User:Chrysophylax/Golden Afroasiatic

writin' up some stuff

“ergative” system - distinction between agent case (casus agens )nom-instr.-loc)) and predicate case (casus patiens (predicative, accusative))

possibly even deeper links to Bantu family? (common causative affix -s-, reciprocal verb suffix, m- prefix and some other funky stuff. etc.)

stative/perfective/imperfective?

prefixing conjugation

1sg indep. ʔǎn- ʔǐn

dep. -i | could it be originally enclitic ʔǐn??

Egyptian primarily loss of prefixing conj. mostly suffixing, loans from substrate looks a bit Sudanic.

t- feminine/diminutive/singulative morpheme (cf. semantic development of IE -h₂ from a collective/marker/derivative noun -> feminine)

Cushitic preserves verbal aspects, “ergative” and “non-active”, has causative, passive, reflexive stems; this matches quite well with semitic (s-, -t-, radical doubling)

North Cushitic: ipfv adabbīl, pret adbíl, volitive-jussive-conditional? īdbil

Berber preserves ergative-ish features better: casus agens vs. casus patients. Agens is prefixed with u-, a- is prefixed to patiens, has stative, imperative and jussive (used in subordinate clauses. cf. North Cushitic conditional used in negative clauses).

Vowel lengthening characterizes intensive stem in Tuareg like some(?which?) Semitic and Cushitic languages. Lipiński gives for Tuareg

intensive stem formation: -lkām-; -lākkəm-; 'follow' (√-lkəm-)
causative: -sərtək-, 'fell'
reflexive-reciprocal: -mətrəg- 'be freed'
frequentive: -təffəg̊- 'go often out'
agentless passive: -ttwaddəz-, 'be crushed' which apparently parallels an Egyptian pseudo-passive (?)

Chadic: shares feminine prefix t- (cf. Berber ta-mazig), apparently one way it forms noun plurals is with suffix -n and -a- insertion (Cf. Arabic? and Berber). shares intensive/pluriactional verb with radical doubling (Cf. Sem+Cushitic).

Wobbly-Timey-Wimey

• Akkadian: prolly first wave of Semitic speakers to invade Asia

• Aramaic: attested features in ca 850 BCE. include broken/internal plurals. Two inscriptions from Zincirli (unspec. 8th cent. BCE.) retain case endings in plural and have no emph. state

• Arabic: mentioned in Neo-Assyrian texts per tribal nomina. Ṣafaitic texts show h- and ’al- as articles so no unified dialect. SA script shows drop of nunation and of case but preserving distinction of š and ś, and of the emphatic series. -t of feminine preserved here and there.

• Gafat: ~Blue Nile, W. Ethiopia, died,r eplaced with Amharic. Preserves archaic plural noun kitač¸( <Sem. *kitāti 'children') ~ cf. Egyptian ktt “little one”. Also preserved mossay' “child”, cf. Egyptian mś ( < mśi 'give birth')

Phonology

?no distinction between voiced/devoiced stops in Semitic and Egyptian? e.g. ’bd vs. ’bt “perish”, b‘l vs. p‘l “make”, kbd vs. kbt “be heavy”, ndn vs. ntn “give”, nbš vs. npš “breath, life”, nbk vs. npk “well”, šbt vs. špt “full moon”.

Egyptian: k-p-n and k-b-n for Gbl “Byblos”.

Emphatic identity: pharyngealisation in Semitic - Lipiński argues for primacy of this based on ancient phonetic changes and transcriptions, e.g. Ugaritic nṯ̣r > ng̊r “to guard” pointing out that the interdental fricative ṯ̣ had become a velar fricative acos pharyngealization. Also, spread over words, called tafẖim in Arabic, may explain variation of roots and u-vocalism in East Semitic, Lipiński gives ex. qurbum for qarbum “near”, inaṣṣur for inaṣṣar “he guards”.

For PSem. Lipínski (2001) gives vowels: *a, *i, *u with long vowels *ā, *ū. Mentions vocalic *l and *r as very probable as they're attested in oldest phases of daughters.

Consonants here are then labial *p (which did a P-celtic early on in a bunch of langs, e.g. SArab. ḥrf “autumn” < ḥrp) and probably *b (but see note above about a possible lack of distinction between voiced/voiceless), *m. Semitic dialects show partial confusion of *b and *m - not too strange if thinking of a [b] allophone of orig. /p/ causing a bit of havoc.

Berber and Assyro-Babylonian words show change of nominal prefix m- -> n- when before labial. Additionally, Berber and East Semitic point to alternation between m / n, Lipiński gives ESem. wasāmu “to be skilled” and Berber wsn “to be skilled” (modern Tuareg a-mūssen “skilled man”)

possibly phonemic status of t / k and d / r suspect in Afro-Asiatic. Semitic alternates in pronominals, in Cushitic masc. k vs. fem. t. Cushitic and South Ethiopic have traces ( shifting l > d in Gozo), Berber too (Numidic mnkd, Tuareg a-mnukal), additionally, in the macroregion: Bantu has similar (-tund < -tunl) and Amharic, Argobba, Gafat word qänd < qarn (Ge‘ez) (nd < rn).

PSem. : eight monosyllabic root morphemes: (short) Cv, (long) Cv̄, CvC, C₁C₂vC₃, (ultra-long) Cv̄C, C₁C₂v̄C₃, C₁vC₂C₂ and C₁vC₂C₃.

Ca: (*wa- > ) *u-, *-ma “and”, (*ha- > ) *a- interrogative, *ka- “as, like”, *la- “truly”, *pa- “and so” Ci: *bi-, “in”; *li- “for” Cu: *lu-