Towards the Conceptualization of the Sphere of Interpersonal Relations in Amharic

The work belongs to the field of sociolinguistics and linguistic pragmatics, and concerns Amharic honorific expressions and their cultural constraints. The cultural context which determines the pragmatic accuracy of the grammatical structures is set in the traditions of the Ethiopian Empire that go back many centuries and are deeply rooted in Christianity. But it also comprises changes brought about by communism and later democratic transformations, all against the background of the no less important African reality. The author pays particular attention to linguistic changes that mark transformations in social, political and cultural life, analysing them through the function and distribution of forms of address. She perceives forms of address as a combination of lexical and grammatical means, showing the changes in the way they are used as a result of the historical transformations taking place in Ethiopian society.