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NACAL 42
The North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics
Conference Program
Leiden University, February 14-16, 2014
Abstracts
Purpose and Temporal Clauses in Sidaama
Anbessa Teferra (Tel Aviv University)
Adverbials have various functions in the grammatical structure of a language. They can modify a
clause from the point of view of time, manner, place, purpose, etc. The main aim of this paper is to
investigate the morphological and syntactic structure of purpose and temporal clauses in Sidaama, a
Cushitic language spoken in south-central Ethiopia.
In purpose clauses the subordinate clause is marked by /gede/, a formative which can also
co-occur with nouns to form a postpositional phrase. In such clauses, /gede/ is always preceded by an
imperfective aspect while the verb of the main clause has no aspectual restrictions: it can be in
imperfect, perfect or present perfect. In addition, the subject and the object can be either
co-referential or non-co-referential. If they are co-referential then the subordinate verb will be in nonfinite form to which the dative postposition /-te/ is attached. This subordinate structure is optionally
followed
by
the
converb
of
the
“quotative”
verb
/y-/.
Temporal clauses may mark either sequential or simultaneous events. The sequential marker is
/wote/ ‘at the time, when’ which is preceded by the conjugated verb /y-/ ‘say’. In such structures the
matrix clause can be in perfect or present perfect. Sequentiality can also be rendered by means of
periphrastic expressions. If the subordinate verb expresses an event which took place before the action
indicated by the main clause, it will be in non-finite form which is followed by the locational alba-nni
‘before’. If it is the opposite case, then a verb in perfect aspect is followed by
gedensa-nni‘after’.
There are two different suffixes for marking simultaneous actions. If the subject and object are
co-referential, the subordinate verb is marked by /-anni/. However, if they are not
co-referential it is marked by the person-sensitive /-anna/. In both instances there is no restriction
regarding the aspect of the main clause.
Male drums and female drums: natural gender and
inanimate nouns in Omotic languages
Azeb Amha (Leiden University)
Most Omotic languages make a two-way gender distinction (masculine vs. feminine), which are
overtly marked on nouns, pronouns, verbs or nominal modifiers such as adjectives. Gender is assigned
to animate nouns on the basis of sex. Such a system readily classifies humans and higher-animates into
two classes: biologically female beings are feminine and the male ones are masculine. However, in
certain grammatical contexts, e.g. when the noun is definite, inanimate nouns must be marked for
gender. Depending on the language, the default gender of inanimate nouns is either masculine or
feminine. Interestingly, for the expression of various physical, functional or other aspects of the
inanimate nouns, the default gender may be switched. Thus in languages in which feminine gender is
the default gender, reference to inanimate nouns may be made using the masculine gender. In the
paper I will describe such changes to the default pattern by examining representative text from the two
systems: languages in which default gender is feminine and those in which default gender is masculine
and attempt to identify the meanings achieved by the gender-switch on inanimate nouns. In addition, I
will discuss cases in which gender-specifying nouns equivalent to ‘mother’ and ‘father’ in English are
used in various Omotic languages to distinguish different types of objects, e.g. ʔíndo darbe ‘female
drum’ vs. ʔáde darbe ‘male drum’ [lit. ‘mother drum’ and ‘father drum’] in the Oyda language.
The lexicostatistics of Central Cushitic (Agaw)
Paul D. Fallon (University of Mary Washington)
Bender (1971) and Blažek (1997) briefly examined Agaw in their larger treatments of Cushitic
lexicostatistics. With the publication of Appleyard (2006), it is now possible to conduct an in-depth
analysis of Agaw internal language relations. Embleton (1986) found that accuracy of tree
construction improved with the length of word list used. This study uses the list of 720 items in
Appleyard (2006). It codes the data according to the protocols outlined in Grant (2010), producing
cognancy grids for the four main Agaw varieties studied here: Blin, Xamtanga, Kemantney and Awngi.
An example is given below:
Cognacy
Cognate
Gloss
Blin Xamtanga
Kemantney
Awngi
Status
set spread
‘two’
läŋa
liŋa
liŋa
laŋa
aaaa
4
‘wet’ (adj.)
kʷʼətʼa qʷətʼən
xʷätäni
soɣen
aaab
3-1
‘wall’
kʷana kʷina
kab
jə ər
aaBC
2-1-1
‘wind’ (n.)
wälwälfigya
aɣmäza
nəfás
AbcD
1-1-1-1
In the example for ‘two’, the forms in each cognate are similar and of common origin, and so are
assigned the lower case letter a for each language. In the example for ‘wet’, the first three languages
are cognate, while the last, Awngi, uses a different Agaw root, which is encoded b. For ‘wall’, Blin
and Xamtanga share a lexical origin, while the forms in Kemantney and Awngi use two different
recognized loans (from Amharic), indicated by capital letters. In the last form for ‘wind’, no language
shares a common origin. The form in Blin is recognised as a Tigre loan, while the Awngi form is
borrowed from Amharic.
The importance of this approach is that it allows the analyst to stratify the cognates into
different periods during which time different languages innovated, according to the patterns of shared
cognates. In the example above, the pattern aaaa may safely be attributed to Proto-Agaw, and aaab
may be used as evidence for Proto-Northern Agaw. Lexical synapomorphies (shared innovations) are
also discovered and are compared to morphological ones (Appleyard 1988). In this way, the data
reveal more about the history of the language. Data are compared to the earlier analyses of Bender and
Blažek. The resulting tree is compared to that in Appleyard (1984).
Selected References
Appleyard, D.L. 1984. The internal classification of the Agaw languages: A comparative and
historical phonology. In James Bynon (ed.), Current progress in Afro-Asiatic linguistics:
Papers of the Third International Hamito-Semitic Congress, 33-67. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Appleyard, David. 2006a. A comparative dictionary of the Agaw languages. (Cushitic Language
Studies, 24). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
Bender, M.L. 1971. The languages of Ethiopia: A new lexicostatistic classification and some problems
of diffusion. Anthropological Linguistics 13(5).165-288.
Blažek, Václav. 1997. Cushitic lexicostatistics: The second attempt. In Alessando Bausi & Mauro
Tosco, Afroasiatica Neapolitana: Papers from the 8th Italian Meeting of Afroasiatic (HamitoSemitic) Linguistics, Naples, January 25-26, 1996. (Studi Africanistici Serie Etiopica, 6), 171188. Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale.
Embleton, Sheila M. 1986. Statistics in historical linguistics. Bochum: Brockmeyer.
Grant, Anthony P. 2010. On using qualitative lexicostatistics to illuminate language history: Some
techniques and case studies. Diachronica 27(2).277-300.
On the structure of sound and broken plurals in Moroccan Arabic
Mohamed Lahrouchi (CNRS)
In Moroccan Arabic, like in many other Afroasiatic languages, a single noun may have more than one
plural form. For instance, tˤasˤwera ‘photo’ has plurals tˤsˤaw"r and tˤasˤwerat, while kasˤetˤɑ ‘tape’
leads to kwɑsˤetˤ and kasˤetˤat. Morphologically speaking, these are genuine plurals referring to what
Semitists commonly call broken and sound plurals. From a semantic perspective, however, a crucial
difference arises: tˤasˤwerat and kasˤetˤat indicate a definite number usually occurring with numerals,
whereas the corresponding broken plurals have collective readings. This study presents an interface
approach which aims to determine the structural location of number and capture the empirical contrast
between broken and sound plurals. In line with recent work on number and plurality (Acquaviva 2008,
Lowenstamm 2008, Kramer 2012), it is argued that the sound plurals are associated with the standard
Num projection, whereas the broken plurals are associated lower in the structure with the n projection.
External evidence for this analysis is drawn from the phenomenon of emphasis spread. In Moroccan
Arabic, the coronals tˤ, dˤ, sˤ and zˤ spread their emphatic feature to the neighbouring segments over
domains larger than the syllable. The nature of these domains remains unclear ranging from the stem
to the phonological word or utterance. From our perspective, the nP is the maximal domain of
emphasis spread in nouns. In this view, the internal plurals containing an emphatic consonant will be
entirely emphaticized, while the external plurals will be affected only partially. For instance, dˤlˤoʕ
‘muscles’ will be emphatic from one end to the other while in dˤ"lˤʕat, the suffix –at along with the
onset consonant ʕ will remain unaffected.
‘Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to theeʼ (Gen. 3:18) - Two Aramaic Substrate
Words in Palestinian Arabic
Mila Neishtadt (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Aramaic, the dominant spoken language in Palestine during the Roman and the Byzantine periods, was
only gradually superseded by Arabic after the Arab conquests. Whereas the existence of Aramaic
substrate elements in Syro-Palestinian vernacular Arabic had been widely agreed upon and is still
evident especially in the lexical component, scholars have long debated the nature and extent of the
phenomenon. In this paper I shall present a basic methodological approach to the problem of
detection and identification of Aramaic substrate elements in the lexical component of Palestinian
Arabic. Using rigorous linguistic criteria and supportive evidence we can conclude whether a certain
‘candidate’ Aramaic substrate word is an Aramaic substrate-word or not, and to what degree of
likelihood. As a rule of thumb a candidate substrate word should be absent from Classical Arabic or be
used in a different meaning. Among the linguistic criteria applied are: (a) Morphophonology
– consonant correspondence, noun pattern etc.; (b) Semantics; (c) Attestation and distribution in
Aramaic; (d) Attestation and distribution in Arabic. Cumulative evidence will help us resolve each
case. Some words will seem to qualify by all accounts; in others (durdār) it will be only the meaning
which will reveal their Aramaic origin. For others (qōṣ) – attestation (or non-attestation) and
distribution in Arabic, Aramaic and finally - Biblical Hebrew will be determinate. The latter example
should be added to the relatively short list of Canaanite/Hebrew decay words which survived in
Palestinian Arabic via Aramaic from the Biblical period to present days.
A variationist approach to mergers in contemporary Palestinian Arabic in light of
Semitic diachrony
Uri Horesh (Northwestern University)
How distant are languages: the case of the Arabian Peninsula
etr emánek (Charles niversity)
The paper deals with measuring distances among the languages based on their grammatical and
phonological characteristics. The article works with the data from a number of various linguistic forms
documented from the Arabian Peninsula, all of them from the Semitic family. Comparison is made on
the level of different groups of languages, such as Arabic, Sayhadic (Epigraphic South Arabian) and
Modern South Arabian languages, but also among the dialects of Arabic only.
Resulting models do not necessarily contribute to the picture of genetic differentiation of the language
forms involved. On the other hand, they are instructive in many other respects as they reflect possible
other influences that affected the development that took place in individual languages or language
groups and enable also to search for correlations with other types of data.
Is Judeo-Arabic a Semitic language variety?
Benjamin Hary (Emory University)
This paper will deal with issues of classification along the lines of NACAL 42 theme. While Arabic is
clearly classified as a Semitic language, the question remains, are all of its varieties can also be
classified as Semitic as well? Many of the Arabic varieties are mixed in nature, for example, Maltese,
which has many elements from Indo-European family, especially the Latin sub family (Sicilian, Italian,
French, but also recently English), but can it still be considered Semitic?
Judeo-Arabic faces similar issues of classification. While its structure is clearly Semitic, it has
many elements from Hebrew and Aramaic, which are also Semitic languages. Consequently, on the
surface, then, the answer is simple and Judeo-Arabic should be classified as a Semitic language. On
the other hand, Judeo-Arabic is also a Jewish language, or better yet, a Jewish religiolect, but then,
will it change its classification? What are some of the criteria we need to revisit concerning
classification?
Issues of classifications are not simple and this essay will treat this question, showing its
complexities.
Is Ancient North Arabian more diverse than we thought? A classification of
Taymanitic
Fokelien Kootstra (Leiden University)
Taymanitic is classed as part of Ancient North Arabian (ANA) and was spoken in the oasis of Tayma
during the second half of the 6th scripts and language varieties that makes up ANA is often described
as a ‘dialect continuum’. These language varieties are assumed to be sister dialects, or even the direct
predecessors of early Arabic. However, closer inspection of Taymanitic inscriptions shows that it did
not undergo any of the Arabic innovations. The innovations that it did undergo, seem to place it in the
North West Semitic (NWS) branch. Therefore, Taymanitic cannot be seen as a sister variety nor a
predecessor of Arabic. To gain greater insight into Taymanitic grammar, a corpus of approximately
350 published and unpublished inscriptions were examined. This corpus contains number of longer
inscriptions, which showed more than just the name and lineage of the author of the text. Based on an
analysis of these texts Taymanitic seems to look very little like Arabic. For example, like most ANA
varieties, it has a definite article h- instead of ʾal-; it has a demonstrative form z(n), not ʾallaḏī and it
probably has a feminine plural form ending in –ā instead of the Arabic form –na. To answer the
question ‘where does Taymanitic belong then?’ we should probably be looking at NWS, as
Taymanitic seems to share some of its innovative features. One of the most peculiar being a possible
construct plural, similar to the form used in Aramaic and Hebrew.While examining several
inscriptions it will become clear that Taymanitic holds many surprising features, which makes it
plausible to state that we are dealing with a separate language variety that is closer to NWS languages
like Hebrew and Aramaic than to Arabic.
Afroasiatic “smith”
Václav Blažek (Masaryk niversity)
In the contribution all available terms designating “smith” in Afroasiatic languages are summarized
and etymologized from the point of view of etymology. As conclusion the main directions of semantic
motivations are characterized.
Genetic evidence for earliest Afroasiatic in northeast Africa
Grover Hudson (Michigan State University)
Human prehistory relies on the evidence of archaeology, linguistics, and, more recently, genetics
(notably Cavalli-Sforza et al 1988). Correlation of genetic data with populations by geography was
recognized in the 1940s with A/B/O blood groups (Cavalli-Sforza 2000: 15). For reasons of their
evolutionary similarities, correlation of genetic and linguistic groups is also expected, certainly for
older and more widespread language families such as Indo-European and Afroasiatic (AA) which date
from ca. ≥ 6-10 kya. For such proto-languages, archaeological evidence of origins is hard to find, and
controversial, as for AA (Natufian? Bar Yosef 1998), and the genetic evidence can seem decisive
(Militarev 2002, Ehret, Keita, and Newman 2004). Geneticists have begun to make associations of
genetic evidence, especially Y chromosome and MtDNA haplogroups, with language families
including AA (Lancaster 2009, Boattini et al 2013), and, because of its great genetic and linguistic
diversity, Northeast Africa with its presumptive role in the ‘African Eve’ and ‘Out of Africa’ stories
(Pagani et al 2012, Kivisild et al 2004). Probably because of its technical complexity and jargon,
historical linguists have hardly begun to refer to this genetics evidence. However, geneticists’ use
of linguistics is sometimes problematic, as in the assumptions of Cavalli-Sforza 2000: 145 that AAs
are ‘Caucasians’ and of Kivisild et al 2004: 753 that Ethiopian Semites ‘are considered to be
descendants of South Arabian conquerors who trace their ancestry back to Moses and King Solomon’.
So if not for its techniques and findings, the work should be evaluated by linguists for its use of
linguistics. After background, this paper examines the findings and linguistic assumptions of Kivisild
et al 2004, Lancaster 2009, Pagani et al 2012, and Boattini et al 2013, with particular regard to AA
origin in the Levant or the Horn.
Cognitive biases and statistical innumeracy in comparative Afroasiatic linguistics
Dan Ungureanu (Charles University)
The scope of my speech is twofold : the first, to describe in terms of cognitive psychology the biases
of comparative linguists (not logical or factual errors, but cognitive biases) The second is to offer a
personal contribution to the field of comparative linguistics. We will expand the observations of Rolf
Theil, R. Ratcliffe and Marijn van Putten about Semito-Hamitic (Afro-asiatic).
I. First Part : Cognitive Biases in Comparative Linguistics
It is important to describe comparative linguistics in a cognitive psychology frame.
The mind does not function as a perfect logical device. The mind does not function
as a pocket calculator. In the real world, we have to make swift decisions
based on incomplete data. In the Paleolithic, the man could not wait to run until he clearly saw a tiger.
One had to decide to run or to attack on incomplete, imprecise, equivocal data. Our mind has
developed shortcuts. When facing incomplete data or sheer noise, our mind tends to transform it into
signal, or interpret noise as signal. Our mind, and its shortcuts, called heuristics, was developed for
survival, for attack and retreat, not for scientific research. Some research, in physics, chemistry and
medicine, can rely on experiment. Historical and Comparative Linguistics cannot. We will speak about
cognitive bias, Wason selection task, Dunning-Kruger effect, and the classical fallacy of composition
and fallacy of division.
The human mind was wired to see patterns, and not noise. Even when we see noise, and know that is
noise, we see patterns, coherence, meaning (pareidolia). We will illustrate the most frequent, the most
pervasive cognitive biases in Historical Linguistics. We will later speak about Statistical Illiteracy in
Historical Linguistics and how cognitive biases and statistical illiteracy make us grossly underestimate
the amount of false positives.
II. Comparative Linguistics beta : Is it still possible to compare languages if the number of possible
cognates is under the threshold of noise? Could we stiill compare languages, if the sheer number of
coincidences, supposed cognates, is under the limit of noise ? We will propose a typological method
of using even small vocabularies for comparison, even when the number of comparable words is
small. We will illustrate this in the frame of Afroasiatic. There is, fortunately, a difference between
random coincidences and real old cognates.
When daughter languages separate from a proto-language, they lose (and keep) words in a certain,
clear order. As shown by Dyen, Kruskal, Black, and others after them, every word in a vocabulary is
like a radioactive element : it has its own half-life, which can be calculated.
Let us postulate two pairs of languages,
languages A and B :
languages C and D.
If languages A and B have 1 % of coincidences scattered randomly
in the vocabulary, they are not related.
Languages C and D have 1 % of
the vocabulary. We will consider them as related.
coincidences,
clustered
in
the
core
of
We will also show what counts as core of the vocabulary, and will illustrate the method using AfroAsiatic (Semito-Hamitic) as support. We will show if, and how, one can prove that Semito-Hamitic
exists, and if it is polytethic or monotethic.
Modality, impersonality, and predicativity: one more look at the negation of infinitive construct
in Second Temple Hebrew
Uri Mor (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
Second Temple Hebrew (LBH, QH, and Ben Sira), unlike Classical Biblical Hebrew, has two
ways of negating a predicative infinitive construct: with ‫( לא‬e.g., ‫שלוא כתוב ה ֵר[הטהו מתו] ֵבה ועל‬
MMT B:76–78); or ;‫]לרבעה כלאי ועל לבוש [ו כתוב שלוא] יהיה שעטנז ושלוא לזרוע שדו ו ֶכ [רמו כלאי‬
with ‫( אי‬e.g., ‫כלבי ש ֵֶ וד ֵֶ ק ֵה למחני ֵי ֵב ֵה ֵל‬
in contemporary Aramaic, expresses prohibition and is similar to the positive predicative infinitive
construct; and the latter expresses different modal meanings (including prohibition) and is close to
existential sentences. The similarities and dissimilarities between these two patterns have been the
subject of several scholarly discussions (e.g., Kieviet 1999; van Peursen 1999; Qimron 1986: 71), but
in spite of Kieviet’s thorough research the relation between the patterns is still a matter of debate, as is
the question of their syntactic structure. An examination of the two patterns (and other similar ones)
from a more historical perspective, in light of the morphosyntactic changes in the verbal system of
Second Temple Hebrew (e.g., Cohen 2013) and its sentence patterns, suggests that these are two
distinct historical patterns with two distinct syntactic behaviors: the former equals a finite verb or a
nominalization, and the latter a whole predication. The paper will introduce the development and
syntactic character of each pattern, and will discuss alternation between them. Additionally, it will be
argued that the predicative usage of the infinitive construct is not the result of ellipsis, as suggested
before (Cohen 2013), but rather the outcome of a combination of factors, one of which is reanalysis of
sequences of prohibitions.
References
Cohen, Ohad, The Verbal Tense System in Late Biblical Hebrew Prose (HSS 63; Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 2013)
Kieviet, P. J. A., “The Infinitive Construct Combined with the articles ‫ לא‬,‫ י‬,‫ אי‬in the Hebrew Bible:
Syntax and Semantics,” Dutch Studies on Near Eastern Languages and Literatures 4 (1999):
5–26
van eursen, W. T., “Negation in the Hebrew of Ben Sira,” in Sirach, Scrolls, and Sages: Proceedings
of a Second International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea scrolls, Ben Sira, and
the
Mishnah, Held at Leiden University, 15–17 December 1997 (ed. Takamitsu Muraoka and John F.
Elwolde; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 223–243
Qimron, Elisha, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (HSS 29; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986)
‫ ;ואי‬MMT B:58). The former pattern, which is also found
Pre-Hebrew syncope in the construct state: mamlāḵā / mamléḵeṯ, kāṯ
etc.
Benjamin Suchard (Leiden University)
/ kéṯe ,
A small number of Biblical Hebrew words of the mVq ālā and qV Vl patterns have seemingly
irregular forms in the construct state, indicating possession by a following noun or noun phrase:
mVq ālā becomes mVq let and qV Vl becomes q el. The exact quality of the vowels in the construct
state varies, but these forms seem to behave like the so-called segolates, i.e. they ended in a consonant
cluster at one point. This is strikingly different from the expected forms: according to the known
Hebrew sound laws, the construct states of these words should be mVq lat and q al, respectively.
reviously, scholars have either done no more than note the ‘apparent interchange’ between
these nominal patterns, without attempting to explain it, or propose shaky, often self-contradictory
explanations, invoking analogy based on non-existent forms or ad hoc differences in accentuation,
some even going through a complete overhaul of the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic to arrive at an
explanation that covers the data. The alternation can, however, easily be explained by positing a quite
natural sound change deleting the second of two unstressed, short vowels in open syllables when
preceding another unstressed syllable: unstressed *CVCVCV(:) > *CVCCV(:). Thus, mVq alatu
mVq altu and qV Vlu
qV lu in the construct state, which then regularly result in the attested
Biblical Hebrew forms. The counterexamples to this sound law can all be plausibly explained as
resulting from analogical restoration.
As will be argued in this talk, this newly postulated sound law receives support from other
parts of the Hebrew lexicon, shedding light on several other previously unexplained anomalies. These,
together with the unexpected construct states already mentioned, allow us to date the sound change to
the second millennium BCE.
Proposed origins of the Canaanite shift
Janling Fu (Harvard University)
The Canaanite Shift ā ō has long been noted as a regular sound change characterizing a limited
geographical scope (e.g., Bauer-Leander 1923) that is first attested in the 16-15th BCE in texts of the
New Kingdom in Egypt, and thereafter in the corpus of the Amarna letters (see most recently Suchard
2012, Huehnergard 2013). While significant debate has arisen over whether the Canaanite shift is
limited in scope to stressed positions as opposed to being an unconditioned sound change, less
attention has, to my knowledge, focused on the question of its origins. And yet the conditions of its
occurrence, namely, in a circumscribed geographic region during a period generally marked by
increased interaction with Egypt, prompt the consideration that the Canaanite Shift might come as the
result of language contact (see Thomason 2001). In this paper, I will outline the current understanding
of the Canaanite Shift and then push toward several lines of evidence that I believe will support this
tentative understanding.
Metathesis in the hitpa'el binyan: an Optimality Theoretic analysis
Kyle S. Jones (University of California, Davis)
The prototypically reciprocal and reflexive verbal paradigm in Modern Hebrew (MH), known as the
hitpa’el binyan, consists of a prefix [Cit-] which attaches to the verbal root (as, for example, in [Citpalɛl] “pray”). When followed by a sibilant consonant (specifically [s], [ʃ], [z], and [ts]), the [t] of the
hitpa’el prefix consistently metathesizes with the sibilant consonant. Why should this be the case and
how can this be accounted for in Optimality Theory (OT)? Refining the previous OT analysis of
metathesis in the hitpa’el of Tiberian Hebrew (TH) by Coetzee (1999), I will demonstrate that MH
ranks the constraint *t + SIB above LINEARITY, allowing metathesis to surface as the optimal way of
dealing with a phonotactic constraint against [t] + sibilant clusters. Metathesis serves also to preserve
the [t] of the hitpa’el, the only stable morphological indicator of the paradigm. I will also review
literature (e.g. Hume (2004) and Blevins and Garrett (2004)) discussing metathesis more generally,
which suggests that stop/fricative combinations are universally disfavored and often subject to repair
by metathesis.I conclude by arguing that the phonetically-based "evolutionary phonology" approach
pioneered by Blevins (2004) is the best way to account for the facts of MH hitpa'el metathesis.
The Old Egyptian śḏm(.w)=f passive and its implications for the origin of
the internal passive in Central Semitic
Chris H. Reintges (CNRS)
1. Old Egyptian, the earliest stage of the Ancient Egyptian language (2650–2150 BCE), is a language
with multiple passives (Reintges 1997). The concern of my talk is with the so-called śḏm.w=f passive,
which is marked as passive voice by means of the stem-final suffix –w. However, the –w suffix is not
systematically rendered in hieroglyphic writing. Rather, there is an (ortho)graphic contrast between
plene and defective spellings of śḏm.w=f passives, as illustrated by the following example from the
Pyramid Text corpus.
(1)
2. I will first present arguments that the passive voice formative –w actually represents a vocalic suffix
–u and explain the contrast of plene and defective writings in terms of different spelling conventions.
In general, hieroglyphic writing does not express the vowel pattern an inflected verb form, unless the
word-final vowel is part of an inflectional ending or constitutes an inflectional ending by itself, as in
the case at hand.
3. The Egyptian facts may shed new light on the diachronic origin of the internal passive in Central
Semitic languages. The internal passive in Classical Arabic is derived by shifting the vowel sequence
/a a/ to /u i/ in the perfect conjugation, e.g. qatala ‘he killed’ vs. qutila ‘he was killed’. It has almost
entirely disappeared in modern Arabic colloquial dialects. Mauritanian Arabic, by contrast, has an
innovative passive pattern, which is formed with a u−prefix in the perfect conjugation, e.g. baxxar ‘he
perfumed with incense vs. u− baxxar ‘he was perfumed with incense’ (Kaye and Rosenhouse 1997:
297–298) and which looks like the mirror image of the suffixal u−passive in Old Egyptian.
4. Even though there are no traces of internal passives in Akkadian and Ethiopian Semitic, we are not
necessarily dealing with a group–internal morphological innovation. Rather, both Ancient Egyptian
and Proto-Semitic must have drawn the u−passive from a common pool of passive voice markers.
The eventive-stative alternation in Coptic Egyptian
Bendjaballah, Sabrina (CNRS)
Reintges, Chris (CNRS)
Coptic Egyptian, the most recent stage of Ancient Egyptian (Afro-Asiatic, 3rd–11th c. CE), has a
complex verbal system, in which stem forms, or templates, are morphologically derived by associating
a consonantal root with a particular structural pattern. This is exemplified with the biliteral root √KT
'to build' in the table below, together with the aspectual semantics and argument structure of the stem
(Reintges 2004).
The first three stem patterns are categorially verbal nouns, or infinitives, which, due to the
presence of nominal features, can freely occur in various types of event nominalizations (pəə− kɔt ‘the
act of building’). By contrast, the Stative is an indisputably verbal category. Based on the analysis of
different verbal classes (e.g. the inchoative-stative class), we show that the Stative is less complex than
the Absolute State in terms of the verbal morphosyntax: the Absolute State is therefore derived from
the Stative (contra Kramer 2006). We furthermore argue that the
template of the Absolute State is structurally more complex than that of the Stative, whereby
complexity is manifested either in vowel alternations (apophonic derivation in biliteral roots: ɛ -> ɔ) or
in additional material (propagation of the second root consonant in the inchoative-stative class: hɛm
'be hot' -> hmom 'become hot').
The larger picture is that in the Coptic verbal system, syntactic derivation is in a close
relationship with templatic morphology.
References
Kramer, Ruth. 2006. Root and pattern morphology in Coptic: Evidence for the root. In C. Davis & et
al. (eds.) Proceedings of NELS 36, 399–412.
Reintges, Chris. 2004. Coptic Egyptian (Sahidic dialect): A Learner's Grammar. Cologne
The Noun Prefixes of Eastern Berber and their significance for the reconstruction of
Proto-Berber
Marijn van Putten (Leiden University)
The vast majority of Berber nouns have an initial element that marks Gender, Number and ‘State’
(akin to case marking). The prefixes look as follows in the Western Berber dialects:
Free state
Annexed state
m.sg.
a-maziɣ
w-maziɣ
m.pl.
i-maziɣən
y-maziɣən
f.sg.
ta-maziɣt
t-maziɣt
f.pl.
ti-maziɣin
t-maziɣin
Several studies have been dedicated to the origin of these prefixes, and they are generally attributed to
ancient deictic elements that, perhaps, functioned as definite and indefinite articles. While the
historical explanations seem to work for the Western Berber dialects, the data from the Eastern Berber
languages spoken in Libya and Egypt have thus far not received any attention. This is regrettable as
the prefix situation of the many different Eastern Berber languages appears to be different from the
western varieties. In this presentation, I will examine the noun prefixes of the Libyan Berber
languages of Ghadames, Awjila, Nefusa, El-Foqaha, Sokna and the Egyptian Berber language of Siwa.
I will show that these prefix systems cannot be derived from the western Berber system, and therefore
has implications for the reconstruction of the Proto-Berber noun prefixes.
Gutturals in the reconstruction of Berber
Lameen Souag (LACITO (CNRS))
Over the past decade, the increasing availability of data on the highly divergent Southwestern branch
of Berber (Zenaga, Tetserrét, and some substrata of Northern Songhay and Hassaniya) has permitted
new advances in the reconstruction of proto-Berber – notably, the reconstruction of a glottal stop
(Kossmann 2001). However, this reconstruction raises problems on several levels. Within Zenaga, ʔ
corresponds both to pan-Berber Ø < *ʔ and to pan-Berber ɣ; the latter in turn sometimes corresponds
to Zenaga ɣ (or even x and g). Within proto-Berber, we observe that verbs securely reconstructible as
triliterals with initial or medial *ʔ consistently form their imperfectives differently from sound
triliterals (cf. Prasse 1972); the same is true within Zenaga, even in cases where ʔ corresponds to
pan-Berber ɣ. This paper will demonstrate that Tetserrét data casts light on the split in
correspondences of ɣ, which is reconstructible for proto-Southwestern Berber at least, while Zenaga
phonotactics combined with general patterns in Berber verbal conjugation explain the apparently
anomalous behaviour of "laryngeals" in proto-Berber imperfectives.
Typological and diachronic considerations on the Berber negation system
Vermondo Brugnatelli ( niversità di Milano-Bicocca)
Mena Lafkioui ( niversità di Milano-Bicocca, Ghent niversity)
The morphosyntax of negation in Berber is rich and complex, and appears to be the outcome of
multiple processes that have taken place over different time-periods from prehistory to the present day.
The most noteworthy issue is the tendency towards a redundant marking of negation, not only by
means of discontinuous morphemes (circumfixes) but also through the use of special “negative verb
stems” — a feature that is attested in nearly all of the Berber-speaking area, regardless of the type of
negative affixes in use. In this paper, we attempt to single out the main processes that have led to the
present stage, taking into account the etymologies of prefixal and suffixal negative morphemes, the
origin of negative stems and the role of the so-called Jespersen’s cycle in the evolution of Berber
negation.
The typology of Bedouin dialects: new data from Lebanon
Younes Igor (Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle Paris III)
The dialects of arabic have been traditionnaly classified as bedouin or sedentary. This distinction has
been adopted whole sale accross the Arab World. In the western parts, the split is usualy described in
accordance with different arabization waves : pre-hilalian (sedentary) and hilalian (nomadic). In the
eastern parts, the arabization process is much less clear cut. Indeed, historical record provide ample
evidence for the presence of arabic-speaking groups since ancient times in the region. While the
sedentary/bedouin distinction remains broadly meaningfull, it blurs the inner variety of the dialects
spoken in the east of the Arab World. Dialectologists such as Cantineau (1936, 1937), Palva (1985)
and Ingham (1986) have identified different sub-groups amongst the bedouin dialects : north-west
arabian, central Jordan bedouin arabic, Syro-Mesopotamian sheep-breeders (group C), camel-breeders
(divided into group A for ʿNiza confederation and group B for Šammar confederation), satellitary
(group Bc) and southern najdi. The last four are subgroupings of the more general Najdi type while
central Jordan bedouin arabic is considered transitional between group C Najdi and north-west arabian.
Basing ourselves on first hand linguistic data collected accross eastern ans northern Lebanon, we will
reconsider the bedouin dialect typology as described by Cantineau and suggest the existence of
another subgroup within the Najdi type that we propose to call group Ca. We will also discuss the
validity of applying the term « bedouin » as a valid distinction accross the whole Arab World.
A possible b- preformant in Arabic
Jérôme Lentin (INALCO (Paris))
One may reasonably argue that, in Arabic (as in other Semitic - and Hamito-Semitic - languages), a
not insignificant number of lexemes (verbs or nouns) can be analyzed as resulting from the prefixation
to an existing form of a consonantal element (other than t-, n-, m-, ’-, w-, y- and s-, or more marginally
h- et š, used in morphology). These preformants (‘root extensions’, ‘root-determinatives’ etc., or, in
Diakonoff’s terms, ‘root-formative morphemes’ or ‘complements’) have not been extensively studied
for this language. In a previous study, I have examined the cases of q-, ḥ-, z- and ‘-. I propose now to
turn to b-, which also seems well-attested. A list of examples from Ancient Arabic and various dialects
will be produced. Quadriconsonantal words will be given first, since the supposed prefixation of b- is
more obvious (qulla / baqlūle ‘clay jar’; bēsa‘ ‘to enlarge (a place), to give space’, cf. √WS‘;
marqūš / mutaraqqiš and mubarqaš ‘spotted’). Then triconsonantal words for which the ancient
process of the prefixation of b- can be traced will be examined (especially with roots where C2 = C3:
hassa “to make sb’s lot low”; bahasa “to wrong sb”; ṭaḥḥa = baṭaḥa ‘to spread’, or with roots with C1,
C2 or C3 = W/Y). Finally, some hints will be made to analogous examples in some Semitic and
Hamito-Semitic languages.
Glottal-initial verbs ʾaẖaḏ/ʾakal in contact situations: data from Amman Arabic
Enam Al-Wer (University of Essex)
The conjugation of glottal-initial verbs ’axaḏ/’akal varies across Arabic vernaculars. In the traditional
central and northern Jordanian dialects (which are of the Hōrani type), marking of ‘person’ agreement
is morphologically neutralised in the imperfect of 1st pers sing and 3rd pers masc sing, rendering the
ambiguous form bōkil ‘I eat/he eats’. In Amman, the Jordanian dialects that have this system (e.g. the
dialect of Salt) are in contact with Levantine varieties that mark agreement with ‘person’ in these
forms; thus: bākul ‘I eat’ vs. byākul ‘he eats’. The contact situation in Amman seems to have triggered
change at two levels in the speech of Ammanis with a Jordanian dialectal heritage (as opposed to
Palestinian heritage). Firstly, it triggers structural change by introducing a distinction between 1st pers
and 3rd pers masc; in this development, the previously unmarked form bōkil is reallocated to the 3rd
pers masc only, and a new form, bākul, is introduced for 1st pers. Secondly, it triggers a change in the
phonetic form of the 3rd pers sing masc, bōkil > bōkol, and further byākol. The data show that while
the structural (paradigmatic) development has been focused to a large extent the phonetic realisation of
bōkil ~ bōkol ~ byākol is diffuse, showing a relatively high degree of variation. The paper provides an
analysis of this feature within the framework of variationist theory and the principles of new dialect
formation. The data upon which the analysis is based come from ‘the Amman project’, which
investigates the formation of the city’s dialect. They were collected using the standard format of a
‘sociolinguistic interview’ mostly, in addition to elicitation. These are supplemented with data
obtained from earlier research in various other localities in Jordan.
To the future and back again: the case of North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic ‘wants’
Paul M. Noorlander (Leiden University)
The title of this abstract is intentionally ambiguous. On the one hand, its primary concern are two
verbs meaning ‘want’ and on the other hand, it is the third person singular form of these verbs that is
of particular interest to the repetitive grammatical history of the future in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic
(= NENA). The NENA future preverbal particle bəd- and its eroded equivalents ultimately go back to
a prospective construction or immediate future (practically English ‘be about to’) composed of an
impersonal participial form of b- complementizer d- and the subjunctive (Nöldeke 1868:295; Maclean
1895:122; Cohen 1984:520; Pennacchietti 1994a:281 nt 77, 1994b:137-8). The prospective semantics
of this verb are evident in Late Aramaic varieties, such as Jewish Babylonian Talmudic and Classical
Syriac, akin to its cognate in Najdi Arabic (Ingham 1994:121). The particle bəd is used similarly in
early NENA, but fully replaces the original future as in many languages of the world, including AfroAsiatic (cf. Bybee and Pagliuca 1987, Bybee et al. 1994; Hopper and Traugot 1993:24; Heine and
Kuteva 2002:310-11). For example, a future particle derived from the verb ‘want’ is a well-known trait
of the Balkan languages, such as Greek tha (< thelei ina ‘he wants that’) and Bulgarian šte (< ‘he
wants’). What is striking is that we find the same development repeated in certain Jewish dialects of
NENA. A distinct root for ‘want’, which is ʔby, is employed first as prospective auxiliary, then the
third person singular becomes once again fossilized as a future particle.
Grammatical borrowing in Syrian Turoyo
Bruno Herin (INALCO (Paris))
Turoyo, a neo-Aramaic language whose closest recorded ancestor is Syriac, was spoken until recently
in ur ʿAbdin, in southern Anatolia. Neo-Aramaic languages are classified in four branches: Western
neo-Aramaic, Neo-Mandaic, North Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) and uroyo-Mla so. Mla so being
now probably extinct, uroyo remains the only member of this branch. Amongst these, uroyoMla so and NENA share most of their innovations. Speakers of Turoyo started to migrate to Syria and
Lebanon in the aftermath of the large scale massacres that many Christian minorities of Anatolia
endured in the beginning of the 20th century. The majority of the uroyo speakers left their homeland
in the 60s and 70 of last century and migrated to various European countries, to point that the fate of
the language now lies almost entirely in diaspora, leaving the presence of the language in southern
Anatolia only vestigial. In the light of Classical Syriac, uroyo remains amazingly conservative
compared to the NENA varieties in its phonology and much of its grammatical material. Although
Qəltu varieties of Arabic were spoken in the area, bilingualism uroyo-Arabic was not widespread in
ur ʿAbdin. Most of its speakers knew Kurdish, and more marginaly Turkish. Nevertheless, Arabic
already had a sizeable impact on uroyo, both in the grammar and lexicon. In Syria, the linguistic
ecology changed and all the speakers became bilingual Arabic- uroyo, and many speakers maintained
proficiency in Kurdish. Following the framework developed by Matras (2009) and basing myself on
first hand linguistic data collected in āmišli and a āniyye as well as recordings from recent Syrian
migrants in Belgium, I will investigate the Arabic and Kurdish components in contemporary Syrian
uroyo. reliminary results, as expected, indicate less Kurdish derived material and an overall licence
to integrate a large range of Arabic elements.
Arnold, Werner (1990). Das Neuwestaramäische. V. Grammatik. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Coghill, Eleanor (forthcoming). Borrowing of verbal derivational morphology between Semitic
languages: the case of Arabic verb derivations in Neo-Aramaic.
Häberl, Charles (2009). The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Jastrow, Otto (1992). Lerhbuch der uroyo-Sprache. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Jastrow, Otto (1993). Laut- und Formenlehre des neuaramäischen Dialekts von Mīdin im r ʿAbdīn.
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Khan, Geoffrey (2008). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar. Leiden, Boston: Brill.
Matras, Yaron (2009). Language Contact. Cambrisge: Cambridge University Press.
Ritter, Hellmut. rōyo. Die Volksprache der syrischen Christen des r ʿAbdīn. A: Texte, Vol. I-III.
Beirut (1967:1971); B: Wörterbuch. Beirut (1979); C: Grammatik. Stuttgart (1990).
The classification of Late Aramaic
Aaron Michael Butts (Yale University)
Syriac has traditionally been classified as a late East Aramaic dialect along with Mandaic and Jewish
Babylonian Aramaic (see, e.g., Rosenthal 1939; Fitzmyer 1979). This classification was, however,
questioned by Boyarin (1981), who argued that Syriac shares several innovations with the late West
Aramaic dialects of Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, and Samaritan
Aramaic. On this basis, he rejected the family-tree model (Stammbaum) of classification opting
instead for a geographic approach (or in his words “convergence model”) to late Aramaic
classification according to which Syriac shares the most isoglosses with Mandaic and Jewish
Babylonian Aramaic but also shares some isoglosses with the West Aramaic dialects. The present
paper re-evaluates Boyarin’s proposal in light of research that has been conducted in the intervening
three decades. Particular attention is devoted to theoretical issues of language classification as well as
to the history of Aramaic.
Bibliography
Boyarin, D. 1981. “An Inquiry into the Formation of the Middle Aramaic Dialects,” in
Bono Homini Donum. Essays in Historical Linguistics in Memory of J.A. Kerns, ed.
Y. L. Arbeitman and A. R. Bomhard, vol. 2, 613–649.
Fitzmyer, J. A. 1979. “The hases of the Aramaic Language,” in A Wandering Aramean.
Collected Aramaic Essays (SBL Monographs 25), 57–84.
Rosenthal, F. 1939. Die aramaistische Forschung seit Th. Nöldeke’s Veröffentlichungen.
Leiden.
The 'enclitic' 'particle' -n in Ugaritology: substantial flaws in its substantiations and methodical
demands for a necessary reinvestigation of the data
Jörg Hartlieb (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Excellence Cluster TOPOI Berlin)
The phenomenon of additional consonants like -n with otherwise complete word-forms is widespread
in Ugaritic (as well as other Semitic) texts. Recent and most ugaritological literature on that domain,
exemplified in the standard reference grammar, categorize this phenomenon as enclitic particle or
morpheme. But this – seeming – consensus rests on substantial flaws of linguistic analysis: Firstly,
relevant linguistic concepts like emphasis, enclitic, particle or morpheme and their proper mutual
relationships are not defined sufficiently to allow falsifiability and traceability as necessary conditions
for sound scholarship. Secondly, categorization is based on syntactic description and choice of
cognates is based on formal similarity, contradicting the fundamental linguistic principle of
differentiation between form and function. Thirdly, cognates are adduced without formal
stemmatization by a chain of known sound-laws and functional stemmatization by a chain of plausible
semantic changes, leaving these etymologies as claims without traceable and therefore falsifiable or
verifiable substantiation. Fourthly, etymologies (diachronic level) are presented as pledge for a
morpheme-status, although only actual function in texts (synchronic level) is decisive to substantiate
such claims. Fifthly, functions are proposed based on few or even single independent examples,
constituting an insufficient base for statistically convincing conclusions. In sum these flaws invalidate
the current consensus-view and therefore necessitate a reinvestigation of the data. To avoid similar
flaws this reinvestigation has to analyze, utilize and thereby integrate the state of the art of all relevant
auxiliary disciplines (e.g. historical linguistics; linguistic typology; phonetics; linguistics of
morphemes, clitics,...) as preliminary indicated here, gaining linguistically founded and approved
criteria and methods as framework. By using such a solid and broadened framework a new consensus
may be possible, that integrates the observations of the – in fact considerably diverging – majority and
minority views on -n and even -m, including recent research arguing for a phonetic/prosodic
phenomenon.
Ge‘ez qätali and the putative proto-Semitic *qatāl- infinitive: connection or
concoction?
Adam Strich (Harvard University)
For every G-stem verb in Proto-Semitic, according to the consensus reconstruction, there is said to
have existed a corresponding fully inflected substantive of the form qatāl-, where, as per scholarly
convention, qtl are used as “dummy” consonants. This substantive, traditionally called the “infinitive,”
is supposed to have corresponded, roughly, to the English gerund: referring to the act or state depicted
by the verb without limitation as to tense, aspect, mood, person, number, or gender; and exhibiting all
the morphological and syntactic properties of nouns in addition to some of the syntactic properties of
verbs, such as the ability to govern direct objects. The strength of this reconstruction lies in the fact
that it matches the situation attested historically in Akkadian. Although there are no varieties of West
Semitic that unambiguously exhibit such a system, these do contain a number of diverse and diffuse
phenomena that are commonly regarded as developments therefrom, including the Biblical Hebrew
infinitive absolute (Tiberian qātōl), the sui generis Arabic form qatāli, the infinitives of several NeoAramaic languages, and the Ge‘ez active participle qätali. The last of these is generally regarded as
having developed from the putative qatāl- infinitive combined with the gentilic suffix *-ī-. This
etymology that is then taken as evidence for the existence, at some point in the prehistory of Ge‘ez, of
a predictable, productive, and paradigmatic qatāl- infinitive—as in Akkadian—which supposedly
preceded the historically attested system of G-stem infinitives, which is far more heterogenous. In this
paper, which is but one part of a much larger reevaluation of the infinitive in Proto-Semitic, I shall
examine and reject these claims, invoking both Robert Hetzron’s Principle of Archaic Heterogeneity
and the internal evidence of the Northern Ethiopian Semitic languages. In their place, I shall offer an
alternative derivation of the qätali active participle.