Noorlander, Paul M. & Stilo, Donald "On the Convergence of Verbal Systems of Aramaic and its Neighbours. Part I: Present-Based Paradigms" in Khan, Geoffrey & Napiorkowska, Lidia (eds.), Neo-Aramaic and its Linguistic Context, pp. 426-452, 2015
Neo-Aramaic, specifically North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA), presents us with one of the most mult... more Neo-Aramaic, specifically North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA), presents us with one of the most multi-faceted cases of language contact and areal phenomena among the world’s languages. In the transition from Old Aramaic to Neo-Aramaic, several profound morphosyntactic changes occurred attesting to various fascinating evolutionary cycles (cf. Jastrow 2008). The gradual loss of morphological case-marking through phonetic erosion and the merging of the Tense-Aspect-Mood (TAM) system in North-West-Semitic had a major impact on the restructuring of her Iron Age descendants, which are characterized by the concomitant emergence of a definite article and new dependent-marking strategies to indicate argument structure (Gzella 2013). Many developments in Aramaic are paralleled by those in Arabic and Hebrew (Rendsburg 1991). This drift continued in Neo-Aramaic, but assumed greater proportions in NENA. The most drastic innovation is its verbal system (cf. Pennacchietti 1988; Hoberman 1989; Polotsky 1996; Kapeliuk 1996; Khan 2007a: 12–14). Analytical constructions already on the verge of grammaticalization in Middle Aramaic gave rise to entirely new inflectional paradigms. The loss of the essential ingredients of the West Semitic verbal system, the suffix- and prefix-conjugations, and their replacement by originally non-finite constructions are unparalleled within modern Semitic (Hopkins 2005). Tsereteli (1979: 57–9) lists 14 TAM categories (plus a full set of revamped passives) for Christian Urmi Neo-Aramaic. For a Semitic language, this is not just a few new paradigms, but a virtual explosion of paradigms! The truly intriguing point—and the main goal of this article—in regard to the innovated verbal system of NENA comes from outside Aramaic: this hugely expanded system of TAM paradigms in NENA is closely mirrored in certain non-Semitic languages of the area that also underwent their own significant transformations and restructurings to arrive at these parallel modern inventories of TAM paradigms.
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brothers are called Muhammad Chalabi and Ahmad Chalabi.
Once there was a king with three daughters who set forth a challenge
for those who wanted to court his beautiful daughters.
Whoever could jump over the enormous trench he had dug would
be entitled to his eldest daughter. Mirza Muhammad jumps over
the trench and reaches the eldest daughter who knocks him with
an apple. He took her and ‘reserved’ her for his eldest brother by
hiding her in a room inside the palace. He did the same for the
second and third princess. Then Mirza Muhammad’s father
passed away and the three brothers started checking the state of
the palace. They opened the rooms where the three daughters
were hidden, and each took one for himself.
Geoffrey Khan, Masoud Mohammadirad, Dorota Molin and Paul M. Noorlander, Neo-
Aramaic and Kurdish Folklore from Northern Iraq: A Comparative Anthology with a Sample of
Glossed Texts, Volume 2. Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 12. Cambridge, UK:
Open Book Publishers, 2022, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0307
last will to be buried on a hill where a mare would lead
him to. While taking turns to guard his grave at night, Mirza Muhammad
defeats forty monsters (ḥambušaye) and their mother.
Then his brothers wanted to break into a palace of a king who
had three daughters. With Mirza Muhammad’s help, they manage
to get inside the palace. He killed the forty monsters and catapulted
himself past the guards. He saved the king from a black
scorpion by piercing the wall with his dagger, and claimed the
three princesses for him and his brothers. The king did not know
who had saved him. Mirza Muhammad’s brothers wanted to
prove themselves as the heroes, but failed. Then Mirza Muhammad
revealed himself as the king’s saviour, and the king rewarded
him and his brothers by giving them the three princesses
in marriage.
Geoffrey Khan, Masoud Mohammadirad, Dorota Molin and Paul M. Noorlander, Neo-
Aramaic and Kurdish Folklore from Northern Iraq: A Comparative Anthology with a Sample of
Glossed Texts, Volume 2. Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 12. Cambridge, UK:
Open Book Publishers, 2022, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0307
Download: https://academic.oup.com/jss/article-pdf/68/1/199/49405951/fgac025.pdf
The Neo-Aramaic varieties of the Christian communities in
Diyana, also known by its Kurdish name Soran, in the Soran district
in North-West Iraq, closely resembles the Christian varieties
of the Urmia region in Iran. In a number of fundamental respects,
however, the Diyana varieties differ from their Urmi peers. This
article discusses several of such grammatical features in which the
Diyana varieties are distinct from Urmi, namely a) the assimilation
of /l/ and /w/; b) metathesis of transitive verbal forms with the suffix
-wa; c) loss of synharmonism with accompanying merger of
unaspirated and voiced stops in originally pharyngeal contexts;
d) sporadic fronting of originally back rounded vowels; e) incomplete
palatalization of velar stops; f) distinct 3ms. bound person
markers; g) the indicative preverb ʾi, and h) the form and function
of compound verbal forms.
It discusses
- methodological issues around the comparative method, extra-linguistic arguments and the relevance of lexical evidence
- the linguistic evidence of Ugaritic’s position among the Semitic languages.
- the criteria for Central and Northwest Semitic
- the arguments adduced for the grouping of Ugaritic and Canaanite, divided into phonological and morphosyntactic features
- arguments for separating Ugaritic from Canaanite
There is little doubt that Ugaritic is a Northwest Semitic language,
rather its position within this branch is disputed: either it constitutes a
separate subbranch or a common subgroup together with Canaanite.
so far, a genetic relationship for Ugaritic and Canaanite seems to be linguistically ungrounded. However, unless there are arguments for the contrary, it does not follow from these features either that Ugaritic constitutes a separate subbranch. What these features do confirm, is that, at least, synchronically, Ugaritic and Canaanite demonstrated close affinity through parallel development and areal diffusion. With respect to the separation of Ugaritic from Canaanite, the situation
is not conclusive either.
We will also include four additional paradigms that use a PC. These were not discussed in Part I because they either are based on the Past tenses or are defective verbs. These paradigms include the Present and Past forms of 1) the copula, 2) the existence verb (or particle, depending on the language), 3) the periphrastic expression of Predicative Possession (‘have’), based on the existence verb, and 4) the Present
Perfect and the conversion to Past Perfect. Beginning with the various Present system paradigms of Part I as bases, only the core AILA languages add a morpheme of ‘pastness’, the PC, to fully conjugated
Present forms to derive the corresponding set of paradigms of the Past system. What is significant here is that this PC is usually an invariable form of the 3rd SG past copula (COP.PST.3, here also glossed as AUX and occasionally ‘was’). This morpheme is added in a canonical agglutinative fashion. That is, rather than conflate the categories
of person and tense together in a fusional strategy—e.g. the 1st singular markers in Modern Greek θel-o ‘I want’ > i-θel-a ‘I wanted’ or the change of the Present stem of the verb to its Past stem of Persian mi-xah-æm ‘I want’ > mi-xast-æm ‘I wanted’ or Kurdish (Zakho): āvēž- > āvēt- ‘throw’—the core AILA languages do not vary from Present to Past when the PC is added.
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brothers are called Muhammad Chalabi and Ahmad Chalabi.
Once there was a king with three daughters who set forth a challenge
for those who wanted to court his beautiful daughters.
Whoever could jump over the enormous trench he had dug would
be entitled to his eldest daughter. Mirza Muhammad jumps over
the trench and reaches the eldest daughter who knocks him with
an apple. He took her and ‘reserved’ her for his eldest brother by
hiding her in a room inside the palace. He did the same for the
second and third princess. Then Mirza Muhammad’s father
passed away and the three brothers started checking the state of
the palace. They opened the rooms where the three daughters
were hidden, and each took one for himself.
Geoffrey Khan, Masoud Mohammadirad, Dorota Molin and Paul M. Noorlander, Neo-
Aramaic and Kurdish Folklore from Northern Iraq: A Comparative Anthology with a Sample of
Glossed Texts, Volume 2. Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 12. Cambridge, UK:
Open Book Publishers, 2022, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0307
last will to be buried on a hill where a mare would lead
him to. While taking turns to guard his grave at night, Mirza Muhammad
defeats forty monsters (ḥambušaye) and their mother.
Then his brothers wanted to break into a palace of a king who
had three daughters. With Mirza Muhammad’s help, they manage
to get inside the palace. He killed the forty monsters and catapulted
himself past the guards. He saved the king from a black
scorpion by piercing the wall with his dagger, and claimed the
three princesses for him and his brothers. The king did not know
who had saved him. Mirza Muhammad’s brothers wanted to
prove themselves as the heroes, but failed. Then Mirza Muhammad
revealed himself as the king’s saviour, and the king rewarded
him and his brothers by giving them the three princesses
in marriage.
Geoffrey Khan, Masoud Mohammadirad, Dorota Molin and Paul M. Noorlander, Neo-
Aramaic and Kurdish Folklore from Northern Iraq: A Comparative Anthology with a Sample of
Glossed Texts, Volume 2. Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 12. Cambridge, UK:
Open Book Publishers, 2022, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0307
Download: https://academic.oup.com/jss/article-pdf/68/1/199/49405951/fgac025.pdf
The Neo-Aramaic varieties of the Christian communities in
Diyana, also known by its Kurdish name Soran, in the Soran district
in North-West Iraq, closely resembles the Christian varieties
of the Urmia region in Iran. In a number of fundamental respects,
however, the Diyana varieties differ from their Urmi peers. This
article discusses several of such grammatical features in which the
Diyana varieties are distinct from Urmi, namely a) the assimilation
of /l/ and /w/; b) metathesis of transitive verbal forms with the suffix
-wa; c) loss of synharmonism with accompanying merger of
unaspirated and voiced stops in originally pharyngeal contexts;
d) sporadic fronting of originally back rounded vowels; e) incomplete
palatalization of velar stops; f) distinct 3ms. bound person
markers; g) the indicative preverb ʾi, and h) the form and function
of compound verbal forms.
It discusses
- methodological issues around the comparative method, extra-linguistic arguments and the relevance of lexical evidence
- the linguistic evidence of Ugaritic’s position among the Semitic languages.
- the criteria for Central and Northwest Semitic
- the arguments adduced for the grouping of Ugaritic and Canaanite, divided into phonological and morphosyntactic features
- arguments for separating Ugaritic from Canaanite
There is little doubt that Ugaritic is a Northwest Semitic language,
rather its position within this branch is disputed: either it constitutes a
separate subbranch or a common subgroup together with Canaanite.
so far, a genetic relationship for Ugaritic and Canaanite seems to be linguistically ungrounded. However, unless there are arguments for the contrary, it does not follow from these features either that Ugaritic constitutes a separate subbranch. What these features do confirm, is that, at least, synchronically, Ugaritic and Canaanite demonstrated close affinity through parallel development and areal diffusion. With respect to the separation of Ugaritic from Canaanite, the situation
is not conclusive either.
We will also include four additional paradigms that use a PC. These were not discussed in Part I because they either are based on the Past tenses or are defective verbs. These paradigms include the Present and Past forms of 1) the copula, 2) the existence verb (or particle, depending on the language), 3) the periphrastic expression of Predicative Possession (‘have’), based on the existence verb, and 4) the Present
Perfect and the conversion to Past Perfect. Beginning with the various Present system paradigms of Part I as bases, only the core AILA languages add a morpheme of ‘pastness’, the PC, to fully conjugated
Present forms to derive the corresponding set of paradigms of the Past system. What is significant here is that this PC is usually an invariable form of the 3rd SG past copula (COP.PST.3, here also glossed as AUX and occasionally ‘was’). This morpheme is added in a canonical agglutinative fashion. That is, rather than conflate the categories
of person and tense together in a fusional strategy—e.g. the 1st singular markers in Modern Greek θel-o ‘I want’ > i-θel-a ‘I wanted’ or the change of the Present stem of the verb to its Past stem of Persian mi-xah-æm ‘I want’ > mi-xast-æm ‘I wanted’ or Kurdish (Zakho): āvēž- > āvēt- ‘throw’—the core AILA languages do not vary from Present to Past when the PC is added.
The title of this abstract is intentionally ambiguous. On the one hand, its primary concern are two verbs meaning ‘want’ and on the other hand, it is the third person singular form of these verbs that is of particular interest to the repetitive grammatical history of the future in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (= NENA).
The NENA future preverbal particle bəd- and its eroded equivalents ultimately go back to a prospective construction or immediate future (practically English ‘be about to’) composed of an impersonal participial form of bʕy ‘want; need’ followed by the complementizer d- and the subjunctive (Nöldeke 1868:295; Maclean 1895:122; Cohen 1984:520; Pennacchietti 1994a:281 nt 77, 1994b:137-8). The prospective semantics of this verb are evident in Late Aramaic varieties, such as Jewish Babylonian Talmudic and Classical Syriac, akin to its cognate in Najdi Arabic (Ingham 1994:121). The particle bəd is used similarly in early NENA, but fully replaces the original future as in many languages of the world, including Afro-Asiatic (cf. Bybee and Pagliuca 1987, Bybee et al. 1994; Hopper and Traugot 1993:24; Heine and Kuteva 2002:310-11). For example, a future particle derived from the verb ‘want’ is a well-known trait of the Balkan languages, such as Greek tha (< thelei ina ‘he wants that’) and Bulgarian šte (< ‘he wants’).
What is striking is that we find the same development repeated in certain Jewish dialects of NENA. A distinct root for ‘want’, which is ʔby, is employed first as prospective auxiliary, then the third person singular becomes once again fossilized as a future particle.
The papers in this volume represent the full range of research that is currently being carried out on Neo-Aramaic dialects. They advance the field in numerous ways. In order to allow linguists who are not specialists in Neo-Aramaic to benefit from the papers, the examples are fully glossed.
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