Dr. A. (Azeb) Amha M.A.

Position:
  • Post-doctoral researcher
Expertise:
  • Omotic languages, Amharic, the fidel(Ethiopic)-writing system


Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2782
E-Mail: a.amha@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Leiden Univ Centre for Linguistics, LUCL T&C van Afrika
Office Address: Witte Singel-complex
van Wijkplaats 4
2311 BX Leiden
Room number 204C
Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2782
E-Mail: a.amha@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Onderwijs- en Studentzaken, Onderwijsondersteuning & Studieadvies
Office Address: Witte Singel-complex
van Wijkplaats 4
2311 BX Leiden
Room number 204C
Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2782
E-Mail: a.amha@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Onderwijs- en Studentzaken, Onderwijsondersteuning & Studieadvies
Office Address: Witte Singel-complex
van Wijkplaats 4
2311 BX Leiden
Room number 204C

Fields of interest

Afroasiatic languages, linguistic typology and anthropological linguistics.

Research and supervision

-My initial research focused on the grammar and sociolinguistic situation of Maale (a member of the South Ometo branch of the Omotic language family) and on some aspects of Wolaitta ( North Ometo). Later I started studying the Zargulla language (East Ometo) as part of an umbrella-project on two endangered languages of Ethiopia. I am currently engaged in a research project on the typological comparison of interrogative and declarative clauses in Omotic languages.
-I co-supervise(d), with Prof. M. Mous, three Ph.D. studies: Mulugeta Seyoum’s study on the Dime language (Omotic, the thesis was defended on 23 April 2008), Anne-Christie Hellenthal’s study on the Sheko language (Omotic) and a study by Ongaye Oda on the morpho-syntax of Konso (Cushitic).

Curriculum Vitae

I studied general linguistics at Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia) in the undergraduate (BA) and graduate (MA) programs and taught general linguistics in the same University between 1990 and 1995. I did my PhD study at Leiden University (1996-2001). The project was financed by WOTRO and the CNWS and supervised by Professors G.J. Dimmendaal and Th.C. Schadeberg. Since September 2002 I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of African Languages and Cultures and the LUCL. I am co-editor of the Journal of African Languages and Linguistics (since 2005).

Teaching activities

Morpho-syntax
Anthropological Linguistics
The converb in African languages
Ethiopia as a language area
Structure courses: Amharic and Maale
Conversation courses: Amharic

Publications

Azeb Amha. 2007. Non-verbal predication in Wolaitta. In: Crass, Joachim and Ronny Meyer (eds.) Deictics, Copula and Focus in the Ethiopian Convergence Area, pp. 99-117. Cologne: Köppe Verlag.

______. 2007. Are -a- and -o- in the indicative verb paradigms of Zargulla nominalizers? In Azeb Amha, Graziano Sava and Maarten Mous (eds.) Omotic and Cushitic Languages Studies: Papers from  the Fourth Cushitic-Omotic Conference, Leiden, 10-12 April 2003, pp. 1-22. Cologne: Köppe Verlag.

______. 2007. Questioning forms in Zargulla. In: Voigt, Rainer (ed.) “From Beyond the Mediterranean”: Akten des 7. Internationalen Semitohamitistenkongresses, Berlin 13-15 September 2004, pp. 197-210. Aachen: Shaker Verlag.

______. 2006. Gender and animacy in Maale in comparative perspective. In: S. Uhlig, Siegbert (ed.), Proceedings of the XVth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, pp. 704-714. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

______ and Gerrit Dimmendaal. 2006. Verbal Compounding in Wolaitta. In: Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. and R.M.W. Dixon (eds), Serial Verb Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Typology, pp. 319-337. Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press.

______ and Gerrit Dimmendaal. 2006. The converb in an African perspective. In: Ameka, Felix, Alan Dench and Nicholas Evans (eds.), Catching Language: the Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing, pp. 393-440. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

______ and Gerrit Dimmendaal. 2005. Secondary predicates and adverbials in Nilotic and Omotic: a typological comparison. In Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. and Schultze-Berndt, Eva (eds), Secondary Predication and Adverbial Modification: The Typology of Depictives, pp. 299-321. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

______. 2001. The Maale Language. Leiden: Research School CNWS, Universiteit Leiden (CNWS Publications, vol. 99).

______. 2001 Ideophones and Compound Verbs in Wolaitta. In: C. Kilian-Hatz and F.K.E. Voeltz, eds., Ideophones, pp. 49-62. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.

(Co)Edited book:

Azeb Amha, Graziano Sava and Maarten Mous (eds.) 2007. Omotic and Cushitic Languages Studies: Papers from the Fourth Cushitic-Omotic Conference, Leiden, 10-12 April 2003. Cologne: Köppe Verlag.

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Last Modified: 08-07-2009