High-load nominal attributes in some Semitic languages.

• Author: Gai, A.

In "The Place of the Attribute in Ge??ez" (JSS 26 (1981): 257-65), I demonstrated the function of the nominal attribute preceding its noun in that language:

Normally, when a noun is qualified by an attribute, the noun has the main informative value, while the attribute has only an adjunct and secondary one. In a sentence like `John is a good friend of mine' when there are no special conditions, the main information is that John is my friend; the degree of the friendship is secondary information.... In special contexts, however, it is the attribute which can have the main informative value. In a sentence like `I want to drive the red car', the concept `car' is understood in relation to the verb `to drive', and in this particular instance it is only the colour which is the really new information of the entire noun-phrase.

Ge??ez differentiates between these two kinds of attributes by their places: in the first case, or, more accurately, in the unmarked case - that of the adjunct attribute, bearing secondary information - the attribute follows the noun; in the second case, the marked one, when the attribute bears the main informative value of the noun phrase, it precedes the noun. This is the solution of Ge??ez. The following discusses the solutions used by other Semitic languages. The attributes under consideration are adjectives only.

Akkadian

In Akkadian as well as in Ge??ez, an adjective bearing the main informative value of the noun-phrase may precede the noun:

If a man has received a waste field for three years for opening up and has been slack and does not open the field, i-na ri-bu-tim sa-at-tim `in the fourth year' he shall plough the field. CH 44:24-25.(1)

If a man has hired a hireling, from the beginning of the year a-na ha-am-si-im ITU [=warh] (im) `till the fifth month' he shall give (him) 6 grains of silver a day; is-tu si-si-im ITU [=warh](im) `from the sixth month' till the end of the year he shall give (him) 5 grains of silver a day. CH 273: 11.11, 15.

ra-ap-su-tum bu-da-si-na [is-si-qa] ar-??ku??-tum ma-az-za-zu-si-na [ik-ru-ni] `Their broad shoulders [became narrow], their long legs [became short]'. Atra-Hasis II iv 17-18 (p. 80), and compare S v 15-16 and S vi 4-5 (pp. 110, 112).(2)

el-lu-tu[m] z[i]-mu-si-na i??-a-ad-ru `Their clean faces have become dark'. Atra-Hasis III v 45 (p. 98).

Modern Syriac (the Christian dialect of Urmi)

In this language the regular place of the adjective is also after the noun. However, in very...