Comparative Semitics

TL;DR: This post explores several Proto-Semitic verbal substantive patterns and argues that vowel quality was associated with distinct semantic tendencies (active, passive/resultative, stative/resultative). Tracing their reflexes across daughter languages, it situates these forms along a continuum of nominality, from participles and agent nouns to gerunds and infinitives.... Read More

TL;DR: This post discusses the morphology of the Hebrew word for “sky, heaven” (שָׁמַיִם šāmáyim). I propose it is a pseudo-dual, i.e., historically a plural form that was reanalyzed as a dual. This perspective is supported by comparative Semitic evidence and pre-Masoretic orthographic conventions.... Read More

Introduction The impetus for this post is my regular need to pull up a chart of Semitic and/or Afro-Asiatic consonant correspondences, mostly for the languages... Read More