Case in Semitic: Roles, Relations, and Reconstruction (Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics)

✍ Scribed by Rebecca Hasselbach

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 370
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book sets out a new reconstruction for the Semitic case system. It is based on a detailed analysis of the expression of grammatical roles and relations in the attested Semitic languages and, for the first time, brings typological methods to bear in the study of these features in Semitic languages and their reconstruction for proto-Semitic. Professor Hasselbach supports her argument with detailed analyses of a wide range of data and presents it in a way that will be accessible to both Semitists and typologists.
The volume is divided into seven chapters: the first discusses basic methodologies used in Semitic linguistics and the limitations thereof. The second presents the evidence for morphological case-marking in the individual Semitic languages, the conventional reconstruction of Proto-Semitic, and the evidence which conflicts with it. The third introduces typological concepts and methods and their deployment in Semitic. Chapter 4 considers the case alignment of early Semitic. Chapter 5 presents a detailed study of marking structures and patterns and considers what these reveal about the nature of the original case system. Chapter 6 looks at the functions of case markers, considers the light they cast on the nominal system, and shows that the reconstruction of early Semitic as ergative is implausible. In the final chapter the author argues that early Semitic had a different nominal system from that of the later Semitic languages. She shows that the course of its development has parallels in other Afroasiatic languages, including Berber and Cushitic. Her book sheds important new light on the history of the Semitic languages and on the early development of the Afro-Asiatic language family as a whole.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Contents
Series preface
List of tables
List of abbreviations
Bibliographical abbreviations
Other abbreviations
1 Introduction
1.1 Methodological considerations
2 The Semitic case system: basic evidence and traditional reconstruction
2.1 Semitic evidence
2.2 Conflicting evidence
2.3 Alternative reconstructions
2.4 Evidence for case systems in non-Semitic branches of Afro-Asiatic
2.5 Summary
3 Linguistic typology
3.1 Typological hierarchies and the concept of markedness
3.2 Grammatical roles and relations
3.3 Head- and dependent-marking
3.4 Case
3.5 Word order and typological universals
3.6 Typology and historical reconstruction
3.7 Summary
4 Grammatical roles and the alignment of Semitic
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Verbal indexation of S, A, and P
4.3 Nominal marking of S, A, and P
4.4 The marking of grammatical roles following certain particles such as ’inna and hinnē
4.5 Syntactic pivots in coordination and relativization
4.6 Passivization and the use of ’et- in Hebrew
4.7 Word order
4.8 Summary
5 Head- and dependent-marking in Semitic
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Evidence
5.3 Historical reconstruction
5.4 Summary
6 The function of case markers in Semitic
6.1 The “Nominative” –u
6.2 The “Genitive” –i
6.3 The “Accusative” –a
6.4 The “Absolute” ending –Ø
6.5 Reconstruction of the Semitic basic cases
7 Conclusions
Bibliography
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
T
U
V
W
Z