A reconstruction of the system of verb aspects in proto-Berbero-Semitic

Abstract

Several verbal forms reconstructed for proto-Semitic strongly resemble reconstructed forms in proto-Berber: compare Semitic yV-PaRRaS to Berber y-əFăRRăS, Semitic yV-PRaS to Berber y-əFRăS, and Semitic yV-PRuS and yV-PRiS to Berber y-ăFRəS. We suggest that these forms are historically related and sketch a line of development from the reconstructed meanings to their attested uses. yVPaRRaS, originally imperfective, retains that value in both Berber and Semitic. yVPRas, originally stative, gained a perfective meaning in Berber and Semitic; the stative meaning is retained in Berber, but was largely lost in Semitic. yVPRus/yVPRiS, originally perfective, retained that meaning in Semitic, merging with the newly perfective yVPRas forms; in Berber, yVPRaS completely replaced perfective yVPRuS/yVPRiS, relegating the latter to non-aspectual uses. We conclude by considering the quality of the first vowel; the alternation seen in Berber y-əFRăS and y-ăFRəS supports reconstructions as yiPRaS and yaPRuS/yaPRiS, conforming to the Barth–Ginsberg Law of Semitic.

The Berbero-Semitic adjective

“…n. 48) suggests. It is rather the aorist of basic triradical class *ăCCəC that should be associated with the Akkadian perfective, as convincingly argued by Kossmann and Suchard (2018) who reconstruct a Proto-Berbero-Semitic verbal system dynamic perfective *-vprus/-vpris; dynamic imperfective *-vparras and stative perfective *-vpras. As such it does not follow that the qualitative verbs go back to the Berbero-Semitic period as suggested by Kouwenberg.…”

“…The expertise of the author mostly extends to these two branches, and the many morphological parallels appear to make it a fruitful avenue of research to focus on only these two branches of the Afro-Asiatic phylum. Two recent articles concerning Berbero-Semitic, one which discusses the verbal system (Kossmann & Suchard 2018) and the other the feminine endings *-ay and *-āy (Van Putten 2018a) further shows that there is a lot of room for reconstructing quite specific morphology between these two branches.…”

Pour une histoire de la langue berbère dans sa diversité et sa complexité

“…Disons que sur près de 200 ans de recherches, seule la piste « afro-asiatique » s'est vraiment imposée. A l'intérieur de ce phylum, on tend dernièrement à identifier le tchadique de l'Afrique centrale comme la famille la plus proche au berbère (Bynon, 1984 ;Militarev, 2002 ;Ehret, 2019) ; il y a néanmoins des comparaisons bilatérales intéressantes avec le sémitique (Kossmann et Suchard, 2017).…”

Berber Influence on Arabic Form IX in North Africa

“…*əFCăL, impf. *FăCCăL (cf Kossmann & Suchard 2017;Rössler 1951. on Semitic parallels), and that original *ă regularly merges with ə in most northern Berber varieties, yielding a single central vowel whose position is largely predictable and which -unlike other vowels -is subject to phonologically motivated deletion and epenthesis; many Moroccan varieties have even gone on to lose ə altogether.…”