Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T08:04:05.880Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The origin of the Semitic relative marker

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2018

John Huehnergard  and
Na‘ama Pat-El
John Huehnergard*
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Na‘ama Pat-El*
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
*
huehnergard@austin.utexas.edu
npatel@austin.utexas.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

All Semitic languages use a relative marker as at least one strategy of relativization, and all branches show reflexes or relics of reflexes of an interdental relative marker. The wide consensus that the relative pronoun was originally identical to the proximal demonstrative is based on the formal identity between the bases of the two in West Semitic, and on the wide attestation of the process Demonstrative > Relative in world languages. In this paper, we will show that there are a number of significant problems with the reconstruction of the relative pronoun, which, when taken together, make tracing its origin to the demonstrative highly unlikely. Instead we will argue that the opposite is true: the demonstrative in West Semitic is a secondary formation on the basis of the relative marker.

Keywords

Semitic linguisticsHistorical linguisticsRelativeDemonstrativeReconstruction
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 81 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 191 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, James P. 2014. Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, James P. 2015. Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blanc, Haim. 1964. Communal Dialects in Baghdad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Catagnoti, Amalia. 2012. La grammatia della lingua di Ebla. (Quaderni di Semitistica, 29.) Florence: Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità, Medioevo e Rinascimento e Linguisticia, Università di Firenze.Google Scholar
Cohen, Eran. 2008. “Adjectival ša syntagms and adjectives in Old Babylonian”, BSOAS 71/1, 25–52.Google Scholar
Deutscher, Guy. 2001. “The rise and fall of rogue relative constructions”, Studies in Language 25/3, 405–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deutscher, Guy. 2009. “Nominalization and the origin of subordination”, in Givón, Talmy and Shibatani, Masayoshi (eds), Syntactic Complexity: Diachrony, Acquisition, Neuro-Cognition, Evolution. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 199–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diessel, Holger. 2006. “Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar”, Cognitive Linguistics 17, 463–89.Google Scholar
Diessel, Holger. 2009. “The morphosyntax of demonstratives in synchrony and diachrony”, Linguistic Typology 3/1, 1–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldenberg, Gideon. 1992. Review of Wolf Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Ge‘ez. Journal of the American Oriental Society 112/1, 78–87.Google Scholar
Goldenberg, Gideon. 1995. “Attribution in the Semitic languages”, Langues Orientales Anciennes: Philologie et Linguistique 5/6, 1–20.Google Scholar
Hasselbach, Rebecca. 2005. Sargonic Akkadian: A Historical and Comparative Study of the Syllabic Texts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Hasselbach, Rebecca. 2007. “Demonstratives in Semitic”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 127/1, 1–27.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd and Kuteva, Tania. 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hendery, Rachel. 2012. Relative Clauses in Time and Space. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Holmstedt, Robert D. 2007. “The etymologies of Hebrew ʾăšer and šeC-”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 66/3, 177–92.Google Scholar
Holmstedt, Robert. 2016. The Relative Clause in Biblical Hebrew. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Huehnergard, John. 2006. “On the etymology of the Hebrew relative še-”, in Hurvitz, Avi and Fassberg, Steven (eds), Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives. Jerusalem: Eisenbrauns/Magnes, 103–26.Google Scholar
Huehnergard, John. 2017. “Arabic in its Semitic context”, in Al-Jallad, Ahmad (ed.), Arabic in Context: Celebrating 400 Years of Arabic at Leiden University. Leiden: Brill, 3–34.Google Scholar
Huehnergard, John and Pat-El, Na‘ama. 2012. “Third person possessive suffixes as definite articles in Semitic”, Journal of Historical Linguistics 2, 25–51.Google Scholar
Huehnergard, John and Rubin, Aaron D.. 2011. “Phyla and waves: models of classification of the Semitic languages”, in Weninger, Stefan (ed.), The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 259–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapeliuk, Olga. 2003. “Some remarks on the etymology and function of the relative markers in Ancient Ethiopic”, in Lionel Bender, Marvin, Takács, Gábor and Appleyard, David L. (eds), Selected Comparative–Historical Afrasian Linguistic Studies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff. Munich: Lincom Europa, 219–32.Google Scholar
Kienast, Burkhart and Sommerfeld, Walter. 1994. Glossar zu den altakkadischen Königsinschriften. (Freiburger Altorientalische Studien, 8.) Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.Google Scholar
Kouwenberg, N.J.C. 2012. “Spatial deixis in Akkadian: demonstrative pronouns, presentative particles and locational adverbs”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 102, 17–75.Google Scholar
Magidow, Alexander. 2016. “Diachronic dialect classification with demonstratives”, Al-Arabiyya 49, 91–115.Google Scholar
Müller-Kessler, Christa. 2003. “Aramaic ʔkʔ, lykʔ and Iraqi Arabic ʔaku, māku: the Mesopotamian particles of existence”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 123, 641–6.Google Scholar
Pat-El, Na‘ama. 2009. “The development of the Semitic definite article: a syntactic approach”, Journal of Semitic Studies 54, 19–50.Google Scholar
Pat-El, Na‘ama. 2012. “The syntax of ʾăšer and šeC yet again”, in Hasselbach, Rebecca and Pat-El, Na‘ama (eds), Language and Nature: Papers Presented to John Huehnergard on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 319–27.Google Scholar
Pat-El, Na‘ama. 2014. “The morphosyntax of nominal antecedents in Semitic, and an innovation in Arabic”, in Edzard, Lutz and Huehnergard, John (eds), Proceedings of the Oslo–Austin Workshop in Semitic Linguistics. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 28–47.Google Scholar
Pat-El, Na‘ama and Treiger, Alexander. 2008. “On adnominalization of prepositional phrases and adverbs in Semitic”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 158/2, 265–83.Google Scholar
Pennacchietti, F.A. 1968. Studi sui pronomi determinativi semitici. Pubblicazioni del Seminario di Semitistica. Napoli: Istituto Orientale di Napoli.Google Scholar
Procházka, Stephan. 2002. Die arabischen Dialekte der Çukurova (Südtürkei). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Ravn, Otto E. 1941. The So-Called Relative Clauses in Accadian or the Accadian Particle ša. Copenhagen: Nyr Nordisk.Google Scholar
Rijkhoff, Jan. 2010. “Rara and grammatical theory”, in Wohlgemuth, Jan and Cysouw, Michael (eds), Rethinking Universals: How Rarities Affect Linguistic Theory. Berlin: De Gruyter, 223–40.Google Scholar
Shields, Kenneth. 2011. “Linguistic typology and historical linguistics”, in Jung Song, Jae (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 551–67.Google Scholar
Stein, Peter. 2011. “Sabaic”, in Stefan Weninger (ed.), The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Amsterdam: De Gruyter Mouton, 1042–73.Google Scholar
Testen, David. 2005. “The Akkadian demonstrative ammiu”, in by Burtea, B., Tropper, J. and Younansardaroud, H. (eds), Studia Semitica et Hamitosemitica: Festschrift für Rainer Voigt anläßlich seines 60. Geburtstag am 17. Januar 2004. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 405–16.Google Scholar
Tonietti, Maria Vittoria. 2005. “Problèmes de morphologie éblaïte dans une perspective comparative. ŠÈ à Ebla: pronom déterminatif-relatif ou préposition?”, Faits de Langues 26, 1–22.Google Scholar
Watson, Janet C.E. and Retsö, Jan (eds). 2009. Relative Clauses and Genitive Constructions in Semitic. (Journal of Semitic Studies, Supplementary Series, 25.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson-Wright, Aren. 2016. “A reevaluation of the Semitic direct object markers”, Hebrew Studies 57, 7–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodington, Nancy Ruth. 1982. “A grammar of the Neo-Babylonian letters of the Kuyunjik Collection”, PhD Dissertation, Yale University.Google Scholar