XII Incontro Italiano di Linguistica Camito-semitica (Afroasiatica)

ATTI a crrradi Marco Moriggi

Rubbettino 2007 H. Satzinger

Absolutestate and absolutive case in Afro-Asiatic

In the pastdecades the ideahas spread that the Afro-Asiaticancestor lan- guagewas ofiginallyof the ergativerype. This view is basedon rhe observarion of somefeatures of variousindividual languagesand/or severalbranches that seemedto offer themselvesto suchan interpretationl,For Berber,A. Aikhen- 64 H. Satzinger vald hasclaimed that the accusativeor "free state"of the noun, aswell asthe "objectpronoun", representthe absolutivecase of an ergativecase system, an opinion that doesnot hold in this form2;what we are here dealingwith is the feature of an absolutestate, or case,a featurethat has nothing to do with an ergativecase system (nor with an accusativecase system, at that).Nevertheless, Lipiriski, inhis SemiticLanguages, refers in severalparagraphs to Berber as an unequivocalergative type languagel.Obviously, the two (near-)homonymous termsof "absolutestate (or case)"and "absolutivecase" have been con- f u se d by theseand other authors; this questionshall be the maintopic of this paper. The issueof Afro-Asiatic ergativityhas not only been met with agreement among scholars.Of the critical contributions,we will take into consideration the articleby M. \X/altisberga.However, the author seemsto havefallen for the very samemistake which thosemade whom he criticises,viz. the confounding of "absolutestate" and "absolutivecase". What. then, is an "absolutive case"?Itisoneof thetwobasic casesof an ergative-absolutivecase system, the other being the ergativecase. Absolutivecase is the caseof nounsin ergative-absolutivelanguages that would generallybe the subjectsof intransitiveverbs or the objectsof transitiveverbs in thetranslational equivalents of nominative-accusativelanguages such as English. Ergativecase is the caseof nounsin ergative-absolutivelanguages that would gen- erallybe the subjectsof transitiveverbs in the transladonequivalents of nomina- tive-accusativelanguages such as Englishs.

\X/hat,on the other hand, is an "absolute state"?InSemit- ic studies,this term is usedin a two-fold way: (a) absolutestate vs. constfuct state,and (b) absolutestate as kind of "barenoun". In Hebrew grammar(but also,e.g., in Coptic grammaf),the absolutestate contrasts with the construct state:dabar <>, but dbar-'elohvm<; Coptic sotap<>,but setp-hen-rome<>. But the term absolutestate is also used in a different sense,and this is where the confusioncomes in. Aramaichas, in additionto the absolutestate and the constructstale, a third one:the determinedor emphaticstate6. Mor- phologically,it is characteizedby an ending -7. In Biblical Aramaic, it is the expressionof the determinednoun in the nominative,accusative and genitive

2 A. Y. Aikhenvald,Split ergatiuity,cit., pp.l9-68. For a critical evaluationsee H. Satzinger, On the assumedergatiuity of the Berberlanguage(s), in Proceedingsof the 10th Meetingof Hamito- semitic (Afroasiatic)Linguixics (Florence,18 20 April 2001), ed. by P. Fronzaroli,P. Marrassini, Dipartimentodi Linguistica,Universiti di Firenze,Firenze 200), pp. 38i-189. r E. Lipiriski,SemiticLanguages, cit.,pp.261 262 (Sl2.l d). a M. \X/altisberg,Zur Ergatiuhypo th e s e, cit. 5See http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/\XrhatlsAbsolutiveCase.htm 6E. Lipnski, Sen itic Lan guages, cit., p. 2$ (S) 3.22). Absolutestate and ahsolutiue casein Afro_Asiatrc 6j functions. (Hence, this emphaticstate of Biblical Aramaicisthe equivalentof definite afticle + noun in Hebrew; Hebrew bad-d.abnr- Arumiic mill"tr_a, Hebrcw ha,bbtiyit; Ar-amacbayt-a,Hebrew ha*-*alkab - Aramaicmalkt-a.) TJlooses, though, this function of a marker of definitenessin the lut., ,tug., oi the language and becomesthe normalform of rhe noun: nalkauthe kinio, oa kinp. By this (reminiscent development of that of the B;.il. noun, whose generalgender/number prefixes are alsothought to go back to a definite arti_ cle) we are left **itk_) with the absolute state(nelek"< in uil ,ynru.tic situa_ tions orher rhan nominative(subject), accusative (object), or genitive(after nounsand prepositions): i.e.,in predicatefunction, in uo.utirrefunction, etc. In this way' the function of the Syriacabsolute state comes close to the absolute stateof Akkadian. The Akkadian absolutestate has the form of a "barenoun,',it showsnei- ther declension nor mimation:iar >,as oppos edto iarrum, iarrina,iarratn. It is regardedto be identical with the third personforms of the shtiveT. Femi- nine nounsend in -at: iarrat <>;.plural and dualformsare mainly attestedin the stative;pl. m. _u, [. _a;du.m. _a,f , _ta8. As the absolutestate doesnot show any casemorphs u/e may expect it to be usedfor roles other than thoseof the argumen$of ihe verb (asthe nomina_ tive and accusative) and the expansionof noun and prepositio'(as the geni- tive).Actually, this is obviousfor manyof its uses: ' Predicative.In Akl. o Vocarive;Akkadian iar <> r Distributive repetitions, Akkadian a-na rna-a-atma-a-at.ma <>. . Idiomatic pairs of nouns,Akkadian sefurrabi dittle (and)bip. r Certainspecifications of placeor time,etc. ' Numbers, Akkadian iiten <>,Syriac had <;Akkadian silai iat qEmum<, <>,<. t Il certainexpressions, ^ . after prepositionsl,,Akkadian anadar<>; Syiac ba: gal <.

7 \{l von Soden,Grundrif! der akkadischenGrammatik,Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, Roma19953, ts 62c);p, 101(s n ]! zza);G. Buccellati,Aiinterpretario, o]"ii)"app"a*, s* tiueas..aNominalSentence,in< )7, 196r,pp.24-2s ""Jaiisr*fo;;i;*non_verbal instancesof pl.f . a,beforea suffixpronouni _al_. eIbiden. 10S Moscatiet ali, An Introductionto thecomparatiue Grammar of the Phonology semiticLanguages. andMorphology,Harrassov/orz, W.rbuJ.'n tye9, p. 102(12.79). 66 H. Satzinger

Under many of these conditions, English would make use of the "bare noun". Now Akkadian is a languagewith declension,without any articles, whereasEnglish has no declension,though both a definite and an indefinite article.Syriac has no declension,nor hasit (anymore)a definitearticle, nor an indefiniteone. It has,though, a marker of the non-barenoun, i.e., of nouns used as subjects,objects, genitives, etc., correspondingto declension(and mimation) in Akkadian. The definition of "bare noun" dependson the type of the languageto which it is applied:bare of articles?bare of declension?etc. Linguistic studies haveexamined the barenoun, apart from English,in all typesof languages,e.g. in Hebrew, in Turkish, even in Chineseand Japanesell,which have neither declension,nor articles,nor anything like the Syriac -a morpheme.Another languagethat can be comparedwith Akkadian and Syriac in respectto the absolutestate or bare noun, is Late Egyptian (the informal languageof the Ramessideperiod). The situation of this idiom is similar to that of English: it has no declension,although it has both definite and indefinite articles.The bare noun (more recent grammafsuse to call it the noun with zero article) is iound, inter alia, under the following conditionsl2:predicative expressions, Absolute state and absolutiuecase in Afro-Asiatic 67

In Egyptian, there could be a bare noun only after the definite und indefinite articleshad emerged. In a number of Cushiticlanguages Sassels has distinguishedan Absolute case, and a subject case, and he has pointed to correspondentfeatures in Betber,with its Absoluteand Annexed states, as rhe traditional rerms are. In Berberand alsoin Cushitic,the absoluteform encompassesthe function of an accusative case (directobject case). In Semidc,on the otherhand, the accusativehas several functions of an absoluteform (e.g.,it is the form of the predicativenoun of Arabic kana andits <;under certainconditions the addressappears in the accusative).A particularcase is Akkadian:in this language,afotmal distinction is madebetween the accusativecase (in -a, etc.), andthe absolutestate (in zero).Nonetheless, >(Diakonofflrq . tt/altisberg Above, has been mentioned,who reports on Semitisticargu- mentspro ergativecase and pro absolutivecase. According to these data, the assumptionof ffacesor residuesof a Semiticergative case merelyrests on an equationof the nomin ativeand the locativecases15. The featuresadduced as

1r HJ. Sasse,Case in Cushitic,Semitic and Berber, cit. 1a I. M. Diakonoff , Semito-HaniticLanguages,cit., p. )g. 15 M. Waltisberg,Zur Ergatiuhpothese,-cit.,pp.2I_22(S2.1). tblui, pp.22-3 4 (S2.2). 68 H. Satzinger alia,a quotationform is found in languagesof a rather pure accusative-nomina- tive typelike Akkadian(form in -O) andOld Nubian (form in 'a). . Address2o. 'ircrca22, o Predicative[orm21 , alsoafter thetic particleslike Arabic and after ^ 1. t,tt-)2 |\rabrc tlla". None of theseconditions has anythingto do with ergativity,or an ab- s o I u t i v e c a s e . On the other hand,they aretypical of the ab s o I u t e s t at e . In concluding,the followingmay be said. 1. Many of the recent argumentspro and contra ergativityin Semitic and/or Afro-Asiatic (especiallyLipiriski, Tropper, \X/altisberg)missed their point as they confusedfeatures of an absolutestate with those of an absolutiue case(of an ergativesystem). 2. None of the attestedAfro'Asiatic languages has an ergativecase system ' though the stativeof Akkadian and Egyptian testifiesto a certain measureof split ergativity:transitive verbs in the stativeform are passive,more often than not (Akkadianagiz <; Egn. ju f rdi w n.s<>),intransitive verbs are by necessityactive (darnqata <>; Egn.jswt.n jj.tj a'd.tj <> in the compositepast tense form, and the stative '/ tbrm of <> in a clauseof circumstance).Another feature is the paradigmof the personalpronoun that functionsas object pronoun with tran- 'a'taytu-hu,Egn. sitiveverbs (Arab. jw r[.rc.jsw,Ber. fkiv-t, all ;Egn. nn su, Ber.ulai-t, both ..heis not, doesnot exisu). But note that in no Afro-Asiatic languagethe respective"objective pronoun" is systematicallyused as subject of intransitiveverbs. Nevertheless, the assumptionthat the proto-languagehad an ergativecase system could account for somefeatures ofthe languages2a. 3. As the form and function of an absolutestate (marked by -a, thoughin Akkadianby zero)can be found in manyAfro-Asiatic language families, it may be seenas an originalfeature of the proto language.The Semiticaccusative has obviouslydeveloped from the form of the absolutestatez5, whereas in Berber

20M. lValti s b er g Zur Ergat iu hyp oth e s e, ctt.,"vocative" pp. 24 25 (5 2.2.3). 21Iui, pp.29 )2 (S2.2.7). 22lui, pp.25 27 (S2 2.5). 2)Iui, pp.)23 4 (S2.2.8) 2a C[r H. SatzingeqThe Egyptian conjugations taithin theAfroasiatic framework, in Egyptol- ogy at the Daun of the Tuenty-FirstCerctury. Proceedings of the Eighth International Congressof Egyptologists(Cairo,28 March-J April 2000),ed.byZ. Hawass,L. P Brock,The AmericanUni versityin CairoPress, Cairo 2001, ilI, pp. 392-400(in particularpp. )95 396). 25 Cfr. H. Satzinger,Obseruations in the Field of the Afroasiatic Sffix Conjugation,in AfroasiaticaTergestina, cit., pp.23 -3) Absolute state and absolutiuecase in Afro_Asiatic 69 andEast cushitic the absoluteform is alsoemployed for the directobject, in lieuof a properaccusative form.It is my impressionthat Berber and Cushitic never-developeda morphological acc.rsatiuecase. The absorutestate, on the otherhand, seems to be anolJ, inheritedfeature.

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