Festschrift Ewald Wagner zum 65. Geburtstag, vol. 1: Semitische Studien unter besonderer Berucksichtigung der Sud semitistik.

• Author: Kaye, Alan S.

Edited by WOLFHART HEINRICHS and GREGOR SCHOELER. Beiruter Texte und Studien, vol. 54.1. Beirut: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1994. Pp. xv + 284. DM 96 (paper).

This Festschrift is one of two volumes in honor of the University of Giessen's Ewald Wagner. The editors are two of his doctoral students whose theses are particularly well known in the Beiruter Texte und Studien series, and many of today's leading Orientalists are featured in the three-page Tabula Gratulatoria (pp. xiii-xv). The articles which follow are high-quality offerings befitting the esteem in which the Jubilar is held by his peers. Must reading for any Semitist is the list of Wagner's publications prepared by Wilfried Schaum (pp. 1-17). In addition to twelve books (the first was on Mehri, 1953) and forty articles, one notes many editing endeavors, among which are volumes for the Zeitschrift der Deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft and in the Abhandlugen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes.

Two essays on comparative Semitics begin the Festschrift. Christoph Correll explores the notae accusativi in the classical Semitic languages. This article is especially valuable for its rich documentation and penetrating observations on and parallels to some modern languages, such as Neo-Aramaic (pp. 2143). Heinz Grotzfeld investigates hypotaxis and parataxis in Syriac texts translated from Greek (pp. 44-55). This theme caught the author's fancy, in all probability, from his close association over many years and collaboration with Ariel A. Bloch (a fellow student under Hans Wehr), whose 1965 monograph on hypotaxis in Damascus Arabic requires no elaboration here.

Norbert Nebes initiates the section on South Semitic by examining the non-augmented groundstem in Old South Arabian (pp. 59-81). After carefully exploring most of the other Semitic languages, the conclusion offered is in favor of a/qtV1/imperfect stem. I am inclined to interpret the OSA imperfect yqtl as matching up with Ethiopic yeqat(t)el rather than Arabic yaqtulu - a position (mentioned on p. 60) already advanced by Wolf Leslau in his critical review of M. Hofner's Altsudara-bische Grammatik (Leipzig, 1943) in JAOS 69 (1949): 97-100, although Ge??ez does have a jussive yagtel. The vocalization of dead languages, needless to say, such as OSA and Ugaritic, remains controversial.

Hartmut Bobzin has many interesting observations on the history of Ethiopic studies going back to Johann Potken (ca. 1470-1524) (pp. 82-101), while Rainer Voigt...