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Semitic root

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The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants (or "transfixes") which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate way, generally following specific patterns. It is a peculiarity of Semitic linguistics that a large majority of these consonantal roots are triliterals (although there are a number of quadriliterals, and in some languages also biliterals).

Triconsonantal roots

A triliteral or triconsonantal root (Template:Lang-he-n, šoreš təlat-ʻiṣuri; Arabic: جذر ثلاثي, jiḏr ṯulāṯī; Syriac: ܫܪܫܐ, šeršā) is a root containing a sequence of three consonants.

The following are some of the forms which can be derived from the triconsonantal root k-t-b (general overall meaning "to write") in Hebrew and Arabic:

Note: The Hebrew fricatives transcribed as "ḵ" and "ḇ" can also be transcribed in a number of other ways, such as "ch" and "v" , which are pronounced [χ] and [v], respectively. They are transliterated "ḵ" and "ḇ" on this page to retain the connection with the pure consonantal root k-t-b. Also notice that in Modern Hebrew, there is no gemination.

Semitological abbreviation Hebrew name Arabic name Morphological category Hebrew Form Arabic form Approximate translation
G verb stem Template:Hebrew
(Template:Hebrew)
pa‘al (or qal)		 fa‘ala
فَعَلَ
(Stem I)		 3rd. masc. sing perfect kataḇ Template:Hebrew kataba كتب "he wrote"
1st. plur. perfect kataḇnu Template:Hebrew katabnā كتبنا "we wrote"
3rd. masc. sing. imperfect yiḵtoḇ Template:Hebrew yaktubu يكتب "he writes, will write"
1st. plur. imperfect niḵtoḇ Template:Hebrew naktubu نكتب "we write, will write"
masc. sing. active participle koteḇ Template:Hebrew kātib كاتب "writer"
Š verb stem Template:Hebrew
hip̄‘il		 af‘ala
أَفْعَلَ
(Stem IV)		 3rd. masc. sing perfect hiḵtiḇ Template:Hebrew aktaba أكتب "he dictated"
3rd. masc. sing. imperfect yaḵtiḇ Template:Hebrew yuktibu يكتب "he dictates, will dictate"
Št(D) verb stem Template:Hebrew
hitpa‘el		 istaf‘ala
استَفْعَلَ
(Stem X)		 3rd. masc. sing perfect hitkatteḇ Template:Hebrew istaktaba استكتب "he corresponded" (Hebrew), "he asked (someone) to write (something), had a copy made" (Arabic)
3rd. masc. sing. imperfect yitkatteḇ Template:Hebrew yastaktibu يستكتب (imperfect of above)
Noun with m- prefix and original short vowels mip̄‘al
Template:Hebrew		 maf‘al
مَفْعَل		 singular miḵtaḇ Template:Hebrew maktab مكتب "letter" (Hebrew), "office" (Arabic)

In Hebrew grammatical terminology, the word binyan (Template:Lang-he-n, plural Template:Hebrew binyanim) is used to refer to a verb derived stem or overall verb derivation pattern, while the word mishqal (or mishkal) is used to refer to a noun derivation pattern, and these words have gained some use in English-language linguistic terminology. The Arabic terms, called وزن wazn (plural أوزان, awzān) for the pattern and جذر jiḏr (plural جذور, juḏūr) for the root have not gained the same currency as the Hebrew equivalents, and Western grammarians continue to use "stem"/"form"/"pattern" for the former and "root" for the latter—though "form" and "pattern" are accurate translations of the Arabic grammatical term wazn (originally meaning 'weight, measure'), and "root" is a literal translation of jiḏr.

See also: Category:Triconsonantal roots

Biliteral origin of some triliteral roots

Although most roots in Hebrew seem to be tri-radical, many of them were originally bi-radical, cf. the relation between Template:Hebrew √ g-z-z ‘shear’, Template:Hebrew √ g-z-m ‘prune’ and Template:Hebrew√ g-z-r ‘cut’, as well as between Template:Hebrew√ p-r-z ‘divide a city’, Template:Hebrew √ p-r-ţ ‘give change’ and Template:Hebrew √ p-r-‘ ‘pay a debt’."[1] The Hebrew root Template:Hebrew √ sh-q-p "look out/through" deriving from Template:Hebrew√ q-p "bend, arch, lean towards" (cf. Template:Hebrew√ q-p-ħ, Template:Hebrew√ q-p-h, Template:Hebrew √ q-p-' and Template:Hebrew √ q-p-y "arch, bend"), and similar verbs fit into the shaCCéC verb-pattern. "This verb-pattern is usually causative, cf. Template:Hebrew√ sh-ţ-p ‘wash, rinse, make wet’, from Template:Hebrew √ ţ-p ‘wet’, as well as Template:Hebrew √ sh-l-k ‘cast off, throw down, cause to go’, from Template:Hebrew √ l-k ‘go’".[1]

History

According to a study of the Proto-Semitic lexicon,[2] biconsonantal roots are more abundant for words denoting Stone Age materials, whereas materials discovered during the Neolithic are uniquely triconsonantal. This implies a change in Proto-Semitic language structure concomitant with the transition to agriculture. In particular monosyllabic biconsonantal names are associated with a pre-Natufian cultural background, more than 16,500 years ago.

Quadriliteral roots

A quadriliteral is a consonantal root containing a sequence of four consonants (instead of three consonants, as is more often the case). A quadriliteral form is a word derived from such a four-consonant root. For example, the abstract quadriliteral root t-r-g-m / t-r-j-m gives rise to the verb forms Template:Hebrew tirgem in Hebrew and ترجم tarjama in Arabic, meaning "he translated". In some cases, a quadriliteral root is actually a reduplication of a two-consonant sequence. So in Hebrew Template:Hebrew digdeg means "he tickled", and in Arabic زلزال zilzāl means "earthquake".

Generally, only a subset of the verb derivations formed from triliteral roots are allowed with quadriliteral roots. For example, in Hebrew, the Pi``el, Pu``al, and Hitpa``el, and in Arabic, forms similar to the stem II and stem V forms of triliteral roots.

Another set of quadrilateral roots in modern Hebrew is the set of secondary roots. A secondary root is a root derived from word that was derived from another root. For example, the root Template:Hebrew m-s-p-r is secondary to the root Template:Hebrew s-p-r. Template:Hebrew saphar, from the root s-p-r, means "counted"; Template:Hebrew mispar, from the same root, means "number"; and Template:Hebrew misper, from the secondary root Template:Hebrew, means "numbered".

An irregular quadriliteral verb made from a loanword is:

Quinqueliteral roots

Traditionally in the Semitic languages, forms with more than four basic consonants (i.e. consonants not introduced by morphological inflection or derivation) were occasionally found in nouns — mainly loanwords from other languages — but never in verbs.[3] However, in modern Israeli Hebrew, syllables are allowed to begin with a sequence of two consonants (a relaxation of the situation in early Semitic, where only one consonant was allowed), and this has opened the door for a very small set of loan words to manifest apparent five root-consonant forms, such as Template:Hebrew tilgref "he telegraphed".[4] But, -lgr- always appears as an indivisible cluster in the derivation of this verb, so that these five root-consonant forms do not display any fundamentally different morphological patterns from four root-consonant forms (and the term "quinqueliteral" or "quinquiliteral" would be misleading if it implied otherwise).

Other examples are:

In Amharic, there is a very small set of verbs which are conjugated as quinquiliteral roots. One example is wäšänäffärä 'rain fell with a strong wind'[5] The conjugation of this small class of verb roots is explained by Leslau.[6] Unlike the Hebrew examples, these roots conjugate in a manner more like regular verbs, producing no indivisible clusters.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b See p. 1 of Zuckermann, Ghil'ad 2003, ‘‘Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew’’, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change, Series editor: Charles Jones). ISBN 1-4039-1723-X.
  2. ^ Agmon (2010:23)
  3. ^ A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language by J.A. Haywood and H.M. Nahmad (London: Lund Humphries, 1965), ISBN 0-85331-585-X, p. 261.
  4. ^ http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~ussishkin/papers/PDF/UssishkinPhonology16.pdf.
  5. ^ p. 153. Thomas Leiper Kane. 1990. Amharic-English Dictionary. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
  6. ^ pp. 566-569, 1043. Wolf Leslau. Reference Grammar of Amharic. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

References

  • Agmon, Noam (2010), "Materials and Language: Pre-Semitic Root Structure Change Concomitant with Transition to Agriculture" (PDF), Brill’s Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics, 2: 23–79
Look up quadriliteral in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Look up triliteral in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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