The predication structure of amharic

Abstract

This work is an attempt to describe the predication structure of the Amharic language following Leech's method of predication analysis. Our hypothesis is that there are one-place, two-place and no-place predicates and forms which seem syntactically simple but that have complex semantic structures. Predication analysis claims that a predication can be broken down into its constituents: arguments and predicates. Besides. according to the number of arguments a predication may take, we have only three types of predicate and their corresponding kinds of predication; namely, a one-place predicate that takes one argument, a two-place predicate that requires two arguments and a no-place predicate that does not take any argument at all. Moreover, this predication analysis together with comp6nential analysis is believed to enable us to represent the greater part of the meaning of a sentence. While discussing the predication structure of Amharic, we test the validity of the claims made and our study reveals that predication analysis is adequate to explain the facts of Amharic. Accordingly, we have demonstrated that there are only three types of predicates and their corresponding kinds of predication in Amharic.