Defining morphological isoglosses: The 'broken' plural and semitic subclassification

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Volumn 57, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 81-123

  Ratcliffe, Robert R ^a  

^a TOKYO UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDIES   (Japan)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34248768594     PISSN: 00222968     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/468623     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. G. Goldenberg, "The Semitic Languages of Ethiopia and Their Classification," BSOAS 40 (1977): 461-507
2. A. Faber, "Genetic Subgroupings of the Semitic Languages" (Ph. D. diss. University of Texas at Austin, 1980)
3. R. M. Voigt, "The Classification of Central Semitic," Journal of Semitic Studies 32 (1987): 1-21
4. J. Huehnergard, "Remarks on the Classification of the Northwest Semitic Languages," in J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij, eds. , The Balaam Text from Deir 'Alla Re-Evaluated: Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Leiden 21-24 August 1989 (Leiden, 1991), pp. 284-93 [cited hereafter as "Remarks on Classification"]
5. J. Rodgers, "The Subgrouping of the South Semitic Languages," in A. Kaye, ed. , Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau on the Occasion of his Eighty-Fifth Birthday (Wiesbaden, 1991), pp. 1323-35
6. and A. Kaye, "Does Ugaritic Go with Arabic in Semitic Genealogical Sub-Classification?," Folia Orientalia 28 (1991): 115-27.
7. W. Diem, "Die genealogische Stellung des Arabischen in den semitischen Sprachen: Ein ungelöstes Problem der Semitistik," in W. Diem and S. Wild, eds. , Studien aus Arabistik und Semitistik A. Spitaler zum 70. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden, 1980), pp. 65-85 [cited hereafter as "Die genealogische Stellung"]
8. A. Zaborski, "The Position of Arabic within the Semitic Dialect Continuum," in K. Dévényi and T. Iványi, eds. , Proceedings of the Colloquium on Arabic Grammar (Budapest, 1991), pp. 365-75
9. and idem, "Problèmes de classification des dialectes sémitiques méridionaux," in D. Caubet and M. Vanhove, eds. , Actes des premières journées Internationales de dialectologie arabe de Paris (Paris, 1994), pp. 399-411.
10. Hetzron, "Two Principles," p. 102.
11. C. Rabin, "The Beginnings of Classical Arabic," Studia Islamica 4 (1955): 19-37.
12. "The situation is not so simple. The existence of simple forms of the inner plurals in NW Semitic only proves what has long been known-that the phenomenon of inner plurals was not foreign to Proto-Semitic-but not that Proto-Semitic knew such a rich system as Southeast Semitic and especially Arabic"; Diem, "Die genealogische Stellung," p. 76.
13. See my "The Broken Plural Problem in Arabic, Semitic and Afroasiatic: A Solution Based on the Diachronic Application of Prosodic Analysis" (Ph. D. diss. , Yale University, 1992) [cited hereafter as "Broken Plural Problem"].
14. " A. Murtonen, Broken Plurals: The Origin and Development of the System (Leiden, 1964)
15. M. Levy, "The Plural of the Noun in Modern Standard Arabic" (Ph. D. diss. , University of Michigan, 1971).
16. See, for example, J. McCarthy, "A Prosodic Account of Arabic Broken Plurals," in I. Dihoff, ed. , Current Trends in African Linguistics (Dordrecht, 1983), pp. 289-320
17. M. Hammond, "Templatic Transfer in Arabic Broken Plurals," Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6 (1988): 247-70
18. J. McCarthy and A. Prince, "Foot and Word in Prosodic Morphology: The Arabic Broken Plural," Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 8 (1990): 209-83
19. my "Arabic Broken Plurals: Arguments for a Two-Fold Classification of Morphology," in M. Eid and J. McCarthy, eds. , Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics II (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 94-119
20. and my "Broken Plural Problem," pp. 21-174.
21. For a strong statement of this position, see, for example, A. Fox, Linguistic Reconstruction: An Introduction to Theory and Method (Oxford, 1995), pp. 94-95
22. or H. Koch, "Reconstruction in Morphology," in M. Durie and M. Ross, eds. , The Comparative Method Reviewed (Oxford, 1996), p. 220.
23. For example by S. Moscati, A. Spitaler, E. Ullendorf, and W. von Soden, An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (Wiesbaden, 1964). The main support for this 'collective' theory comes from the argument that nonrational referent plural nouns in Arabic agree with feminine singular adjectives. Actually, this agreement pattern is an artificial norm which only becomes general in Arabic written after the codification of Arabic grammar in the eighth to ninth centuries
24. The agreement patterns in the Quran and pre-Islamic poetry are much more complex. (See R. K. Belnap and O. Shabaneh, "Variable Agreement and Nonhuman Plurals in Classical and Modern Standard Arabic," in E. Broselow, M. Eid, and J. McCarthy, eds. , Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics IV (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 1992), pp. 245-62
25. and A. F. L. Beeston, "Some Features of Modern Standard Arabic," Journal of Semitic Studies 20 (1975): 62-68.
26. The designation "i+e" indicates that the plural form regularly shows both internal and external morphemes of plurality simultaneously. The designation "i,e" indicates that there are both internal plural forms and external plural forms which can occur with this singular class. Listed singular forms represent the assumed underlying forms. Here and throughout the paper the following abbreviations are used: sg. = singular, pl. = plural, Ar. = Arabic, Ge. = Ge'ez, Ti. = Tigre, He. = Hebrew, Arm. = Aramaic, and Ak. = Akkadian.
27. Murtonen, Broken Plurals: The Origin and Development of the System, based on Lane's uncompleted dictionary of Classical Arabic, and Levy, "The Plural of the Noun in Modern Standard Arabic," based on Wehr's A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Ithaca, New York, 1976)
28. There is a seventh group which consists of a small set of adjectives, including adjectives of color or physical attributes and elative (comparative/superlative) adjectives, which have, in the singular, syllabic/ vocalic patterns and/or affixes not found in noun forms and which are somewhat anomalous in the plural form-for example, ahmaru humrun "red," and kubraa kubarun "bigger (f. ). " We leave these out of consideration here, for the sake of simplifying the discussion. A further complication, which we lack space to discuss here, is that singulars which are traditionally termed 'weak', that is, which have a long vowel or glide as part of the stem, form plurals which deviate in certain ways from the plural forms derived from singulars of the same class which have three 'sound' consonants in the stem: for example, CuCaat (CaaCii = CaaCiGu) as in ('al)-qaadii → (al)-qudaatu "judge," CiiCaan (<-CaaC) as in baabun → biibaanun "door," CiCaCat (← CiiC) as in diikun -? diyakatun "rooster. "
29. The proposal advanced by several authors (e. g. , Murtonen, Broken Plurals: The Origin and Development of the System, p. 33
30. J. Kurylowicz, Studies in Semitic Grammar and Metrics [London, 1973], p. 144
31. F. Corriente, Problemática de la pluralidad en semítico [Madrid, 1971], p. 96
32. W. Fischer, "Die arabische Pluralbildung," Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik 5 [1980]: 70-80) that the feminine plurals of group (2) have developed from the collective-singulative type historically cannot, however, be maintained. The collective-singulative pattern is still recognizable as a category formally distinct from the feminine group (2) plurals in all of the older (by attestation) West Semitic languages. And a clear distinction between feminine plurals formed by loss of feminine suffix and vowel insertion, on the one hand, and unmarked collective nouns with corresponding singulatives formed by addition of a feminine suffix, on the other, is maintained in a number of Berber and Cushitic languages. Further, true collectives subject to singulative formation, wherever they are found in Afroasiatic languages, have a semantic range restricted to the names of animals, plants, and their products.
33. J. Biella, A Dictionary of Old South Arabic, Sabean Dialect, Harvard Semitic Studies 25 (Chico, California, 1982).
34. A. F. L. Beeston, M. A. Ghul, W. W. Müller, and J. Ryckmans, Sabaic Dictionary (English-French-Arabic), Publication of the University of Sanaa, Yemen Arab Republic (Louvain-la-Neuve and Beirut, 1982).
35. T. M. Johnstone, Harsûsi Lexicon and English Harsüsi Word-List (London, 1977)
36. and idem, Jibbāli Lexicon (London, 1981).
37. (Wiesbaden, 1991).
38. I. e. , A. Dillmann, Grammatik der xthiopischen Sprache, 2d ed. (Leipzig, 1903), and T. O. Lambd¡n, Introduction to Classical Ethiopic (Ge'ez), Harvard Semitic Studies 24 (Missoula, Montana, 1978).
39. S. Raz, Tigre Grammar and Texts (Malibu, 1983) [cited hereafter as Tigre Grammar].
40. F. R. Palmer, Morphology of the Tigre Noun (Cambridge, 1962).
41. See Johnstone, "The Modern South Arabian Languages," Afroasiatic Linguistics 1/5 (1975): 1-29 (=93-121), for the fullest available discussion.
42. The abbreviation 'sfp. ' indicates 'sound feminine plural'.
43. Altsüdarabische Grammatik (Leipzig, 1943), p. 103.
44. See Beeston, A Descriptive Grammar of Epigraphic South Arabian (London, 1962), p. 5, for discussion of this point.
45. Although there is a possible E Semitic parallel; see below.
46. The transcription is that of Raz's Tigre Grammar.
47. Change of consonant quality in the original.
48. See Johnstone, "The Modern South Arabian Languages," p. 10.
49. F. Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Wiesbaden, 1983), p. 27.
50. Data comes from C. V. Wallace, "Broken and Double Plural Formations in the Hebrew Bible" (Ph. D. diss. . New York University, 1988), supplemented by data in Brockelmann, Grundriß, pp. 430 ff. Transcription follows that of Wallace. Examples from Brockelmann have been retranscribed to accord with this norm
51. Wallace, "Broken and Double Plural Formations in the Hebrew Bible"; Huehnergard, "Remarks on Classification"; and A. Corré, "Hebrew-Some Modest Proposals," in Kaye, ed. , Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf L. eslau, pp. 245-51.
52. Wallace, "Broken and Double Plural Formations in the Hebrew Bible," p. 82.
53. A. Prince, "The Phonology and Morphology of Tiberian Hebrew" (Ph. D. diss. , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1975), p. 42.
54. Murtonen's sample includes 16 examples of plural CaCiiC (8 from singular CaCC, 8 from six other types), as opposed to 710 examples of plural CuCuuC (399 from singular CaCC) and 1,308 examples of plural 'aCCaaC (312 from singular CaCC).
55. W. Von Soden, Grundriß der akkadischen Grammalik (Rome, 1952), p. 76.
56. See my article "Drift and Noun Plural Reduplication in Afroasiatic," BSOAS 59 (1996): 296-311 [hereafter "Drift"].
57. Huehnergard, "Three Notes on Akkadian Morphology," in D. Golomb, ed. , Working With No Data: Semitic Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin (Winoπa Lake, Indiana, 1987), pp. 181-93.
58. J. Greenberg, "Internal a-plurals in Afroasiatic," in J. Lukas, ed. , Afrikanistische Studien Diedrich Weslermann zum SO. Geburtstag geuidmet (Berlin, 1955), pp. 198-204.
59. See, for example, K. Petraček, "Die innere Flexion in den semitischen Sprachen,"Archiv Orientální 28 (1960): 541-606; 29 (1961): 513-45; and 30 (1962): 361-408
60. and I. Diakonoff, Semito-Hamitic Languages: An Essay in Classification (Moscow, 1965).
61. The data and an explanation for this 'shared anomaly' of Afroasiatic is presented in my article "Drift. "
62. J. R. Applegate, "The Berber Languages," in C. T. Hodge, ed. , Afroasiatic: A Survey (The Hague, 1971), pp. 96-118, p. 108.
63. (Copenhagen, 1973).
64. Transcription is that of Prasse, Grammaire Touaregue.
65. "For the various infinitives . . . and substantivized verbal forms and themes, plural 1 is the only one possible"; Grammaire Touareglie, p. 51
66. "All of these irregular suffixes {-an, -(A) WN, -(I) WIN, -(a) tn, -(A) TIN) combine most frequently with nouns which do not have three radical consonants (compensatory lengthening? reappearance in the plural of an earlier semi-vocalic radical?)"
67. see S. Chaker, Un Parler berbère d'Algérie (Aix-en-Provence, 1983), p. 90 (italics in original).
68. T. Penchoen, Tamazight of the Ayt Ndhir (Los Angeles, 1973), p. 16. The t here represents a dental fricative /θ/.
69. Prasse, Grammaire Touaregue, p. 60.
70. For a survey of plural formation in Chadic, see P. Newman, Nominal and Verbal Plurality in Chadic (Dordrecht, 1990)
71. For attempts at reconstructing the Proto-Chadic plural system on the basis of a less-broad but more-detailed analysis of the systems of a selection of Chadic languages, see Z. Frajzyngier, "The Plural in Chadic" in P. Newman and R. M. Newman, eds. . Papers in Chadic Linguistics (Leiden, 1977), pp. 37-57
72. H. Jungraithmayr, "Is Hausa an Early or Late Stage Chadic Language?," in Frajzyngier, ed. , Current Progress in Chadic Linguistics (Amsterdam, 1989), pp. 251-56.
73. According to the data provided by Newman, Nominal and Verbal Plurality in Chadic, pp. 40-41.
74. C. Kraft and A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, Hausa (London, 1973), pp. 123-24
75. F. W. Parsons, "Hausa and Chadic," in J. Bynon and T. Bynon, eds. , Hamito-Semitica: Proceedings of a Colloquium Held by the Historical Section of the Linguistics Association of the School of Oriental and African Studies (The Hague, 1975), p. 440. The system of transcription adopted here is the standard Hausa orthography, except that long vowels are written as a sequence of two vowels and the glottal stop is explicitly indicated. Low tones are marked with grave accent, high tones unmarked.
76. Parsons, "Hausa and Chadic," p. 440.
77. Kraft and Kirk-Greene, Hausa, p. 123.
78. Parsons ("Hausa and Chadic," p. 439) regards this type as originally being "simply a phonetic variation of or innovation in the -CaaCii" type.
79. Ib¡d. ,p. 124
80. This is a common phenomenon in Afroasiatic languages, as I have discussed in more detail elsewhere ("Drift"). For Chadic, I would endorse Frajzyngier's interpretation of these /n/, /k/, and /w/ plural suffixes as secondary developments from original demonstrative elements ("The Plural in Chadic," pp. 54-55). But for an opposing interpretation, see Newman, Nominal and Verbal Plurality in Chadic, pp. 48-50. By Frajzyngier's interpretation, the /n/ here is indeed comparable to the lnl in Arabic plurals of the biibaan(«-baab-) type. But this is the result of common drift, not a direct inheritance from the protolanguage.
81. See K. Shimizu, "Some Historical Factors in Chadic Lexical Reconstruction" in J. P. Caprile and H. Jungraithmayr, eds. , Préalables à la reconstruction du Prolo-Tchadique (Paris, 1978), pp. 31-38
82. and Jungraithmayr, "Is Hausa an Early or Late Stage Chadic Language?," p. 255.
83. For a survey of pluralization in Cushitic, see A. Zaborski, The Morphology of the Noun Plural in the Cushitic Languages (Vienna, 1986)
84. L. Bliese, A Generative Grammar of Afar (Arlington, Texas, 1981)
85. G. Colizza, La lingua Afar nel nord-est dell' Africa: Grammatica, testi, e vocabolario (Vienna, 1887)
86. D. Morin, "Le nom en Afar du sud," BSOAS 40 (1977): 354-70
87. E. M. Parker and R. J. Hayward, An Afar-English-French Dictionary (with Grammatical Notes in English) (London, 1985)
88. L. Reinisch, Die Afar-Sprache (Vienna, 1886).
89. I. e. , by Zaborski, The Verb in Cushitic: Studies in Hamito-Semitic I (Cracow, 1975), p. 163. Afar also has a number of conservative phonological features
90. see Parker and Hayward, Afar Dictionary, pp. 214-16.
91. Bliese, Grammar of Afar, p. 176. The transcription adopted here is that of Parker and Hayward, with the following exceptions: the voiced pharyngeal fricative is represented as ' (rather than q), the voiced post-alveolar retro flex stop as d (rather than x), and the voiceless pharyngeal fricative as h (rather than c). Examples from other sources are regularized to accord with this system.
92. Colizza, La lingua Afar; see also the discussion in Zaborski, Cushitic Plurals, p. 30.
93. Other AFAS = other (non-Semitic) Afroasiasiatic languages.
94. Noted as a significant NW Semitic isogloss by Huehnergard, "Remarks on Classification," and by Corré, "Hebrew-Some Modest Proposals. "
95. Epigraphic South Arabian, p. 33.
96. Numbers in parentheses indicate the total number of each plural type in the sample. The first number in each pair of numbers indicates the percentage of singulars of the pattern at the head of the row as a proportion of all singulars which have the plural pattern at the top of the column. The second number indicates the percentage of plurals of the pattern at the top of the column as a proportion of all the plural types which may be derived from a singular of the type at the head of the row. Thus, for example, in Ge'ez, all (100 percent) of the plurals of the pattern CeCaC derive from singulars of the pattern CeCC. But not all singulars of the pattern CeCC form a plural according to the CeCaC pattern. Only 28 percent of the plurals deriving from CeCC singulars have the CeCaC pattern. Since the suffix plural in Ge'ez is essentially an open category, I saw no point in trying to calculate the total number of citations of this plural in the dictionary, nor in trying to calculate what percentage of all suffix plural forms are derived from a given singular pattern. Hence the place of the first figure in the last column is filled with a question mark.
97. Based on figures given by Levy, "The Plural of the Noun in Modern Standard Arabic. "
98. Based on my count of forms in Leslau's Comparative Dictionary of Ge 'ez.
99. Based on analysis of counts given by Palmer, Morphology of the Tigre Noun.
100. This is the corollary to Kurylowicz's Fourth Law of Analogy, which says, in essence, that when a new analogical form is accepted in a language, it will take on the primary function, while the older form, if it remains in use, will be restricted to secondary functions. See Kurylowicz, "La nature des procès dits anologiques," Ada Linguistica 5 (1947): 15-37
101. see also the discussion in H. H. Hock, Principles of Historical Linguistics (Berlin and New York, 1991), pp. 219-37.
102. "A type of inner plurals, which is characterized by the fact that the plural stands in no formal relationship to the singular" (Diem, "Die genealogische Stellung," p. 70).
103. For an analysis of these developments, see F. Corriente, Problemática de la pluralidad en semίtico, pp. 20, 47 ff.
104. R. Anttila, Historical and Comparative Linguistics (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 1989), p. 301, note.
105. T. Crowley, An Introduction to Historical Linguistics (Auckland, 1992), pp. 240-49.
106. See Hock, Historical Linguistics, pp. 444-50
107. Anttila, Historical and Comparative Linguistics, p. 303
108. and Crowley, Introduction to Historical Linguistics, p. 247.
109. W. Lehmann, Historical Linguistics (London and New York, 1992), pp. 119-23
110. T. Bynon, Historical Linguistics (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 239-56.
111. See Zaborski, "The Position of Arabic within the Semitic Dialect Continuum," and idem, "Problèmes de classification des dialectes sémitiques méridionaux. "
112. F. Southworth, "Family-Tree Diagrams," Language 40 (1964); 557-65.
113. See D. Testen, "Extra Arabic Affiliations of k-Yemeni," in Broselow, Eid, and McCarthy, eds. . Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics IV, pp. 77-90.
114. See Greenberg, "The Afro-Asiatic (Hamito-Semitic) Present," JAOS 72 (1952): 1-9
115. but compare Leslau, "The Imperfect in South-East Semitic," JAOS 73(1953): 164-66.