# Ama Verbs in Comparative Perspective - Dotawo Journal
Nubian studies needs a platform in which the old meets the new, in which archaeological, historical, and philological research into Meroitic, Old Nubian, Coptic, Greek, and Arabic sources confront current investigations in modern anthropology and ethnography, Nilo-Saharan linguistics, and critical and theoretical approaches present in postcolonial and African studies. The journal Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies brings these disparate fields together within the same fold, opening a cross-cultural and diachronic field where divergent approaches meet on common soil.

# Ama Verbs in Comparative Perspective

article⁄Ama Verbs in Comparative Perspective
in issues⁄
Dotawo 7: Comparative Northern East Sudanic Linguistics

##### Abstract¶

Ama verbs are comparable with Nubian and other related languages in their clause-final syntax, CVC root shape, and some affixes. However, there is also considerable innovation in adjoined relative clauses, a shift from number to aspect marking traced by T/K morphology, and other changes in the order and meaning of affixes. These developments show a unique trend of concretization of core clause constituents, and internal growth in the complexity of verbs in isolation from other languages. On the other hand, Ama’s stable distributive pluractional represents a wider Eastern Sudanic category. The late loss of pronominal subject marking supports a hypothesis that the Ama language was used for inter-group communication with Kordofan Nubians.