--- title: "On the Absence of Raising Constructions in — Lumsden 2026" description: "Baye (1990) claimed that Amharic has raising, but only out of finite clauses and noun phrases." authors: ["John S. Lumsden", "Girma Halefom"] year: 2026 venue: "Folia Orientalia 48" source: "https://wydawnictwo.pan.pl/index.php/fo/article/view/6713" licence: "CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; Folia Orientalia)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lumsden-2026-absence-raising-constructions-amharic/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lumsden-2026-absence-raising-constructions-amharic/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2026/page/7/) / On the Absence of Raising Constructions in Amharic # On the Absence of Raising Constructions in Amharic **Authors:** John S. Lumsden, Girma Halefom · **Year:** 2026 · **Venue:** Folia Orientalia 48 · **Licence:** [CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; Folia Orientalia)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://wydawnictwo.pan.pl/index.php/fo/article/view/6713) · [PDF](https://wydawnictwo.pan.pl/index.php/fo/article/download/6713/5539) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W7214414736) **Citations:** 0 citations (openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14) ## Summary Baye (1990) claimed that Amharic has raising, but only out of finite clauses and noun phrases. That would make it the reverse of English or French. Lumsden and Halefom argue against this claim. Their method is semantic rather than purely structural. With native-speaker informants, they check whether each proposed source sentence and its "raised" version actually mean the same thing. They cover four kinds of data: - the verb mäsl- "seem" - the passive of adärg- "do/affect" - passive tä-bal- "be said", including possessor raising - gerund complements In every case the paired sentences differ in meaning. The matrix subject turns out to carry its own thematic role, and the supposedly expletive null subject is a deictic pronoun for the overall situation. Possessors placed before the noun phrase are topics or matrix arguments. Informants reject some of Baye's key examples outright. The authors conclude that only the passive involves movement. They explain why there is no raising from non-finite clauses through Case theory, linked to Amharic's templatic verb morphology. This bears on typology and on parameter theory. ## Key points - Amharic leaves wh-words in situ and has no relative pronouns. A relative clause differs from a main clause only by the complementizer yä-. - With mäsl-, plural agreement on the matrix verb changes the meaning: "the men seem like they bought a sheep" versus "it seems the men bought one". - A third variant, unnoticed by Baye, ties the matrix subject to the embedded object: "the sheep seem like the man bought them". - Raising cannot produce this variant, because the chain would hold two theta roles and two Case positions (nominative and accusative). - The passive tä-därräg- is better derived from active adärg-, which takes an accusative Patient (-n, object marker -accäw). On this analysis the embedded clause is a manner adjunct, not a complement. - The imperfect conjugation is untensed and needs a perfective auxiliary (all-) in main clauses. Even so, raising the subject out of an imperfect complement under tä-bal- (example 23b) is ungrammatical. - Informants strongly reject Baye's gerund-raising sentence (example 20). Possessor names placed before a noun phrase are read as topics ("as for Aster…"). ## Interesting ideas - Two word orders count as related by movement only if they mean the same; a difference in meaning signals that the surface subject has its own role. — For Mova (frames): For seem-type verbs, run a paraphrase check before deciding whether the matrix subject gets a semantic role. This would separate "seem to" (no role) from "look like" (the subject is described). - A null "it" subject can refer to the whole situation the speaker perceives instead of being an empty expletive. — For Mova (world): Create a situation entity as the anchor for "it seems / it is said" statements. Evidential and hearsay claims then attach to a real referent in the world of the text. - The authors test a proposed derivation by looking for an unexpected variant it cannot generate, such as linking the object instead of the subject. — For Mova (learn): Build negative-control probes from variants that a rule should not produce. This catches repair rules or parser habits that only appear to work. - To analyse a passive, the authors look for its active counterpart with an explicit Actor and accusative Patient; this reveals which argument the passive subject really is. — For Mova (frames): When mapping passives to VerbNet roles, pick the role from the active frame that actually exists. Do not assume a raised clausal subject. - A name placed before a noun phrase with a pronoun suffix is a topic linked to the pronoun, not a possessor inside the noun phrase. — For Mova (tree): Tell apart dislocated topics ("as for X, her hair…") from nmod:poss in parsing and conversion. Coreference then runs through the resumptive pronoun. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* Fields: [Linguistics & languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/linguistics/) Topics: [Semantic role labeling](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semantic-role-labeling/) ## Cite The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{lumsden2026absence, title = {{On the Absence of Raising Constructions in Amharic}}, author = {Lumsden, John S. and Halefom, Girma}, booktitle = {Folia Orientalia 48}, year = {2026}, url = {https://wydawnictwo.pan.pl/index.php/fo/article/view/6713} } ``` - [← previous On Temperature-Constrained Non-Deterministic Machine Translation: Potential and Evaluation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/wang-2026-temperature-constrained-non-deterministic-machine/) - [next → On the Robustness of Morphosyntactic Transformation with Large Language Models: The Case of Quechua Collao](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/pocco-2026-robustness-morphosyntactic-transformation-large-language/) - [↑ back to papers of 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2026/page/7/) ## References 6 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Noam Chomsky. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Noam+Chomsky%2E+1981%2E+Lectures+on+Government+and+Binding%2E+Dordrecht%2E) 2. Girma Halefom and John Lumsden. 1999. The Perfect Corifugation in Amharic. Paper presented at the Conference on Semitic Syntax, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Girma+Halefom+and+John+Lumsden%2E+1999%2E+The+Perfect+Corifugation+in+Amharic%2E+Paper+presented+at+the+Conference+on+Semitic+Syntax%2C+University+of+Illinois+at+Urbana%2DChampaign%2E) 3. Girma Halefom. 1994. The Syntax of Functional Categories: A Study of Amharic. Ph.D. dissertation, Universite du Quebec a Montreal. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Girma+Halefom%2E+1994%2E+The+Syntax+of+Functional+Categories%3A+A+Study+of+Amharic%2E+Ph%2ED%2E+dissertation%2C+Universite+du+Quebec+a+Montreal%2E) 4. John Lumsden and Girma Halefom. 2003. Verb Conjugations and the Strong Pronoun Declension in Standard Arabic. In: Research in Afroasiatic Grammar II, ed. Jaqueline Leeanne, pp. 305-338. Amsterdam. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=John+Lumsden+and+Girma+Halefom%2E+2003%2E+Verb+Conjugations+and+the+Strong+Pronoun+Declension+in+Standard+Arabic%2E+In%3A+Research+in+Afroasiatic+Grammar+II%2C+ed%2E+Jaqueline+Leeanne%2C+pp%2E+305%2D338%2E+Amsterdam%2E) 5. Luigi Rizzi. 1982. Issues in Italian Syntax. Dordrecht. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Luigi+Rizzi%2E+1982%2E+Issues+in+Italian+Syntax%2E+Dordrecht%2E) 6. Yimam Baye. 1990. Raising in Amharic. Langues orientales, ancienne philologie et linguistique, no. 3: 74-88. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Yimam+Baye%2E+1990%2E+Raising+in+Amharic%2E+Langues+orientales%2C+ancienne+philologie+et+linguistique%2C+no%2E+3%3A+74%2D88%2E)