Abstract:
The term "predicate nominals denotes those predicates which encode the
semantic content of the predication in a noun (Payne 1997, 111). As such they
are used to present background information in narrative discourses, whereas in
stative discourses they are employed to present foreground information
(Longacre 1996, 230) thereby making their description worthwhile. The goal of
this paper is to explore how nominal predicates are encoded in Oromo. This
will be accomplished in four chapters.
In chapter one, relevant background information concerning the language will
be presented. Since nominal predicates are often encoded by the use of
copulas (Payne 1997, 114) the latter constitute a major part of the description
of the former. In fact, the discussion of nominal predicate encoding strategy is
explained in terms of copulas. These strategies will be treated in chapter two
in relation to their prototypical characteristics. The constraints on copula
choice will also be examined. In chapter three the Oromo nominal predicates
and secondary predicates with be introduced and analyzed. Since the syntactic
distinction is not significant 1
, adjectival predicates will not be treated in depth
in this paper. Chapter four contains the conclusion and summary.
1 Adjectival predicates behave differently in respect to agreement with the subject but the
structure of the two clauses are the same.
