Language/Amharic/Grammar/Making-Sentences

Amharic → Grammar → Making Sentences

Introduction

Welcome to the "Complete 0 to A1 Amharic Course"! In this lesson, you will learn about the basic structure of sentences in Amharic. Developing this foundation is essential for further progress and fluency in language learning. We will discuss how to form basic sentences and questions using pronouns, nouns, and verbs.

Basic Sentence Structure

In Amharic, the basic sentence structure is subject-verb-object (SVO), meaning that the subject is followed by the verb and then by the object. For example:

• I (subject) eat (verb) pizza (object).
• You (subject) drank (verb) water (object).

However, as we delve deeper into the language, we will discover that Amharic possesses more complex sentence structures.

Pronouns

In Amharic, pronouns perform distinct roles in forming sentences. Let us view a simplified table with the Amharic, transliteration, English and IPA of the personal pronouns:

Amharic	Transliteration	English	IPA
እኔ	ene	I	ʔɨnɨ
አንቺ	anči	You (singular)	ʔantʃʼɨ
እንዴት	əndeet	You (plural)	ʔɨndɨtʼ
እስክንድር	əskindir	He	ʔɨskɨndɨr
አድስ	adis	She	ʔadiʃ
እኮ	eko	It	ʔəkʼo
እኛ	əññ	We	ʔɨnɨ
እነሱ	enäsu	They	ʔɨnəʃu

Here, you see the personal pronouns with their transliterations and IPA symbols. The first column has Amharic words; the second column has their transliteration, which is an approximation in Latin script; the third column is the English equivalent of the Amharic word, and the fourth is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols, which form the sound of the Amharic words.

Note that the Amharic language has a system of grammatical gender. Thus, the use of pronouns varies according to gender. Amharic has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neutral, like many other languages.

Nouns

Nouns are words used to name people, animals, objects, places, concepts, or ideas. In Amharic, just like in other languages, nouns are of two types: singular and plural.

Amharic nouns also possess grammatical gender, which means that the language employs different articles according to the gender of the noun. You will learn about gender and articles in the next lesson.

Verbs

Verbs are words that describe actions or states of being. They can be thought of as the "engine" of the sentence. A sentence will always include a verb, even if it is not explicitly displayed.

The Amharic verb is quite flexible in application since one needs not include the pronoun if it is contextually obvious. Look at the following sentence:

• አዲስ መገልገያ አለ (adis mäggäl guggäya allä) - "There is a new advertisement."

The word አዲስ (adis) is one of the Amharic indefinite articles. The subject is not explicitly mentioned in this sentence, but it is obviously implied to be third person singular, since the verb አለ (allä) obligatorily agrees with the third person singular subject.

Basic Questions

Now that we have learned about what forms a sentence, we can move on to question formation.

User the following examples to learn how to ask questions in Amharic:

• እኔ ፍቅር ይሰጣል። = (ene fəqer yəsätal.) "I love you."
• መልካም ጊዜ ነው። = (malkam gize new.) "It's a good time."

To convert these sentences into questions, we will change the statement into a question using a particle that indicates a question is being asked: እንደገና (endegena). We will put it directly after the verb:

• እኔ ፍቅር ይሰጣል። => እኔ ፍቅር ይሰጣል እንደገና? (Ene fəqer yəsätal? - "Do I love you? ")
• መልካም ጊዜ ነው። => መልካም ጊዜ ነው እንደገና? (Malkam gize new? - "Is it a good time? ")

Conclusion

Now that you have acquired the fundamental principles of sentence formation in Amharic, try to employ them to construct basic sentences as frequently as you can. This will only help you to reinforce your learning and improve your retention.

Related Lessons

• Questions
• Definite Direct Objects in the Simple Past
• Basic Prepositions and Adverbs
• Using Phrasal Verbs in Amharic
• Time Adverbs
• Amharic Alphabets
• Direct and Indirect Object Affixes
• Common Amharic Idioms
• Pronouns and Greetings
• Gender

Sources

• Development of Amharic Grammar Checker Using Morphological ...
• Amharic - Wikipedia