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 A Latin-based orthography was adopted in 2008. Previously, the New Testament had been published in the Bench language using an orthography based on the Ethiopian syllabary. Tones were not indicated. Retroflex consonants were indicated by such techniques as using extra symbols from the syllabary (the "nigus s") and forming new symbols (the addition of an extra arm on the left side for "t"). Notes References Breeze, Mary J. 1986. "Personal pronouns in Gimira (Benchnon)." In Ursula Wiesemann (ed.), Pronominal systems, 47–69. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Breeze, Mary J. 1988. "Phonological features of Gimira and Dizi." In Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Fritz Serzisko (eds.), Cushitic - Omotic: papers from the International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic languages, Cologne, January 6–9, 1986, 473–487. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. Breeze, Mary J. 1990. "A Sketch of the Phonology and Grammar of Gimira (Benchnon)". In Richard J. Hayward (ed.), Omotic Language Studies, 1-67. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Rapold, Christian. 2006. Towards a Grammar of Benchnon. Dissertation, Leiden University. Wedekind, Klaus. 1983. "A six-tone language in Ethiopia: Tonal analysis of Benč non (Gimira)." Journal of Ethiopian Studies 16: 129–56. Wedekind, Klaus. 1985a. "Why Bench’ (Ethiopia) has five level tones today." In Ursula Pieper and Gerhard Stickel (eds.), Studia linguistica diachronica et synchronica, 881-901. Berlin: Mouton. Wedekind, Klaus. 1985b. "Thoughts when drawing a map of tone languages." Afrikanistische