Chapter 2 - LOT publications

Chapter 2
of causatives in Kulikov’s typology are within the range of the functions of the
common causative suffix.
The remainder of the chapter is organized into five sections. 2.2. discusses forms of
causative morphemes. 2.3. considers causative structures such as double, subjectless
and intransitive causatives. 2.4. discusses the semantics of Oromo causatives while
2.5. discusses argument structures with respect to numbers of agents and causers.
2.2. Forms of the Causative
In Oromo the morpheme –is- or –s- derives single causatives while the morpheme
-sis- can be used in single and double causatives. The form –ss- marks a
single causative and is a variant of –s-. The morpheme –(e)ess- is de-adjectival/denominal
causative morpheme.
Table of Oromo Causative morphemes
Label Form meaning
CAUS 1 -is-/-s-/- ss causative
CAUS 2 -sis causative
CAUS 3 -eess de-adjectival verbalizer, similative
CAUS 1 -CAUS 1 -is-is, -s-iis double causative
CAUS 1 -CAUS 1 -CAUS 1 -s-is-iis triple causative
2.2.1. The Morphemes -is/-s/-ss (CAUS 1 ) and –sis (CAUS 2 )
In this section I show that the morphemes –is- and –s- are suffixed to verb stems to
derive causative verbs. In my analysis these morphemes are considered to be allomorphs.
The morpheme –is- a common causative marker in Oromo (see also Hayward
1976). The causative morpheme –is- suffixed to some intransitive verbs such
as raff-is- ‘make sleep’ and damk’-is- ‘wake up (tr.)’. It is also suffixed to causative
bases as in dubb-is-iis- ‘make greet’ and gog-s-iis- ‘make dry’, etc. The
morpheme –is- is highly productive in the derivation of de-adjectival bases. These
de-adjectival bases are transitives. For instance, verbs such as gudd-is- ‘grow (tr.)’
and furd-is- ‘make fat’ are derived from adjectival roots guddaa ‘big’, furdaa
‘fat’. Similarly, this morpheme could be suffixed to nominal bases to derive causative
verbs as in dubb-is- ‘greet’ which is derived from dubbii ‘talk’.
Similarly the morpheme –s- is a causative morpheme (see also Lloret 1987). In most
cases it is suffixed to non-agentive intransitive verbs such as dab- ‘bend’, gog- ‘to
dry’ to derive causative verbs such as dab-s- ‘bend’ and gog-s- ‘to dry’. It is also
suffixed to agentive intransitive verbs such as fiig- ‘run’ and mak’- ‘drop in’ to derive
causative verbs fiig-s- ‘make run’ and mak’-s- ‘make drop in’.
12