Dissimilation in Oromo Phonology

Abstract

This study describes dissimilatory processes in Oromo.  The study tries to portray the detailed account of the processes in the language and describes processes at dialectal level when the process under consideration is dialect specific. Though very little attention has been given to dissimilatory process in Oromo in the past, the process has remained the most significant one as compared to other phonological processes. The data used in the study were elicited from eight less educated speakers of the dialects of the language and substantiated by the data obtained from library work and data accumulated by the researcher since 2010 mainly from his teaching experience. The data have been phonemically and phonetically transcribed and descriptively analyzed. In Oromo, segmental and autosegmental, regressive and progressive, partial and total, and contiguous and non-contiguous dissimilatory processes are identified. It is also found out that in most cases, dissimilation in Oromo is accompanied by different phonological processes: assimilation, deletion, reduplication, metathesis and epenthesis. Since dissimilation process in Oromo is predominantly morphophonemic in nature, studying this process is basic to compute the language.