Semitic Noun Patterns.

• Author: Kaye, Alan S.
• Position: Book Review

Semitic Noun Patterns. By JOSHUA FOX. Harvard Semitic Studies, vol. 52. Winona Lake, Ind.: EISENBRAUNS, 2003. Pp. xix + 361. $39.95.

This book, originally the author's Ph.D. dissertation, deals with noun patterns in the Semitic languages, such as qatl, qitl, and qutl, etc. (chapters 11-38 are listings of the various patterns, with copious examples). After three pages of discussion on the transliteration systems in vogue for the various Semitic languages (pp. xvii-xix), chapter 1 presents an introduction and summary of the work. Chapter 2 discusses the published literature in this domain, especially Jacob Barth's classic Die Nominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1889-90); however, the author uses many other sources as well (see the rather extensive bibliography, pp. 297-322). In addition to other names of yesteryear, notably Carl Brockelmann, Gotthelf Bergstrasser, Theodor Noldeke, Wilhelm Czermak, August Dillmann, Edward William Lane, and William Wright, modern-day Semitic linguists are quoted: Jerzy Kurylowicz, Wolf Leslau, Wolfdietrich Fischer, Otto Jastrow, T. M. Johnstone, and Otto Rossler. There are also references to several contemporary general linguists, e.g., Noam Chomsky, whose "Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew" (M.A. thesis, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1951) could have been cited in its published version (New York: Garland, 1979), P. H. Matthews, Joan L. Bybee, and Mark Aronoff, to name but a few.

Chapter 3 wrestles with the all-important matter of terminology. The author is right to judge that the terminology for the semantic categories of the patterns is woefully inconsistent in the voluminous literature. An important term introduced is "isolated noun," which is defined as "one which does not share a root with another word, particularly in reconstruction to PS" (= Proto-Semitic) (p. 29), on which see further below.

Chapter 4 takes up the notion of root and pattern morphology. The author states that "the Semitic root is the sequence of consonants that stay constant in a set of nouns with meanings in some semantic field" (p. 37). Needless to say, Semitic has many homophonous roots, and it is often difficult, if not impossible, to relate the meanings of some roots in one distinct semantic field. A good example of this is the root Arabic 'nd: 'ind "beside," 'anid "obstinate," and 'anud "gazelle" (see Bruce Ingham, Najdi Arabic [Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1994], 21, who states these are from the same root)...