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Sinai Arabic MS 68: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Study of a Unique Arabic Gospel Manuscript Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-08-10 Phillip W Stokes, Noha Abou-Khatwa, Georg Leube
The study of the Bible in Arabic has become a topic of increasing interest among scholars of the intellectual history of the Islamic world, as well as Christianity in areas under Islamic rule. Nevertheless, most Arabic Bible manuscripts remain largely, or even totally, unstudied. While the textual and theological dimensions of these translations are attracting increasing scholarly attention, their
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An Oath for Vengeance? A vendetta with the testimony of the goddess Allāt in an Ancient North Arabian inscription from Jordan Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-12 Hani Hayajneh, Rafe Harahsheh
This paper deals with a new Ancient North Arabian (ANA)-Safaitic inscription from the north-eastern basaltic region of Jordan. Its author registers a revenge-taking action for a man called S1 TR. In contrast to the usual type of Safaitic inscriptions that deal with revenge, we encounter here a case of revenge in which the Arabian goddess Allāt is called for s2 hdt ‘testimony’. The onomastic and lexical
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The Gezer Inscription ʿṣd pšt ‘Bundling Flax’: Revising the Arabic Cognate Etymology Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-09 Mila Neishtadt
This article is dedicated to one of the main lexical cruxes of the Gezer tablet, the expression ʿṣd pšt in the third line of the inscription. I follow the longstanding understanding of the Gezer inscription, according to which pšt refers to flax. The primary innovation of the article lies in the re-evaluation of the cognate Arabic etymology. I argue that the cognate Arabic ʿḍd in both Classical and
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Serialism in regressive voicing assimilation: The case of heterorganic obstruent clusters in Modern Hebrew Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-08 Mufleh Salem M Alqahtani
This paper examines serialism (i.e. serial derivations) in regressive voicing assimilation (RVA) within the framework of harmonic serialism in coping with heterorganic obstruent clusters in Modern Hebrew. The study depends primarily on data gathered from literature, including books, articles, and theses. The findings show that RVA in Modern Hebrew operates through two derivational steps in a feeding
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The Grammar of Emotion Verbs in the Qurʾān: A Case Study of the verb xāfa Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-06-25 Yehudit Dror, Salam Saied, Bayan Amara
The concept of emotions has been studied from numerous perspectives in psychology, the history of emotions and religion. This study sheds light on the linguistic devices implemented to articulate emotions in the Qurʾān by taking the emotion verb xāfa ‘to fear’ or ‘to be afraid’ (and its derivatives) as a case study. In both modern and classical dictionaries of the Arabic language as well as in Quranic
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Three Early Linguistic Layers in Haredi Hebrew Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-05-24 Dina Sender
A close examination of contemporary Hebrew as spoken by Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, communities in Israel reveals linguistic layers from several historical and cultural contexts. This article looks at elements from three of these layers: Jewish religious literature, the Yiddish language and outdated Israeli Hebrew. An analysis of these elements sheds light on how Haredi Hebrew differs from ‘general’
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The Syntax of the Jewish Arabic Dialect of Wad-Souf (Saharan Algeria) Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Wiktor Gębski
Jewish dialects of Algerian Arabic remain terra incognita within Arabic dialectology. This paper addresses this lacuna and examines specific syntactic aspects within the critically endangered Jewish dialect of Wad-Souf. The study selectively focuses on the topics relevant to the ongoing discussions in the field of Arabic dialectology and the sub-field of Judaeo-Arabic. This research builds on my prior
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Approaching the ‘Social Context of Writing Practices in Late Bronze Age Ugarit’ Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-09 Andrew Burlingame
This review article discusses points raised in Philip Boyes's 2021 monograph Script and Society: The Social Context of Writing Practices in Late Bronze Age Ugarit. The arguments of the book are summarized, contextualized, and evaluated from an Ugaritological disciplinary perspective; remarks on method and opportunities for future research are presented; and a series of specific comments is offered
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Yesterday and the Day Before in Semitic Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-01 Aaron D Rubin
In addition to reflexes of Proto-Semitic*timāli, the Semitic languages use a variety of innovative words meaning ‘yesterday’, as well as numerous different words and phrases used to mean ‘the day before yesterday’ and sometimes even earlier days. This article examines these various adverbs or adverbial phrases in the diverse Semitic languages, both ancient and modern, coming from a variety of semantic
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Numeral reduplication as a pluractional marker in Jordanian Arabic Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-21 Amazigh Bedar, Ashraf Allawama
This paper presents a first study of numeral reduplication in Jordanian Arabic, which uses a syntactic strategy of numeral reduplication not previously recognized in other languages. This involves the reduplication of a numeral implies reduplication of the Noun Phrase (NP) that follows it (Num NP Num NP). Semantically, and at first glance, numeral reduplication mandates distributives readings. We show
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The Fann, a Genre of Oral Poetry in Antiochian Arabic: Remarks on Form and Performance Practice Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-21 Mahmut Ağbaht, Martin Greve
The fann is a genre of oral poetry in the vernacular Arabic of the Alawi community in the Antioch/Hatay province of Turkey. Until recently, it has hardly been mentioned in academic literature. Poetic form and rhythm structure are largely fixed in this genre and it is almost always performed in a similar way; when it comes to the quality of the voice, including a more or less clear melodic shape, there
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The Use of Nafs ‘Soul’ for Self-Referencing in al-Maqqarī’s Nafḥ al-ṭīb and the Evolution of the ‘Divided Self’ Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Laila M Jreis-Navarro
This article will analyze the use of the noun nafs ‘soul’ with the first-person possessive pronominal suffix, through the corpus of Andalusi texts gathered in Nafḥ al-ṭīb by the North-African author Shihāb al-Dīn al-Maqqarī (d. 1632). The aim is threefold: one, to identify patterns of the use of nafsī in the Nafḥ, their semantic performance, and diachronic evolution; two, to compare the use of the
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“A great star falls”—cometology in Syriac language and literature Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-12 Stefanie Rudolf
The Syriac language has, among all the Aramaic varieties, by far the largest number of terms for ‘comet’ or ‘meteor’. Is there a simple explanation for this fact? The systematic investigation of Syriac technical terminology in the field of astral sciences addresses this question. Such a study also impacts three issues relevant to Semitic studies: (1) The question of the sources and languages the Syriac
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A Note on the Safaitic Calendar Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-28 Ahmad Al-Jallad
This short contribution presents three new Safaitic texts that shed further light on the division of the year among the pre-Islamic nomads of the Syro-Arabian Ḥarrah. The inscriptions demonstrate that the zodiac sign names could be used as the names of months and open a new avenue of discussion regarding the meanings of the terms rʾy and ksʾ.
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Narrative verbal forms in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-28 Geoffrey Khan
I examine various types of verbal forms used in narratives of the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) dialects. They have in common the feature of dependence on the preceding discourse. These dependent narrative forms can be classified into ‘underspecified forms’ and ‘subordinate forms’. The underspecified forms include habitual forms and perfect forms, both of which lack the full specification of an
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Berber Influence on Arabic Form IX in North Africa Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-18 Lameen Souag
Arabic dialects west of Libya stand out within Arabic and Semitic languages more generally for using a fairly productive verb pattern FʕāL for change-of-state quality verbs, since before the 12th century. This has long been identified with Classical Arabic’s Form IX (iFʕaLLa) or XI (iFʕāLLa), but does not regularly correspond to either, and shows a rather different lexical distribution. This article
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Oral Reading Traditions and Scriptural Hermeneutics: The Exegetical Significance of the Pausal Systems in the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾān Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-10 Tareq Moqbel
The oral reading traditions of the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾān have a number of affinities. Recent literature shows that these parallels include orthoepic features, the pluriformity of the oral reading traditions, as well as the representation of non-standard oral traditions in written form. The present article takes this comparative effort one step forward. It explores how pauses influence the exegesis
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Several Genizah Fragments of Saadya Gaon's Translation of the Pentateuch Copied by Yedutun ben Levi Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-09-19 Tamar Zewi, Amir Ashur
This article presents several Genizah fragments containing passages of Saadya Gaon's translation of the Pentateuch in the handwriting of a copyist identified as Yedutun Ha-Levi ben Levi He-Ḥaver, who was active in the first half of the thirteenth century. These passages are transcribed in full in the article, together with a critical apparatus which compares them with early important manuscripts of
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There’s Something Bad in the Packs: A Vernacular Aramaic Phrase in al-Ṭabarī’s and al-Masʿūdī’s Histories? Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-05 Georg Leube, Charles G Häberl
Although Aramaic was spoken throughout the Middle East before the Muslim Conquest and continues to be spoken by communities across the region and beyond, evidence for its spoken forms is scarce before the early modern period. One rare such witness is a stray Aramaic phrase, transcribed and translated into Arabic, which appears within the Taʾrīx of al-Ṭabarī (d. 923 ce) and the Murūj al-ḏahab of al-Masʿūdī
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The Silence of the Bride: A Fatimid marriage contract on silk Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-05 Reem Alrudainy, Mathieu Tillier, Naïm Vanthieghem
Marriage contracts and divorce deeds are of particular importance for historians, as they provide clues about both social practices and gender relations. In this article, we offer an edition of a noteworthy document from Dār al-āthār al-islāmiyya in Kuwait, which, beyond its remarkable aesthetic quality, offers a testimony to marriage and divorce practices in a bourgeois milieu of the Egyptian capital
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The Girl in the Ape’s House: A folktale in a North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic variety of Urmiya, Russia Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-05 Alexey Lyavdansky, Kirill Kozhanov, Maria Ovsjannikova
The article discusses dialectal and folkloristic features of an oral narrative in a North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) variety recently recorded in the Southern Russian village of Urmiya. The dialect of the tale belongs to the NENA varieties originating in the easternmost regions of Turkey, which is corroborated by the tale’s speaker, who named its places of origin as Lewən, Albaq, and Gawar. These dialects
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Adverbs Related to ‘Year’ in Semitic Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-19 Aaron D Rubin
In addition to the various nouns meaning ‘year’ attested in the Semitic languages, there exist numerous unique adverbs with reference to years past, present and future. That is to say, besides transparent noun phrases with an adverbial function—phrases that are parallel or similar to English ‘this year’, ‘last year’ and ‘next year’—we also find a number of lexical adverbs with these meanings. This
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The Medieval Prosodic Orthography of the Tiberian Masoretic Reading Tradition Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-19 Sophia L Pitcher
The medieval accentual notations of the Tiberian Masoretic Reading Tradition (TMRT), known as the ṭaʿămē hammiqrå̄, guide the reader in the proper intonement of the Hebrew Bible. Since Dresher’s groundbreaking 1994 article, scholars of the ṭaʿămē hammiqrå̄ have increasingly understood the system to exhibit features corresponding to the prosodic phrase structure of speech. However, the lack
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Sound of Quantitative Metres in Medieval Hebrew Poetry Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-16 Boris Kleiner
The conventional view of quantitative metres in medieval Hispano-Hebrew poetry confuses vowels and syllables. This is because it was syllable structure, rather than vowel typology, that produced the quantitative oppositions. Vocalic shewa was not a furtive but a regular short vowel; its syllable was light because it was not closed by a consonant. Heavy syllables were formed by closing consonants, replaceable
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A donation list from Elephantine: Judaean and Non-Judaean onomastic characteristics from the Persian period in Egypt Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-15 Mitka R Golub
This study uses quantitative methods in the analysis and comparison of 195 names on a donation list from the Nile island of Elephantine, dated to 400 bce, with Judaean names from the end of the First Temple period. The goal is to shed more light on the origin of the individuals named on the list and their relationship, if any, to Judaeans. The onomastic analysis is based on the distributions of name
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Furthering the Further Quest for Ugaritic Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-09 Peter T Daniels
Emendations to a Festschrift contribution, suggested by the honouree, dealing with the decipherment of the Ugaritic script.
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— Yiqtol as Evidential Strategy in Biblical Hebrew Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-26 Vladimir Olivero
The goal of this study is to argue that the — yiqtol construction has an evidential meaning when employed with reference to the past. The yiqtol functions in these situations as an evidential strategy and is used to express the source of information. For instance, Exod. 15:1, which famously begins with , should be understood as ‘then (as reported / as they say) Moses sang’. The words added between
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A Phantom Verb: Yuttan in Biblical Hebrew Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-23 Raanan Eichler
The verb נתן ‘to give’ is pointed as hophal eight times in the Bible. The scholarly consensus is that these occurrences were originally intended as qal-passive, and that there was no hophal נתן in original Biblical Hebrew. It is argued here that there was neither hophal nor qal-passive נתן in original Biblical Hebrew: these occurrences were originally intended as qal, their subjects were indefinite
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On Negation with the Bipartite Constructions ʿĒB-(V/V:)Š and MĀ-(V/V:)Š in Šrūgi Arabic Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-12 Qasim Hassan
The split of the gǝlǝt dialects into Šrūgi and non-Šrūgi types was first introduced by the author in three studies. Here a correlation was observed between the geographic distribution of the gǝlǝt dialects and the sectarian affiliation of their speakers (Hassan 2020: 167, 2021a: 52, 2021b: 195 n. 1). The term Šrūgi refers to all gǝlǝt dialects over-whelmingly spoken by the Shīʿa population in southern
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Contrastive Focus Reduplication in Kuwaiti Arabic Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-12 Yousuf B Albader
This study examines a case of total reduplication in Kuwaiti Arabic known as contrastive focus reduplication (i.e. complete copying of words or phrases). For example, tišrab čāy ḥalīb willa ČĀY–čāy? ‘Would you like to drink tea with milk, or TEA–tea’ [denoting black tea as opposed to karak chai]. The study explores the morpho-semantic properties of this construction in the dialect, shows the different
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Amorite Names through Time and Space Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-01-12 J Caleb Howard
This article examines diachronic and geographical developments in the orthography and pronunciation of Amorite names. Specifically, it studies examples of scribal reanalyses and creative spellings of Amorite names through time, as well as changes in their pronunciation and the lag of orthography behind these changes. In addition to potentially improving our analyses of particular names, the phenomena
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The Neo-Aramaic Dialect Spoken by the Christians of Marga (Şırnak, Southeastern Turkey) Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-01-12 Paul M Noorlander
Aramaic-speaking Christian communities used to be found in large numbers in various towns and villages throughout southeastern Turkey before the large-scale migration under duress as a consequence of the hostilities in the First World War and its aftermath. Marga was once the home of one such large community of Aramaic-speaking Christians who fled to northwestern Iraq or dispersed over the globe. This
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Remarks on a New Aramaic Incantation Bowl IM 77781 Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-09 Ali Faraj
This article presents the edito princeps of a formerly unpublished incantation bowl written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. The text consists of fifteen lines and is devoted to protecting the client, his wife and his daughter against the curses of enemies and opponents. The bowl is a gift of Mr. Ismāʿīl Nāyf and is part of a collection housed in the Iraq Museum (IM 77781).
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Ascending to Jerusalem: On Spatial Cognition, Ideology and Language in the Hebrew Bible Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-09 Adriaan Lamprecht
This study focuses on the cognitive relation of interiority between an objective space and an objective ideological schema within the metaphorical use of ascending to Jerusalem. Hitherto, lexicons have failed to consider this specific metaphorical concept’s peculiar nuanced distinction within the verb עלה (ʿlh)’s horizontal and vertical spatial schemata and the verb בוא (bwʾ)’s horizontal spatial schemata
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Debuccalization in Gulf Pidgin Arabic: OT Parallelism or Harmonic Serialism Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-10-28 Mufleh Alqahtani, Mohammad Almoaily
The current study examines debuccalization in Gulf Pidgin Arabic (GPA), which targets pharyngeal fricatives, /ʕ/ and /ħ/, based on the analysis of feature geometry and Optimality Theory (henceforth OT). This study relies on data elicited from interviews with 10 GPA speakers from two linguistic backgrounds, Bengali and Malayalam. This study concludes that /ʕ/ is debuccalized to [ʔ] and /ħ/ to [h] in
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The Gutturals in North Argobba: an Etymological Evaluation Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-09-27 Maria Bulakh
North Argobba is a South Ethio-Semitic idiom used by Argobba communities in the villages of Shonke and Tʾollaha (Oromiya zone of Amhara region of Ethiopia). One of the most striking features of North Argobba is the presence of the gutturals ʔ, ʕ, h and ḥ as distinct phonemes. While the importance of this feature has been recognized by the linguists, it is also been observed that not all examples of
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Early Phonological Traditions in a Contemporary Hebrew Sociolect Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-07-04 Yehudit Henshke
The article traces the place of, and changing attitudes in the research toward, the Mizrahi sociolect of Modern Hebrew in Israel. Initially defined by Haim Blanc in the 1950s as paralleling Askhenazoid Hebrew, Blanc’s sociolinguistic definition did not evoke scholarly interest. Many scholars noted the widespread adoption of the Ashkenazoid variety and even predicted the disappearance of the Mizrahi
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The Qǝltu Dialect of Al-Dōr Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-05-10 Qasim Hassan
The aim of this paper is to explore, for the first time, the qǝltu dialect spoken in the western part of the town of Al-Dor. Still to this day, this dialect remains very poorly studied and has generally been mentioned only in passing in the literature on Iraqi Arabic dialectology. The data used here are from a fieldwork trip to the town in 2018 where I was able to interview locals about their own dialect
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Yael Reshef, Historical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Yampolskaya S.
ReshefYael, Historical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew. Lexington Books, Lanham, MA2019. Pp. vii + 141. Price: $85.00 hardback. ISBN: 978-1-4985-8449-4.
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Marlene Guss-Kosicka, Die Verbalsysteme des Amharischen und Tigrinischen. Eine vergleichende Analyse Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Bulakh M.
Guss-KosickaMarlene, Die Verbalsysteme des Amharischen und Tigrinischen. Eine vergleichende Analyse (Studien zum Horn von Afrika 7). Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Köln2019. Pp. xix + 336. Price: €69.80 hardback. ISBN: 978-3-89645-687-8.
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The Aramaic Construction qaṭlēh l-malkā ‘He Killed the King’ Aramaic Syntax in Ethiopic?1 Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Hopkins S.
AbstractAramaic and Ethiopic share highly characteristic proleptic constructions, e.g. the direct object periphrasis of the type qaṭlēh l-malkā and qatalo la-nǝguś respectively, each meaning ‘he killed the king’. The presence of such structures in Ethiopic has been held to reflect the alleged influence of Aramaic-speaking missionaries in the translation of the Bible into Ethiopic. The present article
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Revisiting the Hebrew Definite Article: A Reference Hierarchy Model1 Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Ross J, Kim J.
AbstractThe presence of the article ha on Hebrew noun phrases has long been considered the signal for marking definiteness. Scholars have traditionally explained exceptional cases either within the category of definiteness or by genericity. Applying the cross-linguistically conceived ‘reference hierarchy model’ to ha-marked noun phrases in the Book of Judges has revealed that the article ha can also
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Ludwig D. Morenz(mit Beiträgen von DAVID SABEL), Sinai und Alphabetschrift. Die frühesten alphabetischen Inschriften und ihr kanaanäisch-ägyptischer Entstehungshorizont im Zweiten Jahrtausend v. Chr Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Polkowski P.
MorenzLudwig D. (mit Beiträgen von DAVID SABEL), Sinai und Alphabetschrift. Die frühesten alphabetischen Inschriften und ihr kanaanäisch-ägyptischer Entstehungshorizont im Zweiten Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Studia Sinaitica 3). EB-Verlag, Berlin2019. Pp. 414. Price: €149.00 hardback. ISBN: 978-3-86893-252-2
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The Faifi Arabic [St] Reflex of Ṣād: Proto-Semitic or Substrate?* Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Davis S, Alfaifi A.
AbstractThis paper argues against the view that the unusual reflex of ṣād as [st] in Faifi Arabic stems from a metathesized version of the Proto-Semitic glottalized affricate * cʾ([tsʾ]), as in Alfaifi and Behnstedt (2010: 53–4), where [st] is assumed to pattern as monosegmental. Instead we propose that the [st] reflex of ṣād in Faifi Arabic reflects a South Arabian ejective or glottalized fricative
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Ilan Eldar, From Mendelssohn to Mendele: The Emergence of Modern Literary Hebrew Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Shatil N.
EldarIlan, From Mendelssohn to Mendele: The Emergence of Modern Literary Hebrew. Carmel Publishing House, Jerusalem2014. Pp. 261 (Hebrew). Price: $22.00. ISBN: 978-965-540-454-8.
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The Discourse Marker מ ה ז ה (ma ze) to express Rebuking in Rabbinic Hebrew Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Shemesh-Raiskin R.
AbstractThe phrase מ ה ז ה (ma ze) is used in Rabbinic Hebrew to express a speech act of rebuking, for example: ? מהזה, עקיבא (‘What is this, ʿAqiba?’). A review of its occurrences reveals its various characteristics: a) it serves as a rhetorical question to express a rebuking; b) it appears in the spoken language; c) it is used especially by one sage when rebuking another sage; and d), syntactically
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Reimund Leicht and Giuseppe Veltri (eds), Studies in the Formation of Medieval Hebrew Philosophical Terminology Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Vidro N.
LeichtReimund and VeltriGiuseppe (eds), Studies in the Formation of Medieval Hebrew Philosophical Terminology (Studies in Jewish History and Culture 57). Pp. x + 284. Price: €149.00 hardback. ISBN: 978-90-04-41298-9.
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Pronominal Subject Expression in Spoken Modern Hebrew: A Diachronic Perspective Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Shor L, Reshef Y, Gonen E.
AbstractAs a consequence of the sociolinguistic circumstances of its emergence, the morpho-syntactic profile of Modern Hebrew (MH) originates in several sources – classical layers of Hebrew, pre-existing written practices, contact-induced influence of the native languages of the early MH speakers and internal linguistic developments. Adopting a diachronic corpus-based perspective, the present study
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Assaf Bar-Moshe 2019. The Arabic Dialect of the Jews of Baghdad: Phonology, Morphology, and Texts Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Colasuonno M.
Bar-MosheAssaf2019. The Arabic Dialect of the Jews of Baghdad: Phonology, Morphology, and Texts (Semitica Viva: 58). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden2019. Pp. xii + 302. Price: €58.00. ISBN: 978-3-447-11171-3.
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The Debate of Menaḥem and Dunash and a Frame-work for Non-Triliteral Hebrew Verbal Morphology* Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Dachman J.
AbstractThis study presents a new suggestion as to the fundamental disagreement between the morphological theories of Menaḥem b. Saruq and Dunash b. Labraṭ, two tenth-century Hebraists with non-triliteral perspectives of the Hebrew root. A framework detailing the possible analyses of Hebrew verbal morphology without a priori assuming the triliteral perspective is first developed. It is noted that the
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Giuseppe Petrantoni, Corpus of Nabataean Aramaic-Greek Inscriptions Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Healey J.
PetrantoniGiuseppe , Corpus of Nabataean Aramaic-Greek Inscriptions (Antichistica 28; Studi orientali 11). Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, Venice2021. Pp. 182 + 11 plates. Price: €28.00 paperback. ISBN: ISSN 2610-881X; e-ISSN 2610-9336.
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On the Presence of the Andalusian Ḥayyūj’s Grammatical Theory in Abū al-Faraj Hārūn’s al-Kitāb al-Muštamil in the “East”* Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Basal N.
AbstractThe purpose of the present paper is to show that the prominent grammarian Abū al-Faraj Hārūn (AFH), head of the Karaite Majlis in Jerusalem (first half of the eleventh century CE) was acquainted with the grammatical theory of the important Andalusian grammarian Yehudah Ḥayyūj (d. c. 1010 CE in Cordoba), whose writings had reached the Arabic-speaking east at an early stage, not long after his
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Contemporary Ashkenazic Hebrew: The Grammatical Profile of an Overlooked Twenty-First-Century Variety1 Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Kahn L, Yampolskaya S.
AbstractAshkenazic Hebrew is a unique language variety with a centuries-long history of written use among Central and Eastern European Jews. It has distinct phonological and grammatical features attested in texts composed by Ashkenazic Jews (e.g. adherents of the Hasidic and Maskilic movements) in Europe prior to the twentieth century. While Ashkenazic Hebrew is commonly believed to have been replaced
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Benjamin D. Suchard, The Development of the Biblical Hebrew Vowels Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Lundberg J.
SuchardBenjamin D., The Development of the Biblical Hebrew Vowels (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 99), Brill, Leiden2019. Pp xii + 304. Price: €94.00. ISBN: 978-90-04-39025-6.
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Curating the Syriac Literary Heritage in Egyptian Monasteries: A Newly Identified Numeral System in Syriac (British Library, add. 14587)* Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Forness P.
AbstractSyriac manuscripts feature several systems of numerals, and earlier studies have identified three based on the Syriac alphabet. Marginal notes found in the manuscript London, British Library, Add. 14587 preserve a fourth and previously undescribed alphabetic numeral system. After presenting this system and discussing the evidence that led to its identification, this article argues on palaeographic
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Reflections on the Suffix Conjugations in Semitic1 Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Loesov S.
AbstractSuffix conjugations (SCs) of East and West Semitic may not be traced back to the same verb form in Proto-Semitic. Rather, they evolved separately, by way of a ‘common drift’ in the two branches of Semitic. This is demonstrated, in particular, by a crass contrast, both in forms and diathetic meanings, between the SCs of East and West Semitic. Due to the scarcity of data, a gapless reconstruction
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T-S A43.1+ and the Imitation of the Tiberian Reading Tradition Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Phillips K.
AbstractThe c. tenth century CE Genizah manuscript T-S A43.1+ is one of the most substantial extant Bible manuscripts from the so-called Palestinian Masoretic tradition. Examining the partial vocalization of the MS reveals that it was produced to assist a reader from within this Palestinian tradition to emulate the prestigious Tiberian reading tradition. The article thereby contributes to the larger
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The Etymology of Sabaic brṯ‘place’* Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-24 Rendsburg G.
AbstractThis article proposes an etymology for the common Sabaic word brṯ ‘place’, namely, via derivation from the nominalised prepositional phrase b‘in’ + ʾṯ r ‘place’, with two phonological shifts at play: (a) elision of the intervocalic glottal stop, and (b) metathesis of /ṯ / and /r/.
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Daniel J. Wilson, Syntactic and Semantic Variation in Copular Sentences: Insight from Classical Hebrew Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-16 Zewi T.
WilsonDaniel J., Syntactic and Semantic Variation in Copular Sentences: Insight from Classical Hebrew. (Linguistics Today 261). John Benjamins, Amsterdam2020. Pp. xvi + 157. Price: €95.00 hardback. ISBN: 978‐90‐272‐0713‐5.
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Benjamin J. Noonan, Advances in the Study of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic: New Insights for Reading the Old Testament Journal of Semitic Studies (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-16 Coleman R.
Noonan Benjamin J., Advances in the Study of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic: New Insights for Reading the Old Testament. Zondervan Academic, Grand Rapids, MI2020. Pp. 336. Price: $19.50. ISBN: 978‐0‐31059‐601‐1.