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30-635: Most speakers of the language live in the Agew Awi Zone of the Amhara Region , but there are also communities speaking the language in various areas of Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region . Until recently, Kunfäl, another Southern Agaw language spoken in the area west of Lake Tana , has been suspected to be a separate language. It has now been shown to be linguistically close to Awngi, and it should be classified as

60-488: A dialect of that language. The central vowel /ɨ/ is the default epenthetic vowel of the language and almost totally predictable in its occurrence. Likewise, /æ/ , normally an allophone of /a/ , is fossilized in some words and might be justified as a separate phoneme. Palmer and Hetzron both identified three distinctive tone levels in Awngi: high, mid and low. The low tone, however, only appears in word-final position on

90-634: A household, and 209,555 housing units. The two largest ethnic groups reported in Agew Awi were the Awi (59.82%) a subgroup of the Agaw, and the Amhara (38.44%); all other ethnic groups made up 1.74% of the population. Amharic was spoken as a first language by 53.38%, and 45.04% spoke Awngi ; the remaining 1.58% spoke all other primary languages reported. 94.4% practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity , and 4.5% of

120-412: A language's lexicon. Neologisms are often introduced by children who produce erroneous forms by mistake. Other common sources are slang and advertising. There are two types of borrowings (neologisms based on external sources) that retain the sound of the source language material: The following are examples of external lexical expansion using the source language lexical item as the basic material for

150-437: A language's rules. For example, the suffix "-able" is usually only added to transitive verbs , as in "readable" but not "cryable". A compound word is a lexeme composed of several established lexemes, whose semantics is not the sum of that of their constituents. They can be interpreted through analogy , common sense and, most commonly, context . Compound words can have simple or complex morphological structures. Usually, only

180-463: A lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes . The word lexicon derives from Greek word λεξικόν ( lexikon ), neuter of λεξικός ( lexikos ) meaning 'of or for words'. Linguistic theories generally regard human languages as consisting of two parts: a lexicon, essentially a catalogue of a language's words (its wordstock); and a grammar , a system of rules which allow for the combination of those words into meaningful sentences. The lexicon

210-580: A road density of 39.6 km per 1000 square km (compared to the national average of 30 km ), the average rural household has 1.2 hectares of land (compared to the national average of 1.01 hectare of land and an average of 0.75 for the Amhara Region) and the equivalent of 0.5 heads of livestock. 13.6% of the population is in non-farm related jobs, compared to the national average of 25% and a Regional average of 21%. 72% of all eligible children are enrolled in primary school, and 16% in secondary schools. 54% of

240-528: Is a zone in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia . It is named for the Awi sub-group of the Agaw people, some of whom live in this Zone. Agew Awi Zone is bordered on the west by Benishangul-Gumuz Region , on the north by North Gondar Zone and on the east by West Gojjam . The administrative centre of Agew Awi is Injibara ; other towns include Chagni , Agew Gimjabet , Tilili , Adis Kidame , Azena , Zigem , Jawi and Dangila . Topographically speaking, Agaw Awi

270-421: Is also thought to include bound morphemes , which cannot stand alone as words (such as most affixes ). In some analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions, collocations and other phrasemes are also considered to be part of the lexicon. Dictionaries are lists of the lexicon, in alphabetical order, of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are not included. Items in

300-587: Is generally used in the context of a single language. Therefore, multi-lingual speakers are generally thought to have multiple lexicons. Speakers of language variants ( Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese , for example) may be considered to possess a single lexicon. Thus a cash dispenser (British English) as well as an automatic teller machine or ATM in American English would be understood by both American and British speakers, despite each group using different dialects. When linguists study

330-501: Is relatively flat and fertile, whose elevations vary from 1,800 to 3,100 m above sea level, with an average altitude of about 2,300 m. The Zone is crossed by about nine permanent rivers which drain into the Abay (or Blue Nile ); other water features include two crater lakes, Zengena and Tirba , and Zimbiri marsh which is located 5  km south-west of Addis Kidam. Local forests include Dukma and Apini, which are located on either side of

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360-443: Is the most common of word formation strategies cross-linguistically. Comparative historical linguistics studies the evolution of languages and takes a diachronic view of the lexicon. The evolution of lexicons in different languages occurs through a parallel mechanism. Over time historical forces work to shape the lexicon, making it simpler to acquire and often creating an illusion of great regularity in language. The term "lexicon"

390-445: Is unmarked for one class of nouns, or marked by -i for masculine nouns and -a for feminine nouns. Other cases are accusative , dative , genitive , locative , directional, ablative , comitative , comparative , invocative and translative . Hetzron also mentions adverbial as a case of Awngi, but an interpretation as a derivational marker seems to be more appropriate. Number, gender, and case are marked through suffixes to

420-542: Is written with an orthography based on the Ethiopian Script. Extra fidels used for Awngi are ጝ for the sound / ŋ / and ቕ for the sound / q / . The fidel ፅ is used for / ts / , the fidel ኽ for the sound / ɢ / . Various aspects of the Awngi orthography are yet to be finally decided. The noun is marked for number and gender ( masculine , feminine or plural ) as well as case . The nominative

450-488: The Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), this Zone has a total population of 982,942, an increase of 37.07% over the 1994 census, of whom 491,865 are men and 491,077 women. With an area of 9,148.43 square km, Agew Awi has a population density of 107.44; 123,014 or 12.51% are urban inhabitants. A total of 215,564 households were counted in this Zone, which results in an average of 4.56 persons to

480-541: The citation forms and any irregular forms , since these must be learned to use the words correctly. Lexemes derived from a word by derivational morphology are considered new lemmas. The lexicon is also organized according to open and closed categories. Closed categories , such as determiners or pronouns , are rarely given new lexemes; their function is primarily syntactic . Open categories, such as nouns and verbs , have highly active generation mechanisms and their lexemes are more semantic in nature. A central role of

510-483: The lexicon and serve as the basis for all other verbal morphology. The stems remain the same throughout all verbal paradigms, and it is possible to predict the surface form of each paradigm member with these stems and the simple tense suffixes. The main verb of a sentence is always at the end. The basic word order is therefore SOV. Subordination and coordination is achieved exclusively through verbal affixation. Agew Awi Zone Agew Awi ( Amharic : አገው አዊ )

540-514: The rhyme . Exceptions to this happen at word boundaries, where extrametrical consonants may appear. In positions other than word-initial, Awngi contrasts geminate and non-geminate consonants. The consonants /ɢ, ɢʷ, t͡s, t͡ʃ, j, w, ʒ/ , however, have no contrast in gemination. Whenever a suffix containing the [+high] vowel i is added to a stem, a productive vowel harmony process is triggered. Hetzron calls this process regressive vowel height assimilation . The vowel harmony only takes place if

570-409: The Awngi verbal morphology is most economically described when it is assumed that for every verb there are four distinct stems, marked A, B, C, and D in the following table. The first stem (A) is for 3masc , 2pl , and 3pl . The second stem (B) is for 1sg only, the third stem (C) for 2sg and 3fem , and the fourth stem for 1pl only. These four stems need to be noted for every verb in

600-406: The head requires inflection for agreement. Compounding may result in lexemes of unwieldy proportion. This is compensated by mechanisms that reduce the length of words. A similar phenomenon has been recently shown to feature in social media also where hashtags compound to form longer-sized hashtags that are at times more popular than the individual constituent hashtags forming the compound. Compounding

630-479: The lexicon are called lexemes, lexical items, or word forms. Lexemes are not atomic elements but contain both phonological and morphological components. When describing the lexicon, a reductionist approach is used, trying to remain general while using a minimal description. To describe the size of a lexicon, lexemes are grouped into lemmas. A lemma is a group of lexemes generated by inflectional morphology . Lemmas are represented in dictionaries by headwords that list

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660-653: The lexicon is documenting established lexical norms and conventions . Lexicalization is the process by which new words, having gained widespread usage, enter the lexicon. Since lexicalization may modify lexemes phonologically and morphologically, it is possible that a single etymological source may be inserted into a single lexicon in two or more forms. These pairs, called a doublet , are often close semantically. Two examples are aptitude versus attitude and employ versus imply . The mechanisms, not mutually exclusive, are: Neologisms are new lexeme candidates which, if they gain wide usage over time, become part of

690-454: The neologization, listed in decreasing order of phonetic resemblance to the original lexical item (in the source language): The following are examples of simultaneous external and internal lexical expansion using target language lexical items as the basic material for the neologization but still resembling the sound of the lexical item in the source language: Another mechanism involves generative devices that combine morphemes according to

720-461: The noun stems. The Awngi verbal morphology has a wealth of inflectional forms. The four main tenses are imperfective past, imperfective non-past, perfective past and perfective non-past. There are various other coordinate and subordinate forms which are all marked through suffixes to the verb stems. The following distinctions are maintained for person: 1sg , 2sg , 3masc , 3fem , 1pl , 2pl , and 3pl . Hetzron demonstrated that

750-494: The population said they were Muslim . The 1994 national census reported a total population for this Zone of 717,085 in 147,917 households, of whom 357,238 were men and 359,847 women; 62,232 or 8.68% of its population were urban dwellers at the time. The three largest ethnic groups reported in Agew Awi were the Awi (49.97%) a subgroup of the Agaw, the Amhara (48.6%), and the Gumuz (0.98%); all other ethnic groups made up 0.45% of

780-409: The population. Amharic was spoken as a first language by 53.75%, 44.93% Awngi , and 0.98% spoke Gumuz ; the remaining 0.34% spoke all other primary languages reported. 93.52% practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity , and 5.41% of the population said they were Muslim . According to a May 24, 2004 World Bank memorandum, 6% of the inhabitants of Agew Awi have access to electricity, this zone has

810-489: The town of Kidamaja , Zengena forest around Lake Zengena and Goobil forest which is on a dome-shaped hill next to Kessa . The Agaw have traditionally practised a land-management system which is well adapted to the local ecology, which enables them to sustain the fertility of the soil and minimize erosion; this area is recognized as one of the most productive in the Amhara Region. Based on the 2007 Census conducted by

840-403: The underlying vowel of the last stem syllable is e . This vowel and all preceding instances of e and o will take over the feature [+high], until a different vowel is encountered. Then the vowel harmony is blocked. Hetzron provides the following example: /moleqés-á/ ‘nun’ vs. /muliqís-í/ ‘monk’. Awngi is used as Medium of Instruction from Grade 1 to 6 in primary schools of Awi Zone . It

870-411: The vowel a . A falling tone (high-mid) appears on word-final syllables only. Joswig reanalyzes the system as having only two distinctive tone levels, with the low tone being a phonetic variant of the mid tone. The Awngi syllable in most cases fits the maximum syllable template CVC (C standing for a consonant, V for a vowel). This means there is only one (if any) consonant each in the syllable onset and

900-402: The zone is exposed to malaria , and 76% to Tsetse fly . The memorandum gave this zone a drought risk rating of 420. 11°00′N 36°40′E  /  11.000°N 36.667°E  / 11.000; 36.667 Lexicon A lexicon (plural: lexicons , rarely lexica ) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical ). In linguistics ,

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