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Re: Proto-Semitic (was Re: markjjones@HOTMAIL.COM)

From:Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 8, 2005, 21:06
On Mar 8, 2005, at 10:41 PM, Rob Haden wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 20:58:23 +0100, Steven Williams > <feurieaux@...> > wrote: > If there was */ts/, */dz/, and */s/, then we could say that */K/ > became /S/ > in Arabic (rather than merging with /S/). However, the South Arabian > languages have both /K/ and /S/. Perhaps */s/ > /S/, */ts/ > /s/, and > */dz/ > /z/ there. But what would cause /s/ to become /S/?
Isn't /s/ becoming or has become /S/ in Portuguese?
>>> There's a class of verbs called 's-stems', with >>> transitive/causative, destative, or denominal >>> meanings. However, they don't begin with s- at all, >>> it seems; in Arabic they begin with '-, Akkadian >>> with š-, and Hebrew with h-:
>> We-eird... It also seems somewhat anomalous that >> switching consonants around like that could serve a >> concrete grammatical function. The Semitic languages >> look more and more like some bizarre loglanging >> experiment gone horribly awry...
> Heh, you're telling me. :) I don't mean to sound pretentious, but I > wonder > if the traditional interpretation of written Akkadian is a little > incorrect. Not only does Akkadian show |š| in the S-stems, where > Arabic > shows ?- and Hebrew h-, but it also has |š| in the personal pronouns: > šu: 'he', ši: 'she' (cf. Arabic huwa 'he', hiya 'she'). So the > question > is, did Akkadian retain an earlier /S/ where Arabic and Hebrew did not? > - Rob
Or maybe it's a whole different phoneme! Something like */C/, maybe... My notes and handouts from that class are around here *somewhere*... Or maybe i should just break out my Semiticonlang, instead... ;-) -Stephen (Steg) "Ezekiel... he has like the crazy thing!" ~ brilliant biblical commentary by n