Re: questions about Arabic

En réponse à David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:

> <<Well, Arabic still underwent some changes due to phonological changes.
> For
> instance, semivowels in verbs often disappeared in the past tense (like
> verb
> *kawana: to be, pronounced /kawana/, then /kO:na/, and finally kâna
> /ka:na/,
> while present stayed yakwanu /jakwanu/ IIRC) bringing a whole class of
> irregular
> verbs called "sick" in Arabic>>
>
> "kawana" is a verb in Arabic, with a shaddah over the [w].  I think it
> means "to become", though I can't remember.
>
Not exactly. The shaddah marks a double consonnant, so a more exact
transliteration would be kawwana. It is the derived form number 2 (there are 9
of them, numbered from 2 to 10) of the root KWN (the derived form n°2 is simply
made by doubling the second consonnant, and is regularly formed this way even
with irregular verbs) and means according to my book "to form, to compose". This
looks quite correct knowing that the main meanings of the derived form n°2 is
intensification or repetition of the action, or factitive ("to compose" looks
quite correct as factitive of "to be", doesn't it?). But part of your point
remains, since kawwana: to compose is indeed derived from kâna: to be (or rather
they both derive from the same root, since for Arabic grammarians the simple
verb derived from a root is considered to be the form n°1 - that's why derived
forms are numbered from 2 to 10 -).

>
> I was talking only about when it's a vowel.  We were talking about
> variations of Arabic phonology, not Arabic phonology in general.  That
> was already known (or at least I assumed).
>
Still, sometimes the alif can mark an /i/ (in the beginning of words like ibn:
son, written alif-baa-nûn), but that's probably splitting hair in four :) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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