Features of Aramaeo-Canaanite.

AuthorPat-El, Na'ama
PositionEssay
  1. INTRODUCTION

    The internal subgrouping of the Central Semitic languages was first established by Hetzron (1976) and later refined by Huehnergard (2005a). One of the sub-branches of Central Semitic, Northwest Semitic, contains a number of languages, with no established hierarchical relation among them; that is, they remain in apolytomic formation (Huehnergard 1991,2005a): Ugaritic, Aramaic, Canaanite, the Deir Alia dialect, and Samalian. (1) This formation is tantamount to admitting that there is no empirical evidence to justify further subgroupings (see Fig. 1).

    Over the years scholars have attempted to establish a more accurate sub-branching for Northwest Semitic or to suggest a different genetic affiliation for some of its constituent languages, such as Ugaritic. The relationship between Ugaritic and Canaanite has been explored since the decipherment of Ugaritic in 1931 (2) and is still somewhat of a standing issue. Goetze (1941) declared it a separate linguistic entity, though related to Canaanite. Many scholars, such as Segert, Tropper, and Kogan, have argued for subgrouping Ugaritic with Canaanite, while others, such as Sivan and Huehnergard, have argued for treating Ugaritic as its own distinct sub-branch. (3) Unfortunately, some of the arguments in this debate have not been purely linguistic. (4)

    Other suggestions include subgrouping Canaanite with Arabic (Hetzron 1976; Voigt 1987) and (Proto-)Aramaic with Sabaic (Kottsieper and Stein 2014). (5) In this paper, we will review the arguments regarding the micro-classification of the Northwest Semitic sub-branch. We will show that the arguments in favor of a Ugaritic-Canaanite sub-branch are linguistically weak. We then adduce a number of innovative morphosyntatic features which we suggest can establish an Aramaeo-Canaanite sub-branch: the doubly marked fs demonstrative *da?t, the direct marker *?ayat, the use of dative subjects with certain predicates, the use of the construct state with prepositions, the prefix conjugation of geminate verbs, and the plural form of *bayt. We do not advocate eliminating any of the currently accepted sub-branches, but rather argue for a more nuanced grouping, reflecting a closer connection between some of the lower nodes of Northwest Semitic.

  2. SHARED FEATURES WITH UGARITIC

    Both Tropper (1994) and Kogan (2010) have argued in favor of a Ugaritic-Canaanite subgroup of Northwest Semitic. (6) But they emphasize different parts of the grammar in their attempts to argue for genetic affiliation: Tropper focuses on phonology and morphology while Kogan discusses the lexicon. We will review their arguments below. (7)

    2.1. Morphosyntactic Features

    Tropper suggests several phonological and morphological features, which, according to him, indicate that Ugaritic and Canaanite should be grouped together. As we will show below, however, the vast majority of these features are not exclusive to Canaanite and Ugaritic, and so do not indicate an immediate genetic relationship between these two branches.

    i. Loss or merger of laterals

    Aramaic and Canaanite also share a large number of consonant mergers, (8) but losses or mergers are meaningless for subgrouping, and so this feature cannot be used to substantiate a Ugaritic-Canaanite subgroup. (9) Note additionally that this feature is attested in Akkadian (see Table 1) and that the consonantal inventory of Ugaritic is closer to that of Classical Arabic than Canaanite, although few scholars have used this similarity to argue for an Arabo-Ugaritic subgroup. (10)

    More generally, shared sound changes do not reliably indicate genetic relatedness. Typologically, there are only a small number of possible sound changes that can occur and thus distantly related or even unrelated languages may undergo the same change. Several languages, for example, have undergone a change of a to o, known to Semitists as the "Canaanite Shift," some of which are non-Canaanite Semitic, such as Modern Aramaic and several dialects of Arabic, and some that are non-Semitic, such as Germanic and ancient Egyptian. (11)

    ii. Collapse of the diphthongs *aw > o and *ay > e

    This is also attested, though inconsistently, in Ga[??]az: *mawt > mot 'death'; *bayt- > bet 'house'. (12) Although some of the Canaanite languages, such as Phoenician, attest to the collapse of diphthongs, the evidence for this feature in other dialects is inconsistent. Ammonite retains the diphthong in ywmt 'days' and Edomite retains it in the divine name Qws (Garr 2004: 37). The spelling yn 'wine' in the Samaria Ostraca provides evidence of this collapse in Northern Hebrew (Noorlander 2016: 67-68); however, the spelling byt 'house', which does not reflect this collapse, is also attested in two northern Hebrew inscriptions (Bet Shean and Tell Qasile). In addition, the spelling qs for qayis 'summer' is attested in the Gezer calendar. This inscription was found at a site southwest of Jerusalem, well to the south, which was a part of the later Southern Kingdom. Despite the inscription's find spot, a number of scholars have argued that the inscription actually records the northern dialect of Hebrew because of the diphthong collapse.

    More recently, Pardee (2013) has argued that the Gezer Calendar is Phoenician, based on the final -w on certain nouns, which he interprets as a 3ms proleptic pronominal suffix, and the collapse of diphthongs. As Huehnergard and Pat-El (2012) have argued, however, the final -w in this inscription most likely represents a 3ms pronominal suffix serving as a definite article, a function that is attested in every branch of Semitic. Given the inconsistent distribution of the diphthong contraction in Canaanite and the site where the Gezer inscription was found, there is no compelling reason to assume the inscription is Phoenician and not Judahite Hebrew. It is therefore safer to conclude that this collapse was sporadic, and it would be a stretch to use it to determine subgrouping.

    iii. The Barth-Ginsberg law (13)

    Tropper himself notes that this feature is attested in some Arabic dialects but dismisses the evidence because it is rare. However, since the Barth-Ginsberg law undoubtedly operated in Arabic (Bloch 1967; Schub 1974) and Aramaic (Syriac; Barth 1894: 6), it is immaterial whether it is rare or not. There is no reason to reject the evidence that the Barth-Ginsberg law was operative in Arabic; it is attested in Arabic and must be taken into account. Furthermore, Trapper's position is inconsistent: although he dismisses the Arabic evidence for the Barth-Ginsberg law because it is rare, he uses the two occurrences of Is independent pronoun with a final y (?nky) outside of Canaanite as a proof that the first person pronoun is not a diagnostic feature of Canaanite (Tropper 1994: 347). (14) In the end, the Barth-Ginsberg is inherited from Central Semitic and cannot be used to show genetic affiliation between Canaanite and Ugaritic.

    iv. I-?' verbs with a prefix vowel -u-

    Tropper claims that there are five roots which exhibit alternate forms with -u- alongside the expected -a- vowel: (15) yihd ~ yuhd, which he ties to Hebrew yokel (see also Tropper 2012: 612-13). Sivan (1996) and Bordreuil and Pardee (2009: 54) prefer a different explanation for the Ugaritic forms, where the first syllable splits into two syllables in vowel harmony with the thematic vowel of the form: ya?hudu > ya'uhudu. Huehnergard (2012: 66) suggests either an analogy to the imperative (uhd) or an assimilation of short a > u when a guttural is between them (e.g., *tahuru > tuhuru; Huehnergard 2012: 29, and a slightly different proposal in Huehnergard 2008: 279 n. 58).

    The Hebrew forms, on the other hand, followed a different path of development, which involved sound changes attested only in the Canaanite branch: PNWS *ya'kul > *yakul > PCan *yokul. These forms regularly resolve in dissimilation in Hebrew > *yokil > yokel. (16) Note that the sound rules which determine the vowel of the prefix are Proto-Canaanite. Thus, despite the fact the Ugaritic and Hebrew forms show superficial similarity, they represent different processes of change. This feature is therefore not indicative of a closer genetic relationship between these two sub-branches.

    Additionally, similar forms are attested in several Levantine Arabic dialects, such as those of the rural West Bank (Palestinian, Horani, and Salti). In these dialects the prefix of the imperfect of two I-' roots, 'kl and 'hd, has an /o/ vowel, rather than the expected /a/ (Cleveland 1963: 61). This suggests a conditioned change in these verbs, rather than the regular non-conditional *a'> *a> o which we find in Hebrew.

    v. The inflection of the verb [??]hlk

    In both Hebrew and Ugaritic, the first radical of the root hlk is lost in the G prefix conjugation, the imperative, and the infinitive (Hebrew impf. yelek, imp. lek, inf. leket; Ugaritic impf. ylk, imp Ik, inf. Ikt). This feature is not a good indicator of immediate genetic relatedness for several reasons: first, it consists of a single lexical item, which exhibits an irregular change within the inflectional paradigm of these languages. Second, the same root in Aramaic is also irregular, appearing to derive from two suppletive roots: [??]hlk in the suffix conjugation ' (7) and [??]hwk in the prefix conjugation. (18) Third, this conjugation is not universal in Canaanite: Moabite shows a regular imperfect form ([??]hlk, lcs; KAI 181: 14), which suggests that the irregular conjugation of hlk is not a feature of PCan. (19) Fourth, the peculiarities of [??]hlk in Ugaritic apply to Vhlm as well (impf. ylm), which Tropper (2012: 624-25) lists under Vhlverbs. This is not the case for Canaanite; see, for example, Hebrew imp. yehelme-ni (Ps. 141:5) or yahalomun (Ps. 74:6). The shared inflection of a single root, which is unusual for both languages, is not a strong feature to prove their genealogical relation.

    vi. *miya 'who?'

    This feature is indeed found in Canaanite and Ugaritic...

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