Indirect comparison in Ethiopian Afroasiatic languages: Amharic, Oromo, and Wolaytta

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze the linguistic features of indirect comparison in three Ethiopian languages: Amharic, Oromo, and Wolaytta, drawing on the frameworks of Kennedy (2007) and Bochnak (2013). This study adopts a qualitative research design to undertake a comparative investigation of indirect comparative constructions in Amharic, Oromo, and Wolaytta. The primary linguistic data for this investigation were obtained directly from native speakers. In the case of Oromo, informants were recruited from two males and a female degree students. For Wolaytta, a male degree student and a male speaker who lives in the Wolaytta region, supplemented by a female instructor at Wolaytta Sodo University. The study applies three diagnostics: crisp judgment contexts, compatibility with absolute standards, and the use of measure phrases, to differentiate it from direct comparison. Results show that indirect comparisons are vague and context-sensitive, failing in crisp judgment contexts and with absolute or measured standards. Direct comparisons, which use a dedicated comparative morpheme, avoid these issues by requiring only a non-zero difference between entities. Moreover, this article has discussed that cleft comparisons operate as indirect and pragmatically motivated strategies, in which the standard of comparison is implied by context rather than explicitly expressed in the syntactic structure. Data from all three languages consistently support this semantic distinction, confirming its cross-linguistic validity.