- 著者
-
柘植 洋一
- 出版者
- 日本言語学会
- 雑誌
- 言語研究 (ISSN:00243914)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.1976, no.70, pp.57-76, 1976-11-30 (Released:2010-11-26)
- 参考文献数
- 34
This paper deals with the problems concerning the so-calld ‘Gutturalgesetze’ of Ga'az, the classical language of Ethiopia. Although we already have M. Cohen's outstanding article on this subject (Cohen, 1927), we don't think all the problems are given due solutions. So here we re-examine the matter to popose better solutions or interpretations or to support Cohen's views by giving certain additional proofs.To face with the problems first it is important to make it clear that in the vowel system of the language, the first order vowel of the Ethiopic syllabary stands in the opposition to the fourth order vowel by quality and not by quantity, and that these two vowels are not neutralised after a laryngal consonant as in Tigrinya, another Ethiopian language closely related with Ge'az.Cohen maintains that the first ‘Gesetz’ should be interpreted in two ways: allongement soppose and allongement reel. We reject his view and try to illustrate that the orthographical change reflects the sound change of a to a before a syllable-closing layngal, which had already begun by the sixth century. As for the second and the third ‘Gesetz’ we slightly modify Cohen's opinions and give some newly found evidenceLastly, laryngal verbs, i.e. verba mediae gutturalis and verba tertiae gutturalis, are treated. The question of the first and second person forms of the verba med. gutt. is never settled till we take the type p forms of the strong verbs into consideration at the same time. We make this point clear and proceed to submit an alternative solution. As to verba tert. gutt. we agree with Cohen. We also take up some relevant topics which he misses.