Re: Metathesis?

Metathesis is characteristic of the Neo-Mandaic dialect of Khorramshahr
(formerly Mohammerah), Iran, which I am currently in the process of
documenting.  Neo-Mandaic is a Semitic language built upon a triradical
system (the Semitic triradical system has come up here before, IIRC), and
quite frequently the last two root consonants switch, particularly when
one is a sonorant and the other a stop.  Some examples include ZHL "to
pour" (from *ZLH), HQL "to slide" (from *HLQ), YDL "to bring forth, give
birth" from *YLD, etc.  There are many more.

More specifically, final -h tends to be lost in most roots.  To prevent
this, final h is usually switched with the second radical in many words -
ohra: "road" (cf. Syr orHa:), yahra: "month" (cf. Syr yarHa:), and so on.

Arabic loanwords of the pattern CVCC are adapted to the phonology of Neo-
Mandaic either by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel or, when the second
segment of the consonant cluster is a sonorant, metathesis of the two.
Hence qufl "padlock" becomes qolf in Neo-Mandaic.

Joseph Malone wrote an article on radical metathesis in Classical Mandaic
("Classical Mandaic radical metathesis, radical assimilation, and the
devil's advocate," General Linguistics 25 (1985): 92-121).  The Journal of
Semitic Studies is printing an article of mine which touches on radical
metathesis in the modern indirect object marker, "The Relative Pronoun d-
and the Pronominal Suffixes in Mandaic," which unfortunately won't appear
in print until 2006 or so.