Language/Amharic/Grammar/Stem-verbs

Stem verbs in Amharic

All Amharic stem verbs are in the form of third person masculine simple past form. Note that in Amharic dictionaries, verbs are generally listed according to the third person masculine simple past form

Examples

Infinitive	3rd person masculine form
mäbїlat	bäla (He ate)
mägїzat	gäza (He bought)
mäsїrat	sära (He worked)
mayät	ayä (He saw)
märot’	rot’ä (He ran)
mähed	hedä (He went)

The verb stem is the basic form of the verb on which affixes are added. The affix can be a pronoun marker, a tense marker, a numerical marker, etc.

a) እኔ ተማሪ ነኝ፡፡ їne tämari näň. (I am a student.)

b) ሔኖክ ሃኪም ነው፡፡ Henok hakim näw. (Henok is a doctor.)

c) ሄለን ቆንጆ ናት፡፡ Helen k’onjo nat. (Helen is beautiful.)

d) እኛ አሜሪካውያን ነን፡፡ їňňa amerikawїyan nän. (We are Americans)

Source

https://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps/Amharic/Amharic%20Peace%20Corps%20Language%20Manual-2015.pdf

Related Lessons

• The Past and Present Continuous Tenses
• Indirect Object Pronouns
• Pluralizing
• bästä prefix
• The Present Perfect Tense
• Complex Sentence
• Definite direct objects in the present and future tense
• Making Suggestions Using “Let”
• Future Tense
• Adjectives