143 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXXV N° 1-2, januari-april 2018 144

SEMITICA

BUTTS, A.M. — in Contact. (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, 82). Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden-Boston, 2015. (23,5 cm, XXVI, 427). ISBN 978-90-04-30014-9. ISSN 0091-8461. € 150,-; $ 194.00. This volume collects twenty studies on language contact in Semitic languages. The editor is to be commended for putting together such a well-rounded sample of case studies, which are almost exclusively of a very high quality and give a good overview of different types of contact spanning the entire Semitic family, from prehistoric substrates to histori- cally attested borrowing to modern bilingualism. His activity is also made clear in the excellent preface (vii–x), which introduces many relevant concepts, and presumably also in the additional front and back matter, such as a list of con- tributors including short biographies (xx–xxvi) and an index of subjects (423–427). I will briefly summarize the contents of each paper and occasionally add a remark or two before evaluating the volume as a whole. Ahmad Al-Jallad and Ali Al-Manaser present three Tha- mudic B () texts occurring on a slab of basalt from north-eastern Jordan, one of which they iden- tify as ‘A Thamudic B Abecedary in the South Semitic Letter Order’ (1–15). Although Thamudic B is still poorly under- stood, cognate evidence allows the authors to provide plau- sible readings for the non-abecedarian texts. In the second half of text 1a, w ws2{῾} l-h mn fnw[-k] is interpreted as ‘and may be strengthened by means of [your] countenance’, taking mn fnw[-k] literally as ‘from your face’; perhaps we could also see this as ‘by you’ or ‘because of you’, a gram- maticalization parallelled by mippne. The final section of this discusses the unexpected order of some consonants in the abecedary and suggests that the writer may have learnt it by dictation from an Amiritic (Ancient South Arabian) source, based on the reflexes of some phonemes in this of Sabaic. David Appleyard’s ‘Ethiopian Semitic and Cushitic. Ancient Contact Features in Ge‘ez and ’ (16–32) is 145 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — SEMITICA 146 a lucid investigation of Cushitic contact features in Ethiose- author gives an overview of how Egyptian consonants are mitic. Appleyard discusses all major parts of grammar, transliterated in Phoenician orthography, shedding some light focusing on Ge‘ez and Amharic, the two most culturally on the phonology of both languages, and discusses phono- important Ethiosemitic languages. It is very satisfying to get logical, lexical, onomastic and formulaic Egyptianisms in more specifics than the commonly stated, vague ‘Cushitic the Phoenician and Punic inscriptions. He also considers the influence’, especially given the considerable diversity found Phoenician term šd ᾿lnm ‘necropolis’, literally ‘field of the within Cushitic itself. An important role is played by the gods’, and the possibility that this is a calque of Egyptian hr.t Agaw languages (= Central Cushitic), which matches their nṯr ‘idem’, literally ‘what is under the god’. location, close to or overlapping the parts of Ethiopia where The Northwest Semitic theme is continued by Eran Semitic is spoken today. Cohen’s ‘Head-Marking in Neo- Genitive Construc- Samuel Boyd and Humphrey Hardy’s ‘Hebrew Adverbi- tions and the ezafe Construction in Kurdish’ (114–125). alization, Aramaic Language Contact, and mpny ᾿šr in Exo- While the use of the construct state steadily declined and dus 19:18’ (33–51) first considers different Biblical Hebrew died out during the history of Aramaic, a similar construction adverbalizers, i.e. “subordinators, or subordinating conjunc- occurs in the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho, e.g. tions, that mark an intra-clausal, adverbial relation” (33), and bēṯ-ıd gōra ‘the man’s house’. This construction is most their development. Following Gideon Goldenberg’s approach likely rooted in Middle Aramaic expressions like Syriac to Semitic syntax, they demonstrate the relationship between bayt-ēh d-ḡaḇrā ‘idem’, originally ‘his house, of the man’. adverbalizers and genitive constructions and identify two Cohen considers whether the preservation and reanalysis of productive patterns of adverbialization, where the comple- this construction in Jewish Zakho might be due to contact ment is preceded by either a preposition alone or a preposi- with Kurmanjî (= Northern Kurdish), which has similar con- tion and a relativizer; in the course of time, the former pat- structions. As the author notes, however, there are some tern was lost. Noting that one example of the latter pattern, important differences that make this connection more tenu- mpny ᾿šr ‘because’, only occurs in two literarily problematic ous: besides the looser restrictions on possible heads and contexts (Ex 19:18 and Jer 44:23), the authors then tenta- specialized marking of attributes in Neo-Aramaic as com- tively suggest that it is a calque of a similar Aramaic expres- pared to Kurdish, we might add the use of the marked form sion and therefore indicates later reworking of these verses. before attributive adjectives in Kurdish versus the lack of the Hebrew and Aramaic also feature in the next contribution, corresponding construction in this context in Neo-Aramaic. Yochanan Breuer’s ‘The Distribution of Declined Participles Thus, it seems preferable to me to consider the Neo-Aramaic in Aramaic-Hebrew and Hebrew-Aramaic Translations’ (52– construction a separate development. 67). It focuses on differences in translation based on a typical Richard Contini and Paola Pagano’s ‘Notes on Foreign Eastern Aramaic feature: declined participles, e.g. katevna ‘I Words in Hatran Aramaic’ (126–157) discusses 52 loan- write’, katvat ‘you write’. This type of participle declension words from Greek, Latin, Iranian, ‘Arabian’ and, in a sepa- does not occur in Hebrew. Breuer investigates their use, rate section, Akkadian. Each word is carefully presented and mainly in Hilḵot Re᾿u, a Rabbinic Hebrew translation of the treated with due philological care. One question that stuck Jewish Babylonian Aramaic text Halaḵot Pesuqot, and in with me is why the authors state that “[t]he Akkadian lexical Targum Onqelos, the translation of the (Hebrew) Pentateuch entries making their appearance in the [Hatran] vocabulary that gained official status in Babylonia and thus incorporates ought to be considered inherited from the Official Aramaic some Eastern features in its otherwise Western Aramaic lan- lexicon” (148); given Hatra’s situation in former Assyria, it guage. He convincingly shows that in both directions of seems possible that Akkadian words were loaned directly translation, the form is selected that stays closest to the origi- into the dialect of immigrating Aramaic speakers, without nal syntax, i.e. the addition or deletion of person marking is Imperial Aramaic acting as an intermediary. It is also remark- mostly avoided. Eastern Aramaic influence also accounts for able that, as in Syriac, Greek γένος ‘kin, kind’ retained its -s the frequent absence of third person subject pronouns in Rab- when borrowed into Hatran as gns ‘clan’, whereas the -ος binic Hebrew as preserved in the Babylonian Talmud. ending is normally replaced by the Aramaic emphatic state Next is Maria Bulakh’s ‘The Proto-Semitic “Asseverative ending -᾿ (146); since γένος, in Greek, is a neuter s-stem, *la-” and the Innovative 1sg Prefixes in South Ethio-Semitic unlike the other cases (which are masculine o-stems, e.g. Languages’ (68–96). Many South Ethiosemitic languages οὐετερανός ‘veteran’ → ᾿wtrn᾿), it may be that the -s was have an l- prefix in some forms of the first person singular felt to belong to the stem here, even though it has been lost prefix conjugation, e.g. Aliyu Amba Argobba ǝl-säkǝr ‘I get outside the nominative–accusative singular. drunk’ (simple Imperfect). Scholars often connect the l in C. Jay Crisostomo’s ‘Language, Writing and Ideologies in these prefixes with the Proto-Ethiosemitic asseverative prefix Contact: Sumerian and Akkadian in the Early Second Mil- *la-. Diving deep into the reconstruction of Proto-South- lennium bce’ (158–180) is a fascinating study of the socio- Ethiosemitic, Bulakh shows that not all l-prefixes have the linguistic attitudes behind what the author rightfully calls same origin: other sources include the negative prefix *ʔal- “the earliest documented case of language contact” (158). and analogical extension once l- had become a first person Based on texts reflecting these linguistic ideologies and an singular prefix in its own right. This analogical extension examination of the use of Sumerograms in a formula for oath was especially common in forms that were otherwise taking, he presents evidence for the elevated cultural status homophonous with other parts of the paradigm, e.g. due to Sumerian held compared to Akkadian. The status of another the merger of the original 1sg prefix *ʔǝ- and the 3m prefix contemporary Semitic language, Amorite (Northwest *yǝ-. Semitic), is also briefly addressed; examples such as a letter David Calabro’s ‘Egyptianizing Features in Phoenician from a father chiding his son for wanting to learn prestigious and Punic Inscriptions from Egypt’ (97–113) discusses a Sumerian rather than practical Amorite really bring the sub- small but valuable corpus of roughly 200 inscriptions. The ject to life. 147 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXXV N° 1-2, januari-april 2018 148

Lutz Edzard’s ‘Inner-Semitic Loans and Lexical Doublets’ three possible contact-induced changes in Hurrian texts writ- (181–197) provides a broad overview of loanwords in vari- ten in the : the assimilation of *n, the syn- ous Semitic languages before focusing on lexical doublets tax of genitive phrases, and the borrowing of the enclitic -m. that may be caused by borrowing words from one Semitic Since Hurrian influence on Ugaritic is restricted to lexical language into another, e.g. Classical θāba ‘to return’ borrowings, the author sketches a situation where Ugaritic ~ tāba ‘to repent’; the latter is a loan from Aramaic tāḇ ‘to was dominant, even though scribes did still know some form repent’, cognate with the former. An especially interesting of Hurrian (276–277). This is a valuable contribution to our category of doublets, in my opinion, results from borrowings understanding of relations between Semitic and other lan- from a literary language, like Amharic loanwords from Ge‘ez guage communities in northern . or loans from Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. Mila Neishtadt’s ‘The Lexical Component in the Ara- The lack of references for many of the examples makes the maic Substrate of ’ (280–310) mainly argument hard to follow at points. discusses the methodology of identifying substrate lexicon, Next comes Uri Horesh’s ‘Structural Change in Urban specifically in the contact situation mentioned in the title. Palestinian Arabic Induced by Contact with Modern Hebrew’ The author reviews previous literature and provides five (198–233). This very clear article sets out to describe two criteria that may identify substrate words: phonology possible phonological effects resulting from the contact situ- (irregular consonant correspondence), morphology (noun ation described in the title: lenition of the voiced pharyngeal patterns, affixes, etc.), attestation and distribution in Ara- fricative (ˁayn) and depharyngealization of the emphatic con- maic (i.e. the substrate language), attestation and distribu- sonants (ḍād, sād and tāˀ, this dialect having lost the inter- tion in Arabic (i.e. the broader family of the recipient lan- dentals). In the case of ˁayn, the author’s fieldwork has iden- guage), and semantics. Each criterion is illustrated by a tified “a hierarchy of lenition” (206), ranging from loss of case study of a likely substrate word: in order, they are pharyngeal articulation to complete deletion. The following barah ‘to kneel (animal)’ and barrah ‘to make (an animal) section on the emphatic consonants suddenly veers off into kneel’; ǧamal(ō/ū)n (and phonetic variants) ‘gable; ridged a discussion of the history of sociohistorical linguistics, the roof’; mašātīh ‘wide/big feet’; q(ō/ū)s ‘distaff thistle’; and concept of phonological merger, the reflexes of Proto-Semitic durdār ‘yellow star thistle’. coronal consonants, and other topics; the reader gets the Aaron D. Rubin’s ‘The Classification of Hobyot’ (311– impression that this has something to do with the lack of 332) focusses on the internal subdivision of the Modern concrete data answering the research questions posed on South Arabian (msa) branch of Semitic. Based on a thorough p. 212. presentation of all the relevant data, Rubin shows that Otto Jastrow’s ‘Language Contact as Reflected in the Con- Hobyot, a rarely studied msa variety, belongs to a Western sonant System of Turoyo’ (234–250) provides a nicely to- msa subgroup, together with the Mehri–Harsusi–Baṭari dia- the-point explanation for the preservation of a number of lect cluster, and against the Eastern msa group formed by consonants in Turoyo, the Neo-Aramaic dialect of the Tūr Jibbali and Soqotri. Given the close contact between all of ῾Abdīn region (south-east ). While Northeast Neo- these languages, untangling the twisted knot of inherited and Aramaic , spoken further east, often lose marked con- contact features is quite a puzzle, which the author solves sonants like h, ʕ, ġ, ṯ and d, Turoyo has retained them, as admirably; a good example of the extent of contact-induced well as introducing v, č, ǧ, and ž from loans. Jastrow attrib- messiness appears in the words for ‘big’ given on p. 331, utes the preservation of consonants that were lost elsewhere where we see that Omani Mehri and Harsusi pattern with to intensive contact with , where they also Soqotri and Jibbali in having separate lexemes for the mas- occur. It is unclear to me to what degree contact can account culine and the feminine (e.g. Jibbali m.sg. eb, f.sg. um; for retention of an inherited feature, since retentions are usu- Omani Mehri and Harsusi m.sg. śōx, f.sg. nōb(ǝt)), while the ally not counted as shared developments between different lexemes used are shared with Yemeni Mehri and Hobyot on languages or dialects, but the sharp contrast in the behaviour the one hand (Hobyot m.sg. śōx, f.sg. śoxt) and Baṭari of these consonants in Turoyo and Northeast Neo-Aramaic on the other (m.sg. nōb, f.sg. nōbiyǝt). presented by Jastrow suggests that this principle may need to Next is Lotfi Sayahi’s ‘Expression of Attributive Posses- be re-evaluated. sion in : The Role of Language Contact’ The next contribution is Lily Kahn’s ‘Lexical Borrowings (333–347). Like some other Arabic dialects, Tunisian Arabic in the Eastern European Hasidic Hebrew Tale’ (251–266). can express possession either through the construct state and/ Kahn considers loanwords and code switches in Eastern or the use of possessive suffixes or with a separate preposi- European hagiographic Jewish tales from the period leading tion, mtɛːʕ. The latter is easier to use with foreign linguistic up to the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language. The main elements such as the many French code switches found in two categories are loans from Yiddish, the authors’ and audi- Tunisian Arabic, and the author shows that this analytic con- ence’s vernacular, and various forms of Aramaic. The Yid- struction is indeed much more frequent if the possessor noun dish lexicon is often used to reflect aspects of everyday shtetl is French. Compared to a study of Tunisian Arabic in 1980, life; interestingly, Yiddish loanwords are sometimes used the use of the analytic construction has increased, which sug- when a Hebrew word is also available, possibly because the gests that the French contact-induced effects are increasing Hebrew word was not felt to match the setting. The Aramaic in magnitude. loanwords are mainly technical terms from Jewish religion Jürgen Tubach’s ‘Aramaic Loanwords in Gǝ῾ǝz’ (348– and culture, including Jewish mysticism and Hasidism. The 374) has a quite interesting subject to tackle, but is rather number of loans from Slavic and other languages, in contrast unfocused. Based on the occurrence of loanwords that the to Yiddish and Aramaic, is surprisingly low. author feels are incompatible with a Christian religious envi- Joseph Lam’s ‘Possible Ugaritic Influences on the Hurrian ronment, he suggests that Axum had a sizeable Jewish popu- of Ras Shamra-Ugarit in Alphabetic ’ (267–279) lists lation before Christianity became the dominant religion 149 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — SEMITICA 150 there. Readers who would like to know more about the topic noun tǝhillā ‘beginning’, originally derived from the Biblical will appreciate the paper’s extensive bibliography. Hebrew root h-l-l ‘to begin’, the t- prefix was reanalyzed as Juan-Pablo Vita’s ‘Language Contact between Akkadian belonging to the word’s root; in post-Biblical Hebrew, this and Northwest Semitic Languages in Syria-Palestine in the resulted in the back formation of a new verbal root meaning Late Bronze Age’ (375–404) investigates three contact situ- ‘to begin’, t-h-l. Huehnergard then provides plausible rea- ations, each reflecting a different level of contact. At Emar, nalyses that account for a number of Akkadian verbs that are scribes wrote Akkadian, but the local Northwest Semitic lan- usually not attested elsewhere in Semitic: šamātu(m) ‘to guage is reflected in loanwords; Vita agrees with other mark’; šubbutu ‘to lodge?’; šatānu ‘to urinate’; šakānum scholars that this limited influence of the local vernacular ‘to place, put, set’; šuharrurum ‘to be(come) paralyzed, inac- may be due to Emar’s location near the Akkadian heartland tive’ and other old R-stem verbs with š as their first radical; and the possible use of Akkadian as a spoken language in tabālum ‘to carry along’, tarûm ‘to take along’ and other royal circles. At Ugarit, as is well known, both international examples of verbs with t as their first radical instead of his- Akkadian and local Ugaritic were written, while the Amarna torical w; and the similar case of tadānum ‘to give’. Finally, Letters from Canaan, in the author’s opinion, reflect a mixed he discusses the many reanalyses that took place in the Canaano-Akkadian jargon. The dominance of Akkadian thus domain of weak verbs, facilitated by the loss of most guttural nicely correlates with vicinity to . consonants in an early stage of Akkadian. Finally, there is Tamar Zewi and Mikhal Oren’s ‘Semitic The next paper is by Na‘ama Pat-El: ‘The morphosyntax Languages in Contact—Syntactic Changes in the Verbal Sys- of nominal antecedents in Semitic, and an innovation in Ara- tem and in Verbal Complementation’ (405–421). This paper bic’ (28–47). In most Semitic languages, two main construc- considers syntactic changes in two contact situations, the first tions are available to form relative clauses (the reconstructed of which is reflected in Amarna Canaanite, partially overlap- examples, presumably in something like Proto-Central- ping with the previous paper. The Canaanite verbal system Semitic, are taken from the paper): in one, the antecedent is underlying these texts is clearly illustrated and the same uses in the construct state and the relative clause is asyndetic, e.g. of verbal tenses are shown to occur in Biblical Hebrew. The *bayt-u- yabniyu ‘the house he will build’, while in the other, second half of the paper focuses on texts the antecedent is in the absolute state and the relative clause written in the Arab world, where we also find calques of is introduced by a relative pronoun or particle, e.g. *bayt-um tenses popping up. The presentation of two ðū yabniyu(-sū) ‘idem’. Against this background, it is strik- contact situations that are far removed from each other in ing that Arabic has a different system: the antecedent is time but involve languages from the same subgroup of never in the construct state, and relative clauses with indefi- Semitic allows the parallels to shine through. nite antecedents are asyndetic, e.g. bayt-un yabnī(-hi) ‘a The selection of studies on language contact in Semitic house he will build’, while those with definite antecedents languages presented here is a fascinating cross-section of the are introduced by a relative pronoun, e.g. al-bayt-u lladī field. Organizationally, it might have made sense to group yabnī(-hi) ‘the house he will build’. Pat-El argues that the articles together based on language, period, or contact situa- bayt-un yabnī(-hi) construction is an Arabic innovation rather tion, and cross-references between different papers would than a Proto-Semitic retention. The argument is complicated also have been a valuable addition. Details aside, however, by the fact that the ‘Arabic’ construction like bayt-un Semitic Languages in Contact will be of tremendous use to yabnī(-hi) is attested in other Semitic languages (32–37), Semitists and language contact scholars alike. while ‘un-Arabic’ constructions like al-bayt-u yabnī(-hi) and bayt-un alladī yabnī(-hi) are attested in Classical, Quranic, Leiden University Centre Benjamin D. Suchard Middle and Modern Arabic (38). Pat-El views these as mar- for Linguistics, October 2017 ginal exceptions, but in Biblical Hebrew, at least, the con- struction corresponding to bayt-un yabnī(-hi) does not seem * marginal to me, while what Pat-El sees as the regular alterna- * * tive, the asyndetic relative clause with the antecedent in the construct state, is rather rare.1) The author states that “[i]n EDZARD, L. and J. HUEHNERGARD (eds.) — Proceed- any case, since definiteness is a late feature in Semitic, ings of the Oslo–Austin Workshop in Semitic Linguis- namely not earlier than proto-Central Semitic, any pattern tics. Oslo, May 23 and 24, 2013. (Abhandlungen für die that depends on it, must also be late” (39), but this does not Kunde des Morgenlandes, 88). Verlag Otto Harrasso­ take the difference between morphological and syntactic witz, Wiesbaden, 2014. (22 cm, 162). ISBN 978-3-447- marking of definiteness into account; in Gǝˁǝz, for instance, 10227-8. ISSN 0567-4980. € 48,-. definiteness is not normally morphologically expressed, but it plays an important role in the syntactic marking of direct This volume collects eight papers presented at the work- objects and possession. Pat-El attributes the origin of the shop mentioned in the title, which was attended by scholars regular Arabic system to a syntactic analogy: l-yawm-u and PhD students in Semitic linguistics at the University of l-tawīl-u ‘the long day’ : l-yawm-u l-dū S ‘the day which S’ Oslo and the University of Texas at Austin, as well as several = yawm-u-n tawīl-u-n ‘a long day’ : yawm-u-n S ‘a day scholars from other European universities. It is kicked off by a contribution by one of the editors, John Huehnergard’s ‘Reanalysis and new roots: an Akkadian perspective’ (9–27). 1) This rarity is noted several times by P. Joüon & T. Muraoka, A Gram- Huehnergard begins with a helpful introduction to the con- mar of Biblical Hebrew (2nd reprint of 2nd ed.; Rome: Gregorian & Bibli- cept of morphological reanalysis, where speakers interpret cal Press, 2009), 442; they do not comment on the supposed rarity of the asyndetic relative clause with a non-construct antecedent and give more ambiguous forms as having a different morphological struc- examples than of asyndetic relative clauses with construct antecedents ture than originally intended. For example, in the Hebrew (pp. 558–560). 151 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXXV N° 1-2, januari-april 2018 152 which S’ (42–43), but she does not make clear why this between a ‘vivid perfective’ and a ‘remote perfective’4) in should result in a construction like yawm-u-n S and not e.g. the next paper, ‘The main line of a biblical Hebrew narrative yawm-u-n dū S. So in conclusion, I am not entirely con- and what to do with two perfective grams’ (73–94). This is vinced of the reconstruction of relative clause constructions a detailed study of the functions of these two central - for Proto-Semitic or the explanation for the difference bers of the Biblical Hebrew verbal system, including some- between Arabic and the other Semitic languages, but the times overlooked uses such as the gnomic jussive, e.g. yadrek problem and this paper’s suggested solution are quite inter- ˁănāwīm bam-mišpāt ‘He leads the humble in what is right’ esting, nonetheless. (Ps 25:9a). Isaksson identifies the narrative way-yiqtol as Øyvind Bjøru, the author of ‘Transitivity and the binya- Givón’s ‘vivid perfective’ or ‘vivid past’, which is equivalent nim’ (48–63), could be seen as the missing link between the to a historic present, if I understand correctly. As the very two universities that organized the workshop underlying this first essential feature of this tense, however, he cites Givón’s volume, having migrated from Oslo to Austin between the requirement that “[t]he vivid past codes events in the past first presentation of his paper and the publication of the pro- as-if they are occurring right now” (74). This meaning does ceedings. In this thoughtful article, Bjøru applies Åshild not seem to be associated with the short yiqtol in Classical Næss’s theory of semantic transitivity2) to the Semitic bin- Biblical Hebrew, however, so it is hard to follow Isaksson’s yanim or verbal stems. Næss considers the prototypical tran- interpretation in this respect. Other approaches, which view sitive verb to be characterized by three factors: it has an way-yiqtol and qātal as syntactically conditioned variants of Agent that voluntarily (1) instigates (2) the action and is not the same tense–aspect form, seem more promising to me. affected by it (3), while the Patient has no volition (1), does In ‘Finiteness as manifested by grounding and deixis: not instigate the action (2), and is affected by it (3). Investi- Amharic (Semitic) and Sidaama (Cushitic)’ (95–126), Kjell gating some troublesome binyanim from various Semitic lan- Magne Yri investigates the possibility of defining verbal guages, the author shows that the Biblical Hebrew N-stem finiteness not merely by looking at person and tense–aspect– derives verbs where the subject is affected, while it is mood (tam) marking, but by considering everything that unmarked for volition and instigation; the Arabic tD-stem grounds a particular verbal form in time, space and reality. forms verbs with affected subjects or with reduced affected- When verbs are subordinated, they often become less finite; ness in general, but still with an instigating subject; and the this is morphologically expressed by the loss of tam mark- Amharic T-stem reduces transitivity in various ways. ing, agreement marking, or the use of special markers. Yri Jan Retsö’s ‘The b-imperfect once again: typological and suggests that reduction in person marking, not just its elimi- diachronic perspectives’ (64–72) takes a new look at modern nation, is also used to make verbal forms less finite. These spoken Arabic imperfect forms that are marked by a b-prefix. assumptions are tested against several verbal forms from Retsö follows Kampffmeyer3) in distinguishing two separate Amharic and Sidaama. The different forms are illustrated forms: a present tense marked by b(i)-, occurring in the with glossed examples, and it is interesting to see how many , Egypt, and surrounding areas; and a future–volitive, syntactic features these two languages share which are absent marked by b(i)- or ba-, occurring in dialects of the Persian from the larger Semitic family. After the presentation of the Gulf. The former is derived from the preposition bi- ‘in’, Amharic and Sidaama verbal systems and a more general while the latter derives from the verb ˀabā ‘to want’. Retsö discussion, Yri concludes that the “attempt to consider some then connects the development of the bi-prefixed form into new elements in defining finiteness for Amharic and Sidaama a present tense to the unsolved problem of the origin of Cen- … [i]n general … is not very successful, even though there tral Semitic imperfective yaqtul-u. Just as the Arabic might be traces of some tenable new ideas that might be b-imperfects are derived from a modal verb with a preposi- worth trying on other languages as well” (123) and provides tion attached, Retsö suggests that the -u in yaqtul-u is a loca- a finiteness scale for some of the verb forms discussed (125). tive suffix, as seen in Arabic forms like qabl-u ‘before’, The second-to-last paper is by the remaining editor: Lutz baˁd-u ‘afterwards’, etc. A form like yaqtul-u would then Edzard’s ‘Hebrew and Hebrew–Yiddish terms and expres- originally have meant something like ‘[he is] in that-he- sions in contemporary German: some (socio-)linguistic kills’, which could easily develop to ‘[he] is killing’ and observations’ (127–143). Previous versions of this paper ‘[he] kills’. This would also provide a link with the Akkadian were presented in Oslo (2012) and Jerusalem (2013). The subordinating clitic -u, since the development from a locative author shows great cultural sensitivity in his introduction, to a subordinator is typologically common. The allomorphy which provides a good background to the sociolinguistic of -u after consonants and -na and related nasal forms after aspects of Jewish–German relations. This focus is somewhat long vowels, which occurs in both Central and East Semitic, lost in the body of the paper itself, where Edzard does not remains to be explained, but Retsö’s account provides Cen- limit himself to Hebrew terms that entered the German lan- tral Semitic yaqtul-u with a more plausible origin than any guage through contacts between Jews and non-Jews, but other I have encountered. includes religious terminology that made its way into Ger- Bo Isaksson compares the interchange between Biblical man by way of Greek and Latin, such as Amen, Satan and Hebrew (way-)yiqtol and qātal to Talmy Givón’s distinction Messias. No argumentation is given for most etymologies, and a fair number seem doubtful. For example, Edzard states that Adamsapfel ‘Adam’s apple’ is a direct calque of Hebrew tappūah ˀādām, presumably referring to a widely shared ety- 2) Å. Næss, Prototypical Transitivity (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, mology proposed in a light-hearted note by Alexander Gode 2007). 3) G. Kampffmeyer, ‘Die arabische Verbalpartikel b (m). Beiträge zur Dialektologie des Arabischen II’, Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientali- sche Sprachen zu Berlin, zweite Abteilung: Westasiatische Sprachen (Ber- 4) T. Givón, Syntax: An introduction (revised ed., Amsterdam/Philadel- lin/Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1900), 48–101. phia: John Benjamins, 2001), vol. I, 298–299. 153 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — SEMITICA 154 in the Journal of the American Medical Association .5) Morgenlandes, 107). Verlag Otto Harrassowitz, Wies- Gode writes that “the [Latin] term pomum Adami is in fact baden, 2016. (22 cm, 236). ISBN 978-3-147-10745-7. a very early mistranslation of tappūach ha ādām which, cor- ISSN 0567-1980. € 54,-. rectly, means nothing more than ‘male bump’”. Besides the question of where this tappūah (hā)ˀādām might be attested, The Editors’ preface (p. 7-23) stresses the importance of it is simply wrong that it means ‘male bump’, tappūah being the tense and aspect typology in grammatical studies and the name of a fruit, not a word for ‘bump’ in general, and briefly presents the eight contributions to the volume under ˀādām meaning ‘man’ as in ‘mankind’, not as a specifically review. Except the article of Shimelis Mazengia, who deals male person, as I am sure the author is well aware. Similarly, with the Eastern variety of Cushitic Oromo, all the contribu- it seems less likely to derive belemmert ‘speechless’ from tions concern Ethio-Semitic. Comparisons are made occa- Hebrew bǝlī ˀɛ̆mōr ‘without saying’ than from Low German sionally within Ethio-Semitic or Oromo, but there is no or Dutch belemmeren ‘to obstruct’. After the main list of attempt at presenting a systematic comparison of tense and etymologies, a brief section presents possible prehistoric aspect problems in Cushitic and in Semitic, although mutual loanwords, including several Semitic loans in Proto-Germanic­ influences must have existed. Since there are no indexes, it proposed by Theo Vennemann (also present at the work- is difficult to see whether some occasional contacts are shop), e.g. PGm. *drag ‘to pull, carry’ ~ Hebrew då̄raḵ ‘to referred to. step’, PGm. *drepa- ‘to hit’ ~ Arabic ḍaraba ‘idem’. These The first article by Maria Bulakh deals with questions On apparent cognates are rejected by virtually all mainstream Static Verbs in Gǝ‘ǝz (p. 15-52). It appears from the three Indo-Europeanists, and one wonders how they fall within the appendixes on p. 41-52 that the Author classifies some verbs scope of this article. The author’s lack of selectivity seriously as static, although they are often used to express action or detracts from what is otherwise a stimulating study in lan- achievement. This concerns also the verb nagśa, “to reign” guage contact and loan word adaptation. (p. 33-34), with two examples serving to prove that the Finally, Silje Susanne Alvestad’s ‘Muhamed Hevai Uskufi qatala form of static verbs can have an inceptive and delimi- Bosnevi’s 1631 work Makbūl-i ˁārif from a turcological per- tative meaning. The verb nagśa is then translated “he began spective: The state of the art’ (144–160) discusses the lan- to reign” or “he reigned (for two years)”. The problem is guage of the first dictionary of Bosnian, written in Turkish and that nagśa means “to reign, to act as king”, sometimes “to Ottoman Turkish. Since the publication of the volume under become king”, and it can hardly be regarded as a basically review, Alvestad has published a monograph on the same top- static verb. The main question raised by M. Bulakh regards ic.6) The paper seems well researched and may be of general the compatibility of temporal and aspectual interpretations of interest to linguists, but the connection to Semitic escapes me. the qatala and yǝqattǝl conjugations of static verbs used in The questionable relevance of some of the material dis- sentences referring to past, present or future situations, cussed in the last two papers reflects a larger issue with the including the so-called perfectum propheticum. The toppic is volume as a whole, in my opinion. These proceedings con- discussed in relation to St. Weninger’s work Das Verbal­ tain a number of truly excellent papers, but even though they system des Altäthiopischen (Wiesbaden 2001). M. Bulakh (practically) all share the topic of Semitic linguistics, that is stresses that no formal criteria establish an exclusively static still a rather broad field. It is hard to imagine an audience verb class in Gǝ‘ǝz and that it is difficult to find verbs that that would be more interested in the articles collected here, only denote static situations. In the conclusion of her contri- specifically, than in another set of linguistic studies in bution (p. 36), she states nevertheless that the yǝqattǝl form Semitic. Due to the lack of a more narrowly defined field of usually has a static semantics, whereas the qatala form can investigation, the book reads more like a volume of a journal only have an inceptive or a delimitative meaning. This does for Semitic linguistics than a collection of papers that belong not result clearly from the discussion of the texts quoted on together and mutually enhance one another. But I expect that p. 23-36, where the two examples of inceptive or delimitative many scholars will be prompted to consult this book for the qatala are based on the verb nagśa, which is no basically one or two articles that have their particular interest, in which static verb. Instead, the Author finds only one possible exam- case they may simply regard the inclusion of other studies on ple of inceptive yǝqattǝl of static ‘abya in biblical and apoc- related languages as an added bonus. ryphal texts, used in reference to the present time, viz. in the Gospel of Matthew 13:32: “it becomes bigger”, ya‘abbi Leiden University Centre Benjamin D. Suchard (p. 28). The change from the static meaning “to be great” to for Linguistics, October 2017 the inceptive one may be accompanied by an additional semantic shift. In the reviewer’s opinion, the same inceptive * meaning may occur with ya‘abbi in the Ascension of Isaiah * * 7:27 (p. 24), where God’s glory is said to “become bigger” when He is praised. Other examples given by the Author MEYER, R. and L. EDZARD (eds.) — Time in Languages raise again the question of her understanding of allegedly of the Horn of Africa. (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des static verbs denoting permanent qualities, like ḫadara, “to spend the night”, or qoma, “to stand up”. Such verbs may have various semantic aspects that should be distinguished. 5) A. Gode, ‘Just Words’, Journal of the American Medical Association They can be used as static verbs, but they can also express 206/5 (Oct 28 1968), 1058. I was unable to find this etymology put forward achievements or actions. in a more serious fashion elsewhere. The second contribution by Fekede Menuta deals with 6) S.S. Alvestad, The Uppsala manuscript of Muḥammed Hevā᾿ī Üskūfī Bosnevī´s “Maḳbūl-i ῾ārif” (1631) from a turcological perspective: Trans- Time in the Gurage Variety of Gumer (p. 53-70), offering a literation, transcription, and an English translation (Wiesbaden: Harras- description of grammatical markers of time in this little sowitz, 2016). known variety of Gurage, grouped together with Chaha, 155 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXXV N° 1-2, januari-april 2018 156

Ezha and Gura in the so-called Central Western Gurage. The Horn of Africa” (p. 180). Neither the question of Semitic presentation of the theoretical background of the topic is fol- immigration in the Horn of Africa is raised by the Author nor lowed by a description of basic verb conjugations with spe- the arrival of cattle breeding migrants to Ethiopia and to the cial attention to tenses, also to demonstratives and adverbs area of the Turkana Lake in the 3rd millennium B.C. is expressing time. An interesting characteristics of Gumer are recorded. Yet these problems are related to the Semitic pres- time references embedded in proper names. This is an ence in the Horn of Africa and to the possible distinction of instructive and useful article. two or three waves of Semitic immigrants, the last one being The next contribution by Magdalena Krzyżanowska deals probably represented by the ancestors of the speakers of with Interaction of Time and Epistemic Modality in Amharic North Ethio-Semitic. The Author first presents the position (p. 71-102). Epistemic modality is understood by the Author of Gǝ‘ǝz (North ES), Amharic (Transversal ES) and Muher as assessment of writer’s or speaker’s knowledge about the (Outer South ES) in Ethio-Smitic, then he discusses the tense truth of a preposition, for instance “Sooner or later they may marking in copula clauses, the tense-marked imperfective feel sorry for any wrongdoing they have done”. This is a verbs, the tense in periphrastic phasal aspect constructions, study of idiomatic or similar expressions or declarations, and the origin of copulas and auxiliaries. The whole discus- often originated in spoken language, with special attention to sion is supported by examples in Ethiopic script with tran- temporal elements. All the examples are given in Ethiopic scription and translation. It is a very helpful article for those script and in transcription with a translation. The temporal dealing with Ethio-Semitic conjugation. distinctions implied by such sentences require an analysis of The volume under review contains good articles which can occurring verbal forms, in particular the imperfective and the be useful for all those who deal with Ethio-Semitic gram- gerund, what is done in the last part of the article. Derib Ado matical questions. deals thereafter with Metaphors of Time in Amharic (p. 103- 116), showing that their use is widespread, in particular when Brussels, E. Lipiński there are spatial connotations. November 2017 Shimelis Mazengia presents the problem of Aspect and Tense in Oromo, in particular in its eastern Hararghe variety (p. 117-137). The two major aspectual categories are perfec- tive and imperfective, whose main subdivisions are past and non-past tenses. However, the whole system is more compli- cated. It distinguishes the punctual and the durative perfec- tive, while the resultative indicates the situation emerging from past action. Besides, the present perfect signifies the result of a past situation, while the past perfect relates a past situation to another subsequent past situation. There are two imperfective conjugations. An independent imperfective is restricted to affirmative main clauses, while the dependent imperfective occurs in all the other clause types. The pro- spective refers to something that is about to happen; it is the opposite of perfect. The habitual describes a situation which is repeated, while the progressive describes an action that continues or is durative. Examples with translation and tables are duly provided. A somewhat complicated title introduces the contribution of Lutz Edzard: Experiencer Constructions and the Resulta- tive Functions of Impersonal Verbs in Ethio-Semitic (p. 138- 156). The paper deals specifically with Amharic construc- tions using impersonal verbs. The following contribution by Olga Kapeliuk offers a Contrastive Analysis of Some Occur- rences in the Verbal Systems of Amharic and Tigrinya (p. 137-178). The Author deals with spelling differences and verb forms, which are formally very similar in Amharic and in Tigrinya, at least as far as basic forms are concerned, because there are various differences which are discussed by the Author; some of them concern the copula clauses. The final contribution by Ronny Meyer describes the Emergence of Tense in Ethio-Semitic (p. 179-236). The description is based on the traditional assumption that Ethio- Semitic languages originate from a single ancestor whose main grammatical traits are best preserved in Gǝ‘ǝz. Modern North Ethio-Semitic languages, like Tigray, Tigrinya, and probably Dahalik, developed or borrowed innovative fea- tures, just like Transversal and Outer South Ethio-Semitic, which show more differences. R. Meyer assumes that these languages, “above a dozen”, “are natively spoken at the