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 types:

• (short) Cv (rare, kinship, human body, numerals 1-2)
• (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-

Disyllabic CāCiC 'active participle of triconsonantal'

A comparison of Berber vs. Semitic points to CvC class maybe being originally CCvC or CvCC in PAA. Heb. lēk 'go' possibly *hlik ~ Berber 'llukk' "go on!" as 'll' probably 'hl'

Causal in Semitic -y?

Morphology

? no clear cut distinction between verbal root and nominal root? Lipiński: Somali qufa‘ “cough”/“to cough” / East Semitic qātum “hand” vs. Somal. qād “to take”

Shared Berber-Semitic C₁vC₂C₂vC₃ pattern for (intensive mostly in Sem.) adjectives. (Wonderful tentative example Lipiński : /ṭubbūẖu/ ⟨Ṭù-bù-ẖu-d’À-da⟩ “Very slaughterous is Hadda” in Palaeosyrian). Berber ex. a-məlləl “white”, a-wəssar “old” - Assyro-Babylonian qattanu “very small” (match with Egypt. ktt?? “little one” maybe)

Berber-Semitic show shared root reduplication for noun formation. (meaning?)

Sem. ya- names of animals, plants, proper names. m- verbal noun/tool/instrument/agent/participles/nouns of place: tool with which/means by which action is done, but also where action happens. Egypt. mnẖt “clothing” ~ wnẖ “to dress oneself”, mrẖt “fat” ~ wrẖ “anoint”

Sem. t(a/i/u)- “verbal nouns signifying an action, nouns of place, animal qualifications”

East Semitic infixes -t- for intensive adjectival nominals. Existed also in NSem. also. PAA archaic remnant or innovation?

Gentilitial/adjectival -iy attested in An Eg. and Sem. probably postpositional origin, also forms genitive -i

Feminine -at probably < -a/iyt ~ matching -īy + -t

Arabic placenames ending in -a/ā show a suffix -āwī (Ṣafā’ vs. Ṣafāwī) could be in An. Egypt. ḥmww “craftsman” ~ ḥmt “craft”

-t widely attested in Ancient EGyptian,Berber, Semitic, Cushitic. In Cushitic seems to be originally collective in a bunch of old conserved words. Lipiński gives Oromo abbōtī “elders” ~ Old Bab. ummatum. Probably primacy (cf. IE similar development) ~ abstract/collective/feminine meaning.

Semitic compounds attested: Gafat abälamʷä “shepherd” < abʷä 'father' (cf. *‘ab id. ) and älamʷä “cow”, Phoen. Mlqrt < milk “king” and qart “city” (ASoIaF Quarth anyone?). Assyro-Babyl. ištenšeret “eleven” < ištēn “one” + ešeret (“ten”).

Gender

? Semitic + Berber + Cushitic share t- with the meaning of fem. however, Sem. shows bits of noun classes which are somewhat shared. Can we project to PAA?

• *-b ~ wild/dangerous animals (missing in Chadic and Cushitic).
• *-r~l seems to have been for domestic/tame animals, cf. Egyp. 3-bw “elephant” , iy-r “deer”, s-rw “sheep”, d-b “hippo” ~ Cushitic ló-ba (same meaning, for d~l alternation, see above), Cush.

zab-bä “lion” (wild) vs. dáb-el “goat“ (tame)

• *-n body parts, e.g. Cushitic gʷad-n “rib”, Gurage ãfu-na “nose” ( < Sem. ’anf+na), Oromo č̣inā “side” ~ Amharic and co. č̣ə-n “thigh”

Oromo af-ān “mouth” ~ Ge‘ez af “id.”.

Plurality

There's a partial dual in Semitic which seems to have been enroached upon by the plural suffix. In light of the collective and the sporadic occasional widespread attestation, presumably the -n dual is an archaic vestige of either Berber-Semitic or higher up and projected to PAA.

Chadic, Berber and some Semites have plural in -n beyond vowel lengthening, and -t serves as a plural too in semitic (giving 'feminine' plurals to masc. nouns) and Cushitic.

Root morpheme reduplication seems to be a thing in Egyptian, Chadic, less Cushitic, regular Semitic guise and mystical Eblaite. In Egyptian initial redupl. of hieroglyph marks dual, thrice plural.

Chadic, Cushitic, and South Ethiopian languages and Amharic shows partial reduplication of final radical L->R e.g. Hausa kofa -> kofofi

Spread broken pattern in all?most? of PAA (Cushitic, Chadic, Semitic, Berber, Egyptian). e.g. Eg. ik3 for k3 “soul” in situ usual k3w

Old collective use of such a pattern in CArab. OAss. Assyro-Bab. (damqum “good” -> dumqum “lit. good things”) OAk. C₁vC₂C₂a(C₃) + -ū/-ī or -ūtu /ātu

Cases

North Cushitic shows similar system to Berber where subjects are prefixed with ū-, ā- (sg., pl.) and ō-, -ē (id.) for object, cf. Berber u- vs. a-, i-. (id.) In both, the feminine/collective t-' precedes. Ancient Egyptian has nil and uses word order. Semitic is questionable but as Semitic seems to be a bit closer to Berber it's quite possible. Semitic seems to have suffixed -a and -u.

Lipiński suggests Afrasian languages have verbs which agree with agent in P, G and N but concord with non-active by pronominal suffixes.

Berber-Semitic broadly agree on using the affix /-a/- for construct and nomen rectum with /-u/-

"new" genitive -i in Semitic is probably postposition -īy (ablative-ish in East Cushitic)

East Semitic has -uš which probably -iš which is a mostly postpositional particle, note however use as a prepos. in Paleosyrian. Mix of particle as both post and preposition is Afroasiatic-ish. Cf. Sem. wa- / -ma “and” with alt. w: m

Semitic -ah is orig. postposition directive in meaning, Ug. šmmh 'heavenward'

Predicate state -a projects to PAA as expected, cf. Egyptian old perfective, Classical Arabic perfect, Semitic stative