---
title: "On Syllable Weight in Amharic — Voigt 2020"
description: "This short critical note from Aethiopica 22 examines how stress and syllable weight in Amharic have been described."
authors: ["Rainer Voigt"]
year: 2020
venue: "Aethiopica 22"
source: "https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/aethiopica/article/view/1282"
doi: "10.15460/aethiopica.22.0.1282"
licence: "CC BY-SA (journal licence per DOAJ; Aethiopica)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/voigt-2020-syllable-weight-amharic/"
---
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# On Syllable Weight in Amharic

**Authors:** [Rainer Voigt](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/rainer-voigt/) · **Year:** 2020 · **Venue:** Aethiopica 22 · **Licence:** [CC BY-SA (journal licence per DOAJ; Aethiopica)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.22.0.1282) · [PDF](https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/aethiopica/article/download/1282/1293) · [DOI 10.15460/aethiopica.22.0.1282](https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.22.0.1282) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W3016804056)

**Citations:** 1 citations (openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14)

## Summary
This short critical note from Aethiopica 22 examines how stress and syllable weight in Amharic have been described. Voigt first surveys the older grammars of Armbruster, Guidi and Abraham, which mark stress carefully, and contrasts them with modern works that say very little about it. He then evaluates Sande and Hedding's 2017 theoretical study of Amharic syllable weight. That study proposed a default pattern of alternating stress that is overridden whenever a syllable is closed. Voigt does not argue with the theory directly. Instead he audits the Amharic examples it rests on. Nearly every verbal form in those examples is transcribed incorrectly, and the errors fall into a few recurring types. He traces these errors mainly to the language background of the informant rather than to random slips. He also reanalyses adjectival reduplicated plurals and argues that they depend on a particular morphological template, not simply on whether a coda is geminate. The note matters because it shows that a phonological theory is only as reliable as the data beneath it.

## Key points
- **Older grammars mark stress in detail.** Armbruster (1908–1920) marks stress on every word, with the general tendency that long vowels and vowels before geminates are stressed. Abraham (1942) also marks tone and calls Amharic a tone language in which tone shapes sentence rhythm rather than distinguishing meaning. Recent grammars (Hartmann 1980, Leslau 1995) give only scattered remarks.
- **Most verbal examples in Sande and Hedding (2017) are wrong.** Apart from the trivial forms alä and allä, all their perfect, gerund and imperfect verb forms are incorrect, some with three errors in a single word. This includes the forms cited as having five stressed syllables. Several simple nouns and adjectives are also wrong, such as sau for säw.
- **The errors fall into four categories:** confusing ä with ǝ, confusing ä with a, confusing o with u, and uncertainty about consonant length. Voigt attributes the vowel confusions largely to an informant influenced by Oromo and judges such speakers unsuitable for studying the Amharic sound system.
- **Reduplicated plurals follow a template.** Plurals formed by inserting Ca (käbbad → käbabbad) arise from the morpheme type CV₁C:V₂C, where V₁ is ä, ǝ or a and V₂ is ǝ or a. Adjectives with identical second and third radicals, such as ṭäbbab and ḳällal, lack this plural. Many other geminated adjectives also lack it.
- **qonǧo has attested plurals after all.** Sande and Hedding invented the plural qonannǧo, but the attested forms are qonaǧo and qonäǧaǧǧǝt, following four-radical noun plural patterns. Voigt therefore concludes that the claim "geminate codas are moraic" does not settle whether CVC syllables are light.

## Interesting ideas
- Instead of listing individual data mistakes, group them into a handful of systematic types, which can reveal a single hidden cause such as informant language interference. — For Mova (learn): Disagreements among witness parsers in silver data could be binned by error type, so that one systematic noise source (a specific witness or text genre) is found and removed rather than patched case by case.
- Audit the empirical examples before engaging with the theory built on them, since a theory resting on faulty data proves nothing. — For Mova (learn): Before training on or evaluating with a treebank or test set, spot-check a sample against an independent reference to confirm the gold labels are trustworthy.
- Explain a morphological behaviour through a whole stem template (pattern of consonants and vowels) rather than through one surface feature such as gemination, and list the exceptions that template predicts. — For Mova (tokens): Irregular English inflection could be handled by stem-pattern classes with explicit exception lists, giving the lemmatizer a rule-based and explainable account of each form.
- When two rules clash, the older descriptions record a compromise (a secondary accent) instead of silently picking one rule. — For Mova (tree): When parser heuristics or UD dialect conversion rules conflict, the system could emit an explicit "conflict resolved by X" annotation, keeping each decision explainable.
- Hypothesised forms (like the invented plural qonannǧo) are checked against attested usage and rejected if unattested. — For Mova (back): Word forms produced during generation or compression could be validated against a lexicon or corpus of attested forms, so the output never contains plausible-looking non-words.

*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/)

## Cite

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{voigt2020syllable,
  title = {{On Syllable Weight in Amharic}},
  author = {Voigt, Rainer},
  booktitle = {Aethiopica 22},
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.15460/aethiopica.22.0.1282},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.22.0.1282}
}
```

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## References

12 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

1. Abraham, R. C. 1942. The Principles of Amharic (London: Published by the author, 1942). Armbruster, C. H. 1908–1920. Initia Amharica: An Introduction to spoken Amharic, I: Grammar; II: English–Amharic Vocabulary with Phrases; III: Amharic–English Vocabulary with Phrases, 1: ሀ – ሰ . H–S (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1908, 1910, 1920). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Abraham%2C+R%2E+C%2E+1942%2E+The+Principles+of+Amharic+%28London%3A+Published+by+the+author%2C+1942%29%2E+Armbruster%2C+C%2E+H%2E+1908%E2%80%931920%2E+Initia+Amharica%3A+An+Introduction+to+spoken+Amharic%2C+I%3A+Grammar%3B+II%3A+English%E2%80%93Amharic)
2. Cohen, M. 1936. Traité de langue amharique (Abyssinie), Travaux et mémoires de l’Institut d’ethnologie, 24 (Paris: Institut d’ethnologie, 1936). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Cohen%2C+M%2E+1936%2E+Trait%C3%A9+de+langue+amharique+%28Abyssinie%29%2C+Travaux+et+m%C3%A9moires+de+l%E2%80%99Institut+d%E2%80%99ethnologie%2C+24+%28Paris%3A+Institut+d%E2%80%99ethnologie%2C+1936%29%2E)
3. Cowley, R., M. L. Bender, C. A. Ferguson, Hailu Fulass, and Getatchew Haile 1976. ‘The Amharic Language’, in M. L. Bender, J. D. Bowen, R. L. Cooper, and C. A. Ferguson, eds, Language in Ethiopia, Ford Foundation Language Surveys (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 77–98. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Cowley%2C+R%2E%2C+M%2E+L%2E+Bender%2C+C%2E+A%2E+Ferguson%2C+Hailu+Fulass%2C+and+Getatchew+Haile+1976%2E+%E2%80%98The+Amharic+Language%E2%80%99%2C+in+M%2E+L%2E+Bender%2C+J%2E+D%2E+Bowen%2C+R%2E+L%2E+Cooper%2C+and+C%2E+A%2E+Ferguson%2C+eds%2C+Language+in+Ethiopia%2C+For)
4. Guidi, I. 1924. Grammatica elementare della lingua amarica: con esercizi di traduzione e glossario, 3rd rev. edn (Napoli: Presso Riccardo Ricciardi, 1924). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Guidi%2C+I%2E+1924%2E+Grammatica+elementare+della+lingua+amarica%3A+con+esercizi+di+traduzione+e+glossario%2C+3rd+rev%2E+edn+%28Napoli%3A+Presso+Riccardo+Ricciardi%2C+1924%29%2E)
5. Hartmann, J. 1980. Amharische Grammatik, Äthiopistische Forschungen, 3 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH, 1980). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Hartmann%2C+J%2E+1980%2E+Amharische+Grammatik%2C+%C3%84thiopistische+Forschungen%2C+3+%28Wiesbaden%3A+Franz+Steiner+Verlag+GmbH%2C+1980%29%2E)
6. Kane, T. L. 1990. Amharic–English Dictionary, II: ኘ – ፐ (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1990). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Kane%2C+T%2E+L%2E+1990%2E+Amharic%E2%80%93English+Dictionary%2C+II%3A+%E1%8A%98+%E2%80%93+%E1%8D%90+%28Wiesbaden%3A+Otto+Harrassowitz%2C+1990%29%2E)
7. Klingenheben, A. 1966. Deutsch–Amharischer Sprachführer nebst einer grammatischen Einführung ins Amharische (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1966). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Klingenheben%2C+A%2E+1966%2E+Deutsch%E2%80%93Amharischer+Sprachf%C3%BChrer+nebst+einer+grammatischen+Einf%C3%BChrung+ins+Amharische+%28Wiesbaden%3A+Otto+Harrassowitz%2C+1966%29%2E)
8. Leslau, W. 1995. Reference Grammar of Amharic (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Leslau%2C+W%2E+1995%2E+Reference+Grammar+of+Amharic+%28Wiesbaden%3A+Harrassowitz+Verlag%2C+1995%29%2E)
9. One problem is the plural mälkakam of mälkam, ‘pretty’, and wåfraram of wåfram, ‘fat’, ‘thick’, with the four radical structure CäCCaC (= three radical nominal form CäC:aC) which does not follow the scheme under review. 26 Sande and Hedding 2017, 70. 27 Ibid., 69. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=One+problem+is+the+plural+m%C3%A4lkakam+of+m%C3%A4lkam%2C+%E2%80%98pretty%E2%80%99%2C+and+w%C3%A5fraram+of+w%C3%A5fram%2C+%E2%80%98fat%E2%80%99%2C+%E2%80%98thick%E2%80%99%2C+with+the+four+radical+structure+C%C3%A4CCaC+%28%3D+three+radical+nominal+form+C%C3%A4C%3AaC%29+which+does+not+follow+the+s)
10. Newman, P. 2017. ‘Introduction’, in P. Newman, ed., Syllable Weight in African Languages, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 338, Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, 4 (Amsterdam–Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2017), 1–8. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Newman%2C+P%2E+2017%2E+%E2%80%98Introduction%E2%80%99%2C+in+P%2E+Newman%2C+ed%2E%2C+Syllable+Weight+in+African+Languages%2C+Current+Issues+in+Linguistic+Theory%2C+338%2C+Amsterdam+Studies+in+the+Theory+and+History+of+Linguistic+Science%2C+4)
11. Sande, H. and A. Hedding 2014. ‘Geminates and weight in Amharic’, LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts, 5 (2014), [https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index](https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index). php/ExtendedAbs/article/view/2373, accessed on 29 March 2019. — 2017. ‘Syllable weight in Amharic’, in P. Newman, ed., Syllable Weight in African Languages, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 338, Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, 4 (Amsterdam–Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2017), 69–82. [↗](https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index)
12. Voigt, R. 1986. ‘A note on SPA, or: A case for a new segment in Amharic’, in G. Goldenberg, ed., Ethiopian Studies: Proceedings of the sixth international conference, Tel-Aviv, 14–17 April 1980 (Rotterdam–Boston, MA: A. A. Balkema, 1986), 519– 523. Summary [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Voigt%2C+R%2E+1986%2E+%E2%80%98A+note+on+SPA%2C+or%3A+A+case+for+a+new+segment+in+Amharic%E2%80%99%2C+in+G%2E+Goldenberg%2C+ed%2E%2C+Ethiopian+Studies%3A+Proceedings+of+the+sixth+international+conference%2C+Tel%2DAviv%2C+14%E2%80%9317+April+1980+%28Rotte)