Kambaata-Amharic code-switching Kambaata-Amharic code-switching: Focus on the morphological integration of verbs

International audience In this paper, we study the integration of established and adhoc Amharic loans into the morphology of Kambaata (Cushitic/Ethiopia). The work is based on an archived natural corpus of Kambaata conversations, recorded in 2023 in the Kambaata-speaking area in southwestern Ethiopia (Treis 2024-2025). Interestingly, the corpus is practically devoid of alternational code-switching, but shows a high degree of insertional code-switching (cf. Muysken 2007), by which Amharic lexemes are inserted into the frame constituted by the rules of Kambaata. In this context, it is especially interesting to see how Kambaata deals with the templatic morphology of Amharic verbs. As the data shows, Kambaata generally uses the Amharic perfective base (e.g. fäqqäd- ‘permit’) and interprets it as a root in its morphological system. This perfective-based root is then inflected for all persons, moods (indicative, imperative, jussive, apprehensive) and aspects (perfective, imperfective, perfect, progressive), e.g. faqqad-dáa’a (permit-3F.IPFV) ‘she permits’. If an Amharic perfective base ends in a vowel (e.g. Amh. qädda ‘fetch water’), either a glottal stop is added (Kamb. qadda’-) or the vowel is deleted (Kamb. qadd ) to adjust the base to the obligatorily consonant-final Kambaata verbal root form. We demonstrate furthermore how speakers borrow derived Amharic verbs (and treat them as roots) or apply Kambaata derivational morphology to an Amharic base. In the final part, we show that both simple and derived ideophones are borrowable. The Amharic support verbs alä and adärrägä are replaced by their Kambaata translational equivalents yú ‘say’ and a’ú ‘do’ (Meyer 2024, Treis 2024). ReferencesMuysken, Pieter. 2007. 12. Mixed codes. In Peter Auer & Li Wei (eds.), Handbook of multilingualism and multilingual communication, 315–340. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110198553.3.315.Meyer, Ronny 2024. Ideophones and verbal constructions with the verb ‘say’ in Amharic. In: Aimée Lahaussois, Julie Marsault & Yvonne Treis (eds.). Ideophones: Honing in on a descriptive and typological concept (Special issue of Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads) 4(1). 201-243. doi.org Treis, Yvonne. 2024. Ideophones in Kambaata (Cushitic): Grammar, meaning and use. In: Aimée Lahaussois, Julie Marsault & Yvonne Treis (eds.). Ideophones: Honing in on a descriptive and typological concept (Special issue of Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads) 4(1). 147–200. doi.org, Yvonne 2024-2025. Documentation of Kambaata. Deposit of audio-recordings on cocoon.huma-num.fr