Bolozky 1992. On the Derivation of Hebrew Forms with the +ut Suffix (original) (raw)
Related papers
Bolozky 2003. The ‘roots’ of denominative Hebrew verbs
Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, John Benjamin's, 2003
Bolozky (1978, 1999) argues that choice of patterns in which innovations are realized is semantically triggered. At the same time, innovators attempt to preserve, whenever possible, the transparency of the (usually denominative) stem on which the innovation is based, mostly by maintaining its original consonant clustering. It appears that the speaker's target verb pattern can broadly be characterized as a structure composed of expandable consonantal slots, and that what makes the base most opaque is splitting its original consonant clusters between these slots by means of a vowel. Bat-El (1994) makes similar observations, but claims that cluster preservation is only a corollary, not a principle in itself. This article reaffirms the primacy of transparency preservation as a basic principle, and claims that when neologizing, speakers resort to either one of two strategies: (i) Regard a triliteral noun as a typical Hebrew stem, and each of its three consonants as a single 'root' slot, to be extracted and reapplied in the conventional verbforming manner. This is still an active strategy in Israeli Hebrew. (ii) Regard consonant sequences in the base that stay intact throughout as a radical slot that one should try to preserve as much as possible. This strategy is prevalent in quadriliteral nouns or longer, but is not limited to them. If the 'root' notion is to be maintained, it should be viewed as composed of 'radicalslots,' or šoršanim.
THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OF VOWEL /u/ OF THE PREFIXES OF CERTAIN SEMITIC VERBAL FORMS
One of the thorniest issues in the diachronic study of Semitic languages remains the origin of a vowel alternation a (i) / u some Semitic languages display in the prefixes of certain verbal forms. This can be illustrated by the following LA examples: yaktubu 'he writes' vs. yukattibu 'he dictates'. The understanding of the history underpinning this alternation might prove of crucial importance for unveiling a more ancient stage of the ancestor from which the Semitic languages have evolved and, hence, new possible links between Semitic and the other branches of the Afroasiatic phylum might be detected. Out of this conviction, in the present paper I would like to express a few thoughts which, although not claiming to provide a definitive solution to this problem, might nevertheless act as an incentive for further studies on this issue. 2. Subject cross-reference on verb in Semitic Neo-Aramaic languages apart, in Semitic languages, the participant or the participants having the grammatical value of subject is/are cross-referenced on the finite verbal forms through suffixes or/and prefixes. Besides indicating the syntactic function 'subject' that a given participant has, cross-reference on verb provides, in many Semitic languages, also information about the number (according to a singular-dual-plural 1 distinction) and-only in non-first-persons-about the grammatical gender (according to a masculine/feminine opposition). A difference between subject indexation by means of suffixes, on one hand, and subject indexation through prefixes, on the other hand, is that suffixes always accomplish their indexing function exclusively by themselves, while prefixes often must be used together with suffixes. Another feature distinguishing prefixation from suffixation is that the former might be used in Proto-Semitic with two verbal themes, i.e. an imperfective *-qattVl-and a perfective *-qtVl-, whereas the latter is used only with one theme, i.e. *qatVl-. Subject indexation on verb can be illustrated through the following examples, from Literary Arabic: (1) darasa l-waladu d-darsa. daras-a 'al=walad-u 'al=dars-a study.PERF-3.M.SG.SUB DEF=boy-NOM DEF-lesson-ACC 'The boy studied the lesson.' (2) 'adrusu d-darsa. 'a-drus-u 'al=dars-a 1.SG.SUB-study.IMPERF-IND DEF=lesson-ACC 'I study the lesson.' (3) yadrusūna l-'awlādu d-darsa. ya-drus-ū-na 'al='awlād-u 'al=dars-a 3.M.SUB-study.IMPERF-M.PL.SUB-IND DEF=boy.
Phonology, 1999
This paper has greatly benefited from the help of many people. Junko Ito, Armin Mester, and Jaye Padgett have provided comments on numerous drafts, and I wish to offer them my sincere gratitude and appreciation for their helpful suggestions. Many thanks also to Judith Aissen for her detailed comments on a previous draft of this paper. In addition, I would like to thank Gene Buckley, Edit Doron, Sharon Rose, Donca Steriade, Bernard Tranel, Rachel Walker, and Andrew Wedel, who have all provided very thoughtful questions, discussions and suggestions with respect to the issues under consideration here. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to the many native speakers I have worked with as informants in
OLD FORMS, NEW FUNCTIONS: QUADRILITERAL ROOT PATTERNS AS SOURCES OF VERBAL MEANING
Hebrew Studies, 2021
This paper describes a process whereby morphological patterns that, in premodern Hebrew, were not associated with a particular semantic profile, or were only partly associated with such a profile, developed a particular meaning in Modern Hebrew. This process is exemplified by certain types of quadriliteral roots formed in the Hebrew verbal system. Of eight quadriliteral root patterns productive in Modern Hebrew, three developed meanings of their own: the pilpel pattern, which expresses a series of short, atomic events; the piʿlel pattern, which describes a reduced or attenuated event, and the šifʿel pattern, which conveys a restitutive or repetitive meaning, or increase on scale. The pilpel pattern became associated with its meaning already in Mishnaic Hebrew, and in Modern Hebrew the association became nearly exclusive, whereas the other two patterns developed their typical meanings only in Modern Hebrew itself. This research shows that a quadriliteral root-pattern develops a particular semantic profile only if it utilizes the derivational mechanism of direct rootexpansion in the verbal system without the mediation of another lexical item. Moreover, individual verbs coined in the pattern tend to be associated with that meaning if they are derived in this manner. Pilpel verbs can convey the pattern's typical meaning even if they are derived by onomatopoeia or with the mediation of noun, but only if the parent nominal form is biliteral. The research also traced the development of patterns' semantic profiles over time. It was found that this development was conspicuously influenced by the substrate and contact languages of Modern Hebrew, and that factors of reanalysis and analogy were also at play.
The reconstruction of the Proto-Semitic genitive ending and a suggestion on its origin
Studia Orientalia Electronica, 2021
The Proto-Semitic genitive ending on triptotic nouns is commonly reconstructed as *-im (unbound state)/*-i (bound state). In Akkadian, however, this case ending is long -ī- before pronominal suffixes. Since the length of this vowel is unexplained, I argue that it is original and that the Akkadian bound state ending normalized as -i should also be reconstructed as long *-ī, explaining its retention in word-final position. This form seems more original than Proto-West-Semitic *-i. Hence, the Proto-Semitic bound state genitive ending should also be reconstructed as *-ī. Through internal reconstruction supported by the parallel of kinship terms like *ʔab-um 'father', I arrive at a pre-Proto-Semitic reconstruction of the genitive ending as *-ī-m (unbound), *-ī (bound). This paper then explores a hypothetical scenario where the genitive ending *-ī is derived from the adjectivizing 'nisbe' suffix through reanalysis of adjectival constructions like *bayt-u śarr-ī 'the/a royal house' as construct chains with meanings like 'the/a king's house'. With the addition of mimation and the resultant vowel shortening, this yielded the Proto-Semitic construction with a genitive, *bayt-u śarr-im. The genitive case failed to develop with diptotic nouns because they did not take mimation and in the dual and plural because the nisbe adjective was derived from the uninflected (singular) noun stem; hence, these categories all retain the more original contrast between the nominative and an undifferentiated oblique case.