Nouns Plurals may optionally be formed by adding the suffix ; however, these are rarely used except with definite nouns. E.g.: "her relatives"; "all the people".
Pronouns Personal pronouns The word goes slightly beyond being a
reflexive pronoun; it can mark any third person that refers to the subject of the sentence, e.g.: {{interlinear |indent=2 {{interlinear |indent=2 The oblique form is basic, and serves as object, possessive, and adverbial. The subject form has three variants: normal (given above), emphatic - used when the subject is particularly prominent in the sentence, especially sentence-initially - and reduced, used as part of a verb phrase. The "locative" term means "to, at, or for one's own place or house", e.g.: {{interlinear |indent=2
Determiners The main determiners are "that, the" (masc. , fem. , pl. ) and "this" (masc. , fem. , pl. ). As suffixes on a verb or an ablative or locative phrase, they indicate a relative clause. E.g.: {{interlinear |indent=2 {{interlinear |indent=2
Demonstratives The
demonstratives include "here", "there (nearby)", "there (far away)", "down there", "up there". Alone, or with the determiner suffixes or added, these function as demonstrative pronouns "this person", "that person", etc. With the noun phrase marker , they become demonstrative adjectives. E.g.: {{interlinear |indent=2 {{interlinear |indent=2
Numbers The numbers are: 20, 30, etc. are formed by adding "ten" (with tone change) to the unit. In compound numbers, is added to each 'figure, thus: :13 :236 When a
cardinal number functions as an adjective, the suffix can be added
(e.g. "three children").
Ordinal numbers are formed by suffixing to the cardinal, e.g.: "fourth".
Adjectives Adjectives are sometimes intensified by changing the tone to top; e.g. "big" → "very big".
Verbs Verbs with monosyllabic roots can have three different forms of their active stems: the singular imperative, which is just the root; the past stem, usually identical to the root but sometimes formed by adding
-k (with changes to the preceding consonant); and the future stem, usually identical to the root but sometimes formed by changing the tone from mid 3 to high 4 or from bottom 1 to top 5. Some have causative (formed by adding or , and changing mid tone to high) and passive (formed by adding , , or to the causative) forms. Verbal nouns are formed from the stem, sometimes with tone change or addition or . Verbs with polysyllabic roots have at least two forms, one with an intransitive or passive meaning and one with a transitive or causative meaning; the former ends in , the latter in . A passive may be formed by ending in . Verbal nouns are formed by taking the bare stem without or . Compound verbs are formed with "say" or "cause to say", a formation common among Ethiopian languages. The primary tenses are simple past (formed from the past stem), future (future stem plus ), present perfect (from present participle stem); negative (future stem plus .) E.g.: → "he went"; "he will go"; "he has gone". There are four corresponding participles: past (formed from the past stem), present perfect (formed from the past stem with the suffix , , or ), imperfect (formed from the future stem with the stative suffix ), and negative (formed from the future stem with the negative suffix or or a person/number marker.) The order of affixes is: root-(tense)-(negative)-(foc. pn.)-person/number-marker. ==Orthography and literature==