Tradition and Innovation: Norm and Deviation in Arabic and Semitic Linguistics.

• Author: Kaye, Alan S.
• Position: Reviews of Books

Tradition and Innovation: Norm and Deviation in Arabic and Semitic Linguistics. Edited by LUTZ EDZARD and MOHAMMED NEKROUMI. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 1999. Pp. 208. DM 128.

The eleven articles in the work under review were originally presented at a panel at the 27th Deutscher Orientalistentag, held in Bonn on September 30, 1998. The editors quite rightly note in the preface to the volume that Semitics is an endangered discipline, and that this collection "is vivid proof of the continued enthusiasm of Arabists and Semiticists working in their field" (p. 7). One hopes that Comparative Semitics, once a thriving specialization, comes to enjoy a world-wide renaissance rekindled by tomes such as the present one. Since a short review cannot possibly do justice to all these fine contributions, I focus my remarks on those linguistic essays that are of particular interest to me. It should be noted that Joseph Norment Bell's "False Etymology, Fanciful Metaphor, and Conceptual Precision: Some Medieval Muslim Definitions of Love" (pp. 193-204) deals in particular with a literary theme, and is the final selection in the appropriately titled Part III, "Modern Linguistic and Literary Theory App lied to Arabic."

Olga Kapeliuk's "Regularity and Deviation in Peripheral Neo-Semitic" (pp. 11-21) is a solid treatment of interesting developments in Neo-Aramaic, Ethio-Semitic, and modern Arabic dialects, and modern Hebrew, and data are also used from Kurdish and Persian to explicate evolutionary trends. This research follows in the tradition of her mentor and colleague--one of the greatest Jerusalem linguists of all times-Hans Jacob Polotsky, who already in 1938, in a famous article on Gurage published in BSLP ("Etudes de grammaire gourague," 39: 137-75), demonstrated that the [r] ~ [l] alternation in Chaha (spelled Chaxa by the author throughout the article) was reminiscent of Hebrew and Aramaic begedkefet spirantization (p. 19). Quite interesting is the fact that these two allophones, [n] and [r], "may now be considered as two different phonemes" (p. 19). Kapeliuk is correct to point Out the striking parallel to Israeli Hebrew sapar 'hairdresser' contrasting with safar 'he counted' (p. 20). It is the latter minimal pair w hich establishes the phonemicity of /p/ vs. /f/. Kapeliuk's detailed knowledge of both the ancient and modern Semitic languages is obvious throughout her erudite essay.

Rainer Voigt's "Die Prapositionen im Semitisehen--Uber...