Notes on Gwama grammar

Abstract

Based on original field work, the paper provides a preliminary characterization of the grammar of Gwama, a little-researched Nilo-Saharan language of western Ethiopia belonging to the Koman language cluster. Following a brief overview of the phonology, the article covers the major word classes and structures of the language. Special attention is given to the structure of nouns and verbs, including converbs. The article makes a unique contribution to the study of Gwama in that most of the analysis is based on collected elicited texts. Occasional references are made to discourse features. Copious examples from texts illustrate the grammatical points throughout the article. Two sample texts appear in an appendix.