the meaning 'Her brother came.' brother -her come.PF In (16a), iyya 'her' specifies È© 'brother' occurring preceding it. In (16b), the possessive suffix /-a/ is attached to È© for the same meaning.

Object pronouns
In Argobba, the following are independent object pronouns. When we closely look at the internal structure of the object pronouns in (17), we learn that with the exception of 1pl the rest end with -on /-ɨn ① . Since the object case marker is -n in the language (Getahun, 2009), one may presume that it surfaces as -on with singular object pronouns and as -ɨn with the plural ones. With regard to the base, exclusive of the third person, it seems that the bases for the object pronouns suffixes are their corresponding possessive pronouns. Hence, for the 1 st and 2 nd persons, the object pronouns are derived as possessive pronoun + -on/-ɨn. For the 3 rd person, the base is the subject pronoun and the object pronouns are derived as subject pronoun + -on/-ɨn.
The non-third object pronouns are, therefore, derived by possessive pronoun + -on/-ɨn. The third person object pronouns, on the other hand, are derived from the corresponding subject pronoun form and the object marker -on/-ɨn. The derivation of the object pronouns can be summarized as in (18) Although the derivation of the object pronouns is like what we have argued so far, in the ① The first person plural object pronoun is /innan/ because the base stem ends with the vowel /a/. present day Argobba, they are strongly lexicalized. As Argobba is an SOV language, the above mentioned object pronouns can be used as a complement of a transitive verb. Consider the structures in (19)

Interrogative pronouns
The following are interrogative pronouns in the language. The interrogative pronouns take different positions such as subject, object and adverbial positions in a sentence. The structures in (24)

Reflexive and reciprocal pronouns
Reflexive and reciprocal expressions are conveyed by using dɨmah 'head' and hɨms 'soul' as a base in the language. The reflexive meaning is expressed by dÈmah 'head' and hÈms 'soul' attaching possessive suffix pronouns. The reflexive forms surface in the ① It is possible to argue that limb´la 'why' is a derivative of the preposition l´-'for' and the interrogative pronoun ɨmb´la 'what'.
From the Argobba variety spoken in Ankober and Aliyu Amba, Leslau (1997:23-25) identifies the following demonstrative pronouns. ① As can be learned from the example in (30), a demonstrative and a definite suffix co-occur in the language.

Conclusion
This paper described the morphosyntactic structure of pronouns in Argobba, one of the seriously endangered Ethio-Semitic languages. The data for this study is from the Shonke variety spoken in Shonke and Telha areas in Amhara Regional State. Some different pronoun forms are found in SLLE Report 22 (1994) and Leslau (1997). It seems that the data in the SLLE Report 22 (1994) is somewhat awkward and wrongly transcribed. Then again, the data in Leslau (1997) is from the variety spoken in Aliyu Amba and Ankober, which is highly affected by Amharic.
With regard to personal pronouns, this study found that the subject pronouns are primitive whereas possessive and object pronouns are derived but are lexicalized. It is argued that the possessive pronouns are derived from the genitive morpheme ´-'of' and the ① Nonetheless, the forms are not in use in the present day Argobba. subject pronouns. The derivation of object pronouns is by the accusative case morpheme and the subject or the possessive personal pronoun bases. The accusative case morpheme -on/-ɨn is attached to subject and possessive pronouns to derive the third and the non-third person object pronouns respectively.
In this study, both independent and dependent subject, possessive and object pronouns are identified. The dependent subject pronouns are prefixes and suffixes whereas the dependent pronouns for possessive and object are consistently suffixes.
It is also found that reflexive meaning is expressed by the base dɨmah 'head' and hɨms 'soul' and a possessive suffix. Reciprocity is derived by reduplicating dɨmah 'head' and hɨms 'soul', with the linking morpheme li-. Interrogative and demonstrative pronouns are identified at a lexical level.