Voice: voice
| Values: | Cau | Pass | Rcp | Trans |
Voice is a morphological feature of verbs, describing alternations in valency and
mapping between syntactic arguments and semantic roles. In Amharic UD, voice is treated as
derivational morphology, meaning that different voice forms of one verb stem have different
lemmas; Voice is thus a lexical feature.
The basic active voice is currently not annotated: instead of having Voice=Act, the verb omits
the Voice feature completely.
Examples
- መጣች ። / mäţačə . “She came.”
Trans: transitive causative voice
An originally intransitive verb with a causative prefix becomes transitive. The morphology is
different from how causatives are formed from transitive verbs, therefore we use a separate,
language-specific value of Voice. Verbs that are naturally transitive (without the causative
prefix) are not annotated with Voice=Trans.
Examples
- አልማዝ ወተት አመጣች ። / ‘äləmazə wätätə ‘ämäţačə . “Elmaz brought milk.” (lit. brought = caused to come)
Cau: causative voice
An originally transitive verb with a causative prefix becomes ditransitive. The morphology is
different from how causatives are formed from intransitive verbs, therefore we use different
Voice values for the two types. Even transitive verbs that have been derived as causatives
from intransitive verbs can be further causativized.
Examples
- ከበደን እንጀራ አስበላሁት ። / käbädänə ‘ənədžära ‘äsəbälahutə . “I made Kebede eat bread.” (lit. Kebede-ACC bread CAU-eat-I-him)
- አልማዝ ወተት አስመጣችኝ ። / ‘äləmazə wätätə ‘äsəmäţačəňə . “Elmaz made me bring milk.” (lit. Elmaz milk CAU-come-she-me)
Pass: passive voice
The subject of the verb is affected by the action (patient). The doer (agent) is either unexpressed or it appears as an oblique dependent of the verb. Some passive verbs are semantically reflexive, e.g., taţţäbä “he washed himself” (from aţţäbä “he washed”).
Examples
- በዝናቡ ምክንያት ጨዋታው ተላለፈ ። / bäzənabu məkənəjatə ćäwatawə tälaläfä . “Due to the rain, the game was postponed.” (lit. in-the-rain due-to the-game PASS-postponed-he)
Rcp: reciprocal voice
In a plural subject, all members are doers and undergoers, acting upon each other.
Examples
- እህትና ወንድም ተደባደቡ ። / ‘əhətəna wänədəmə tädäbadäbu . “Sister and brother fought.” (lit. sister-and brother RCP-fought-they)
- አንበሳዎቹ ተገዳደሉ ። / ‘änəbäsawoču tägädadälu . “The lions killed each other.” (lit. the-lions RCP-killed-they)
Voice in other languages: [abq] [am] [arr] [bej] [bg] [ceb] [cs] [el] [eme] [en] [fi] [fr] [gn] [gub] [hu] [hy] [jaa] [ka] [ky] [myu] [qpm] [qtd] [quc] [ru] [sv] [tl] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [xcl]