Tigrinya grammar

Grammar of the Tigrinya language

This article describes the grammar of Tigrinya, a South Semitic language which is spoken primarily in Eritrea and Ethiopia, and is written in Ge'ez script.

Like other Afro Asiatic languages, Tigrinya has two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, and all nouns belong to either one or the other. Grammatical gender in Tigrinya enters into the grammar in the following ways:
Verbs agree with their subjects in gender (unless the subject is first person). Second and third person personal pronouns (you, he, she, they, etc. in English) are distinguished by gender. Adjectives and determiners agree with the nouns they modify in gender. Some noun pairs for people distinguish masculine and feminine by their endings, with the feminine signaled by t. These include agent nouns derived from verbs — ከፈተ käfätä 'open', ከፋቲ käfati 'opener (m.)', ከፋቲት käfatit 'opener (f.)' — and nouns for nationalities or natives of particular regions — ትግራዋይ tǝgraway 'Tigrean (m.)', ትግራወይቲ tǝgrawäyti 'Tigrean (f.)'. Grammatical gender normally agrees with biological gender for people and animals; thus nouns such as ኣቦ ’abbo 'father', ወዲ wäddi 'son, boy', and ብዕራይ bǝ‘ǝray 'ox' are masculine, while nouns such as ኣደ addä 'mother', ጓል gʷal 'daughter, girl', and ላም lam or ላሕሚ lah. mi 'cow' are feminine. However, most names for animals do not specify biological gender, and the words ተባዕታይ täba‘tay 'male' and ኣንስተይቲ anǝstäyti must be placed before the nouns if the gender is to be indicated. The gender of most inanimate nouns is not predictable from the form or the meaning. Grammars sometimes disagree on the genders of particular nouns; for example, ጸሓይ ṣäḥay 'sun' is masculine according to Leslau, feminine according to Amanuel. This disagreement seems to be due to dialectal differences.

For reflexive pronouns ('myself', 'yourself', etc. ), Tigrinya adds the possessive suffixes to one of the nouns ርእሲ rǝ’si 'head', ነፍሲ näfsi 'soul', or ባዕሊ ba‘li 'owner': ርእሰይ rǝ’säy / ነፍሰይ näfsäy / ባዕለይ ba‘läy 'myself', ርእሳ rǝ’sa / ነፍሳ näfsa / ባዕላ ba‘la 'herself', etc.

As with the demonstrative pronouns, the Tigrinya demonstrative adjectives divide into expression for near ('this, these') and far ('that, those') referents, with separate forms for the four combinations of singular and plural number and masculine and feminine gender. Like other adjectives, demonstrative adjectives precede the noun, but they are often accompanied by a second copy or slightly modified form that follows the noun. The vowel beginning the form following the noun is often dropped and in writing may then be represented by an apostrophe: እዚ ሰብ'ዚ ǝzi säbzi 'this man'. +Tigrinya Demonstrative Adjectives Number Gender Near Far Singular Masculine እዚ ǝzi (እዚ ǝzi) እቲ ǝti (እቲ ǝti) Feminine እዛ ǝza (እዚኣ ǝzi’a) እታ ǝta (እቲኣ ǝti’a) Plural Masculine እዞመ ǝzom (እዚኦም ǝzi’om) እቶም ǝtom (እቲኦም ǝti’om) Feminine እዘን ǝzän (እዚኤን ǝzi’en) እተነ ǝtän (እቲኤን ǝti’en)