Abstract
This chapter examines the case and agreement systems of Amharic with particular reference to the phenomenon of differential subject marking (DSM). The chapter focuses on three interrelated issues: the semantic factors that determine DSM, the interaction between DSM and agreement on the verb, and the interaction between DSM and topicality. Amharic is a nominative or accusative language and exhibits a mixture of dependent- and head-marking. The Amharic verb is obligatorily marked for subject agreement. It can often optionally be marked for object and indirect object agreement. The subject is nonovertly marked for the nominative case and the object is marked for the accusative case if it is definite. The analysis presented in the chapter shows how non-canonical behavior is an artifact of an alternative way of encoding grammatical relations, which is predictable from a semantically homogeneous class of verbs.
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