Questions de linguistique semitique: racine et lexeme: histoire de la recherche 1940-2000.
Author | Kaye, Alan S. |
Position | Book review |
Questions de linguistique semitique: racine et lexeme: histoire de la recherche 1940-2000. By GREGORIO DEL OLMO LETE. Paris: JEAN MAISONNEUVE, 2003. Pp. 226.
This book, based on a bibliographically rich course given by the author at the College de France in May-June 2001, deals with some of the thorniest problems in Semitic and Afroasiatic linguistics: the nature of the Semitic root (biliteralism vs. triliteralism), the Proto-Semitic consonant system, and the genetic classification of the Semitic languages.
Let me begin by taking up what is innovative in this monograph, viz., the new classification of Semitic languages proposed in chapter five. According to Olmo Lete's theory (p. 196), Proto-Semitic split into Proto-South Arabian (which developed into the six Modern South Arabian languages), and a tripartite division into (1) [Proto-]Palaeo-Syrian (yielding Eblaite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew, etc.), (2) Proto-Amorite (yielding Aramaic, which in turn develops into the Arabic sub-branch, including Safaitic, Lihyanic, Thamudian, and Classical and modern Arabic dialects) and [Proto-] South Semitic (developing into the Old South Arabian languages, such as Sabaean, Minean, and Qatabanian, in addition to Ethiopic), and (3) Akkadian.
I am pleased to see that the author does not consider Ugaritic a Canaanite language, since I have long favored this perspective, believing that Ugaritic shares more features with Arabic than many classifications would have us believe (the author seems unaware of my "Does Ugaritic Go with Arabic in Semitic Genealogical Sub-Classification?" Folia Orientalia 28 [1987]: 115-28). However, I am dismayed to read that he considers Eblaite very far removed from Akkadian. Most Semitists, I believe, would accept the views of Manfred Krebernik ("Linguistic Classification of Eblaite: Methods, Problems, and Results," in The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century, ed. J. S. Cooper and G. M. Schwartz [Winona Lake, Ind., 1996], 233-49): "This language [Eblaite] is so closely related to Akkadian that it may be classified as an early Akkadian dialect" (249). I believe Olmo Lete is correct, however, in his view that the Modern South Arabian languages are not a direct continuation of the Old South Arabian languages. However, most Semitists would be reluctant to derive the latter from Proto-Amorite.
Turning to the Semitic root, chapter one is an assessment of numerous studies on it from 1940 to 2000 (pp. 17-31)...
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