Semitic linguistics in the new millennium.

• Author: Kaye, Alan S.

INTRODUCTION (1)

It is always a fitting tribute to a scholarly field when a number of its most distinguished practitioners gather to reflect on its growth and historical development. The work under review contains eighteen state-of-the-art essays by well-known specialists on various aspects of Semitic linguistics. These invited articles were originally presented at an international symposium held at Tel Aviv University in January 1999, sponsored by the University and many external sources. The basic questions on the table were: where had Semitic linguistics been in the course of the twentieth century and before, and where would it or should it be headed in the twenty-first? The tasks for the participants necessarily involved a thorough digestion of the numerous leading publications, and all the papers suggest intimate familiarity with the enormous relevant bibliography in each subfield. It is my purpose here to present commentary on each of the essays intended to benefit this growing and dynamic area by offering an examination of the big picture as well as the microscopic details which science always involves.

The volume is conveniently subdivided into six parts: methodologies, overviews, the wider Afroasiatic perspective, languages in contact, dialectology of the modern languages, and an all-encompassing section entitled "Broadening Our Horizons." The final segment contains four book reviews on recent publications, two by the editor and one each by David Testen and Aaron Dolgopolsky. We shall examine the book reviews as well, which are more along the lines of review articles.

The editor's introduction describes, among other interesting topics, the Chomskyan and Russian Schools of Semitic Linguistics (pp. 13-20). The former is emphasized in a quoted "call for papers" for a conference held in Fez, Morocco in March 1999. It is hyperbolic to claim, as that "call for papers" does, that "today most Chamito-semitic (sic) studies are inspired by the generative trend" (p. 14). There are, of course, many outstanding Semitists working in nongenerative frameworks, and good work knows no theoretical model--only solid argumentation and accuracy. Consider in this regard the 129 articles published in Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau on the Occasion of his 85th Birthday, ed. Alan S. Kaye (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991), very few of which are penned in the framework of generative-transformational theory.

Highlights of the Russian School discuss the work of the late Igor M. Diakonoff (d. 1999) (who contributed an important paper to the aforementioned Leslau Festschrift), Qonstantin I. Marogulov, Nicholas Marr, and N. V. Yushmanov. Diakonoff was undoubtedly the most outstanding linguist in the Afroasiatic (2) and Semitic fields. The fact is that Marr is little read today for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that his work was thoroughly discredited, and few Semitists have read Marogulov or even know the name, with the possible exception of a handful of NA specialists. Since Diakonoff produced a number of pupils who became active scholars, one can legitimately speak of a Diakonoff School, (3) and names such as Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Viktor Porkhomovsky, Leonid Kogan, and Alexander Militarev readily come to mind.

GENERAL ARTICLES

1. Gideon Goldenberg's "Semitic Linguistics and the General Study of Language" (pp. 21-41) is, in many ways, a sequel to his "The Contribution of Semitic Languages to Linguistic Thinking" (Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux 30 [1987-88]: 107-15). This essay makes some profound statements which are right on target, such as: "Linguistic Studies will be doomed to be banal without vast and profound knowledge of each language which one investigates ..." (p. 22), and "many studies, however, relating to Semitic languages refrain from original linguistic thought, either reposing on achievements of the past, or--which is by no means better--embracing servilely whatever theory is in vogue" (p. 23). It is refreshing to read down-to-earth critical statements like these about an entire academic enterprise, and we are grateful for his straightforwardness and candor, not to mention his astuteness.

   This essay also contains erudite observations on the gerund(ive) = gerondif = converb "any adverbial derived from a verb" (pp. 28-30), and Suffixaufnahme or "double case," in which a possessor in the genitive agrees with the nominal head (pp. 32-37). According to Goldenberg, "double case" is attested in Sumerian, Hurrian, Urartian, Basque, Kartvelian, Cushitic, and other languages, and it appears likely that linguists will become increasingly interested in this fascinating topic (p. 33).

2. Joseph L. Malone was faced with the arduous task of commenting on "The Chomskian School of Semitic Linguistics" (pp. 43-55). In fact, he writes that "the very first spade work ... convinced me of the impossibility of what I had at first hoped to develop" (p. 43). First of all, one may legitimately ask if there is such a School, or whether it would be more accurate to speak of Chomsky-inspired work, or perhaps even better, work done within the Chomskyan Paradigm? Secondly, there is most definitely a Chomskyan School of Linguistics (and perhaps one of Political Science as well), but how does the former differ from the designated School of Semitic Linguistics? Are these not one and the same School, except that the one in Malone's title deals exclusively with the Semitic languages? Thus, I think it appropriate to reword his title to the latter of the aforementioned choices.

   The author decided, in the final analysis, to obtain most of the material for discussion by examining the articles on Semitic languages which were published in Linguistic Inquiry (from its inception in 1970 to the end of the millennium), the linguistics journal of MIT, Chomsky's home base. This was a reasonable approach to the task at hand.

   While discussing research dealing with modern Arabic dialects, I am surprised to see Maltese included among them. Although it is certainly an Arabic dialect from the diachronic point of view, for many reasons it is not accurate to consider it an Arabic dialect synchronically (p. 45). I have discussed the situation of Maltese (see, e.g., my "Arabic," in The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie [Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1987], 664-85), and this perspective has, I believe, gained general acceptance.

   Malone's article singles out for discussion a number of influential authors who have focused their research on Heb., including a young Noam Chomsky in his Master's thesis The Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew (Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1951), published 28 years later (New York: Garland, 1979). One can make a solid case that transformational-generative grammar, and generative phonology in particular, begins in 1951, six years before the publication of Syntactic Structures (The Hague: Mouton, 1957), the customarily cited starting date.

3. Jo Ann Hackett's "The Study of Partially Documented Languages" (pp. 57-75) is a comprehensive survey of epigraphic Northwest Semitic languages, including Phoenician, Punic, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Aramaic, and Ugaritic. In a commentary about Amarna Akkadian, Hackett affirms that she agrees with Anson Rainey's view that this variety must be understood "as a mixed or 'fused language'" (p. 62). However, it must be noted that many (dare I say most?) languages are mixed in the sense that they show influence as a result of language contact. Is there a special methodology for dealing with these languages, as opposed to nonmixed ones? I think not. Does she mean that this particular dialect is so fraught with contact phenomena that we must be especially careful by paying particular attention to them?

   In the discussion of the classification of Ugaritic (p. 64), Hackett seems unaware of my essay rejecting its positioning as a Canaanite language ("Does Ugaritic Go with Arabic in Semitic Genealogical Sub-Classification?" Folia Orientalia 28 [1991]: 115-28). Thus, I am in the same camp as the others cited by the author: Robert Hetzron, Rainer Voigt, John Huehnergard (who also discusses the classification of Ugaritic in this volume, p. 130), Alice Faber, Anson Rainey, and the pioneer of this theory, Albrecht Goetze, in a 1941 article in Language.

   Hackett, as was true with Goldenberg above, has some very strong opinions about the field, with which I am in firm agreement (p. 68):

   I would go so far as to say, in fact, that the majority of what is written about epigraphic Northwest Semitic languages and dialects is the work of amateurs. It gets published because many editors know no more than these authors, and because the publish-or-perish ethic has produced so many new venues. The result of these combined factors--desperation to find something new to say, to find something to publish; inadequate knowledge of biblical Hebrew and of Aramaic; lack of linguistic training; venues and editors who have no training in judging the quality of this kind of work--can be more clutter than valuable ideas. Although statements like these may seem out of place or inappropriate to some, Hackett calls it as she sees it, and harsh words are sometimes necessary for the betterment of a field. One sometimes wonders why so many scholars are reluctant to call a spade a spade, or even loath to let others do so.

   Corrigenda: On p. 73 of the author's bibliography, it should be noted that Sabatino Moscati was not the sole author, but rather the editor and one of four coauthors of An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1964).

   The introduction to the section on "Overviews" by the editor is a fine summary of the five essays it contains (pp. 79-84). However, the first name of the famous University of Chicago grammatologist and Assyriologist, Ignace J. Gelb, is misspelled (p. 79).

4. Peter T. Daniels' "The Study of Writing in the...