Re: Semitic languages & Cultures

Christophe Grandsire writes:
 > En réponse à Balazs Sudar <conlang@...>:
[...]
 > > The other thing: what about words with no specific meanings? I mean
 > > words like: the colours, numbers, words like "if", "about", "of", "and",
 > > "yes", "no", etc.?
 > >
 >
 > You think that those don't have a specific meaning? I find them pretty well
 > defined on the contrary! I can speak only for Arabic (I don't know any Hebrew),
 > but as far as I know numbers and colours are just adjectives, and mostly have
 > triconsonantal roots (there are also specific derivatives for colour word to
 > make corresponding verbs meaning: to beome <insert colour here> :)) ).

I don't know any Arabic, but this talk of numbers reminded me of a
section in the _Concise Compendium of the World's Languages_ (George
L. Campbell, 1995).  I couldn't quote it until now, as I had to go get
it out of the public library again.

NOTE: I don't know either Arabic or X-SAMPA well enough to translate
the transliteration used here into a proper ASCII phonetic system, so
I'm using the following ad-hoc transcription method - h with a dot
under it becomes "h.";  a vowel with a macron over it becomes
"vowel_";  s with a reverse circumflex over it becomes "s^"; theta
becomes "0".  All Arabic words (italicised in the orginal) are
enclosed in " quotes.

In the section on Arabic:

!Numerals
!
!Professor Tritton's definition of the Arabic numerals as 'the
!nightmare of a bankrupt financier' is celebrated.
!
!1: this is a pronoun agreeing in gender with its referent:
!   masc. "'ah.adun", fem. "'ih.da_".  The form "wa_h.idun",
!   fem. "wa_h.idatun" is an adjective.
!
!2: "'i0na_ni", fem. "'i0nata_ni" (with oblique and construct forms) is
!   a noun in concord with referent.  The dual form of the noun may
!   also be used to indicate duality: "'usbu_'aini" `two weeks'.
!
!3-10: the Arabic equivalents for these numerals are fully declined
!   nouns which obey the law of inverse polarity, i.e. feminine form
!   for masculine referent, and vice versa.  e.g. "0ala_0atu rija_lin"
!   `three men' (lit. `a threesom of men');  "0ala_0u marratin" three
!   times.  The base forms of the numbers 3-10 are "0ala_0-",
!   "'arba`-", "xams-", "sitt-", "sab`a-", "0ama_n-", "tis`a-",
!   "`as^ar-".
!
!11,12: here, both components agree in gender with the referent:
!   "'ah.ada" "`as^ara" (masc).
!
!13-19: partial polarity.  The ten is in concord with referent, the
!   unit is not: e.g. "xamsa `as^rata sanatan" `fifteen years'.
!
!20-99: the tens are diptotes, the units triptotes.  100 "mi'atun"; 200
!   "mi'ata_ni", 300 "0ala_0u mi'atin".