14 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
14 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: "Ama Verbs in Comparative Perspective"
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author: "Russell Norton"
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---
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**Abstract**
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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.
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# Preliminaries
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Ama is a North Eastern Sudanic language spoken in villages to the west and north-west of Dilling, near to where Kordofan Nubian languages are spoken in the north-western Nuba Mountains. “Ama” (*ámá* “people”) is the self-designated name of the language community identified by the ISO639-3 code [nyi] and replaces the name “Nyimang” in older sources,[^1] as “Ama” is the name used in local literature in the language created over the last three decades. Nyimang is an altered form of “Nyima,” one of the mountains in the Ama homeland, which is now used as the name of the branch of Eastern Sudanic consisting of Ama [nyi] and Afitti [aft]. I will assume that Nyima is one of a group of four extant northern branches of the Eastern Sudanic family, the others being Nubian, the Nara language, and Taman.[^2]
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[^1]:
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