Re: 2nd person inanimate (WAS: Numbers from 1 to 12 in Ayeri)

On Jun 17, 2004, at 9:56 PM, Sally Caves wrote:
>
> I love the idea!  But what use would it serve?  A compelling human
> tendency
> is to animate everything.   "The tree likes to be watered every other
> day."
> In addressing the letter you're writing, you would be treating it as a
> hearing thing.   I suppose it would make sense in a language that has
> animate/inanimate gender instead of masculine/feminine gender.
> Curious:
> what natural languages genderize the second person?  You feminine
> singular
> as opposed to you masculine singular?
>
> Sally
> scaves@frontiernet.net
> http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html

Semitic languages, do that, except for those (like some dialects of
Aramaic) in which they've merged phonologically.

Hebrew:
ata (M) / at (F) (< ati)

Arabic:
anta (M) / anti (F)

(some) Aramaic:
a(n)t / a(n)t

The proto-Semitic form seems to have been /?ant/ with a following vowel
/i/ (for F) or /a/ (for M) of indeterminate length.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "since you've left, a lot has changed here..."
     ~ 'canaanite blues' by ehud banai