Re: Strong/weak verbs, expanded infinitives and applicatives

On Aug 9, 2005, at 6:31 PM, tomhchappell wrote:
> Hello, everyone, and thanks for writing.
> Hello especially, Taliesin the Story-Teller.  I did not see your post.
> "Broken Plurals" versus "Sound Plurals" is a distinction mostly heard
> when speaking of Arabic; next Hebrew; next other Semitic languages;
> next Iraqw; next other Cushitic languages; but I think it occurs in
> several subgroups of Afro-Asiatic languages including Semitic and
> Cushitic.
>

Some examples:

'sound' (as in 'healthy, full') plural suffixes in Hebrew:
-im (masculine)
-ot (feminine)

uqyanos ("ocean") >> uqyanosim ("oceans")
megeira ("drawer") >> megeirot ("drawers")

Hebrew doesn't really have broken plurals; there may be a fossilized
form of them in segolates, but the most likely real example is one word
from Biblical Hebrew:

zakhar ("male") >> zakhur ("males")

Segolates work like this:
shever ("break") >> shevarim ("breaks") < *shevar (broken plural?) +
-im ?


Arabic!

Arabic has much more broken plurals.

Sound suffixes:
-u:n (m.)
-a:t (f.)

su:ri: ("syrian") >> su:riyu:n ("syrians")
ja:mi3a ("university") >> ja:mi3a:t ("universities")

Broken plurals follow many patterns:

kita:b ("book") >> kutub ("books")
rajul ("man") >> rija:l ("men")
bayt ("house") >> buyu:t ("houses")
risa:la ("letter") >> risa:il ("letters") i think; not sure about this
one


-Stephen (Steg)
  "alSayf, kasayf abyaD..."
      ~ sally caves

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