Copula Construction in Dime

In this paper we treat copula construction in Dime. We made also some reviews of other Omotic languages. We made a few comparisons with copula clauses in Hamar and Ari, which are much closed to Dime. Moreover, we made also comparison with Maale and Basketo, neighboring languages and other Omotic language such as Koorete to get further information of copula construction in Omotic Languages. The tenseles, past and future copula clauses in Dime is also treated. The equative and attributive copula clauses are tense-less which are marked by the copula --ee or dan. These are used alternatively without any apparent meaning difference. We also discuss the copula clauses in negative and interrogative constructions. The past copula clause is expressed by deen-ka except for first person which employs deebdee. The future tense Copula clause is expressed by the morpheme -- tub. The same morpheme is used for expressing future or imperfective in verbal clauses specifically with first person pronouns. In copula constructions --tub expresses future tense with all subjects, irrespective of the person value of the subject. Interestingly in Dime copula has a number of functions, in nominal as well as in verbal constructions, for instance, the copula following main verb expresses aspects and some focusing structure in the language. The negative nominal clause is headed by the negative copula yi- and the negative marker --kay. The equative, attributive, existential and locative as well as the possessive copula clauses are expressed by yi-kay. The interrogative marker in copula clause is --aa for second person both in perfective and imperfective aspect. For the other persons, the interrogative in copulal clauses indicated prosodically, through a high tone on the final vowel of the aspect markers.