The Semitic Languages

594 Pages·2005·35.55 MB·English

by  Robert Hetzron

THE SEMITIC
LANGUAGES
Other works in the series
The Romance Languages
The Celtic Languages
The Slavonic Languages
The Genoanic Languages
Forthcoming works in the series
The Indo-European Languages
The Uralic Languages
The Dravidian Languages
The Turkic Languages
THE
SEMITIC
LANGUAGES
EDITED BY
Robert Hetzron
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LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1997
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
270 Madison Ave, New York NY lO016
Transferred to Digital Printing 2005
Routledge is an imprint o/the Taylor & Francis Group
© 1997 Routledge
Typeset in lO/12 Ecological Linguistics SemiticPhon by Peter T. Daniels
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Semitic languages / edited by Robert Hetzron.
p. cm. .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
(alk. paper)
1. Semitic languages-Grammar. I. Hetzron, Robert.
PJ3021.S46 1998 96-45373
492-dc21 CIP
ISBN 0-415-05767-1
Contents
List of Maps viii
List of Tables ix
List of Contributors xiii
Preface xv
List of Abbreviations xviii
Part I: Generalities
1 Genetic Subgrouping of the Semitic Languages 3
Alice Faber
2 Scripts of Semitic Languages 16
Peter T. Daniels
3 The Arabic Grammatical Tradition 46
Jonathan Owens
4 The Hebrew Grammatical Tradition 59
Arie Schippers
Part II: Old Semitic
5 Akkadian 69
Giorgio Buccellati
6 Amorite and Eblaite 100
Cyrus H. Gordon
v
vi CONTENTS
7 Aramaic 114
Stephen A. Kaufman
8 Ugaritic 131
Dennis Pardee
9 Ancient Hebrew 145
Richard C. Steiner
10 Phoenician and the Eastern Canaanite Languages 174
Stanislav Segert
11 Classical Arabic 187
Wolfdietrich Fischer
12 Sayhadic (Epigraphic South Arabian) 220
Leonid E. Kogan and Andrey V. Korotayev
13 Ge'ez (Ethiopic) 242
Gene Gragg
Part III: Modern Semitic
14 Arabic Dialects and Maltese 263
Alan S·. Kaye and Judith Rosenhouse
15 Modern Hebrew 312
Ruth A. Berman
16 The Neo-Aramaic Languages 334
Otto J astrow
17 The Modern South Arabian Languages 378
Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle
18 Tigrinya 424
Leonid E. Kogan
19 Tigre 446
Shlomo Raz
20 Amharic and Argobba 457
Grover Hudson
CONTENTS vii
21 Harari 486
Ewald Wagner
22 The Silte Group (East Gurage) 509
Ernst-August Gutt
23 Outer South Ethiopic 535
Robert Hetzron
Index 550
List of Maps
1 The Semitic languages xiv
2 The main dialect groups 264
3 The approximate distribution of the affricated variants of.;J and J 272
4 Location of the MSAL region 380
5 The Modem South Arabian Languages 381
viii
List of Tables
2.1 Phonetic arrangement of Neo-Assyrian cuneiform syllabary 26
2.2 Scripts using the Northwest Semitic order 28
2.3 Script using modified Northwest Semitic order (Arabic) 29
2.4 Vocalization systems of the abjads 31
2.5 Scripts using South Semitic order 34
2.6 Letter names 35
2.7 Maltese 37
2.8 Soviet Assyrian 37
2.9 Turoyo of Sweden 37
2.10 Script using modified South Semitic order (Ethiopic/Amharic) 39
2.11 Numerals 40
5.1 Finite forms with affixes of external inflection 72
5.2 The normal state 77
5.3 The construct state in syntactical context with morphophonemic
resolution of forms with 0 80
5.4 The personal pronoun, set 1 84
5.5 The personal pronoun, set 2 84
8.1 G-stem of strong verbs 139
9.1 Roots with "weak" radical 156
9.2 Biblical Hebrew binyanim 159
11.1 Triptotic inflection 196
12.1 Attested forms of pronominal enclitics 225
12.2 Attested forms of relative particles 225
12.3 Nearer demonstratives 231
12.4 Remote demonstratives 231
13.1 Ge' ez deictics 250
13.2 Ge'ez numerals 251
13.3 Strong verb stem paradigms 254
13.4 Weak verb stem paradigms 254
14.1 Arabic consonant phonemes 268
ix