Na'ama Pat-El
Address: The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Middle Eastern Studies
1 University Station, F9400
Austin, TX 78712-0527
Department of Middle Eastern Studies
1 University Station, F9400
Austin, TX 78712-0527
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Books by Na'ama Pat-El
The volume brings together perspectives from both established and up-and-coming scholars and represents a globally and linguistically diverse range of languages.The collected papers demonstrate the ways in which endangered languages can challenge existing models of language change based on more commonly studied languages, and can generate innovative insights into linguistic phenomena such as pathways of grammaticalization, forms and dynamics of contact-driven change, and the diachronic relationship between lexical and grammatical categories. In so doing, the book highlights the idea that processes and outcomes of language change long held to be universally relevant may be more sensitive to cultural and typological variability than previously assumed.
Taken as a whole, this collection brings together perspectives from language documentation and historical linguistics to point the way forward for richer understandings of both language change and documentary-descriptive approaches, making this key reading for scholars in these fields.
Papers by Na'ama Pat-El
with substantives is not always predictable, although gender assignment
is not affected. The question of this gender-number morphological mismatch in all phases of Hebrew is a long-standing problem; attempts
to explain it have mostly been synchronic and restricted to evidence from Hebrew. In this paper, I contextualize the Hebrew
case within a wider Semitic context and ask whether this system
is especially typical of Hebrew, and, if not, what that tells us
about plural formation in Hebrew.
The volume brings together perspectives from both established and up-and-coming scholars and represents a globally and linguistically diverse range of languages.The collected papers demonstrate the ways in which endangered languages can challenge existing models of language change based on more commonly studied languages, and can generate innovative insights into linguistic phenomena such as pathways of grammaticalization, forms and dynamics of contact-driven change, and the diachronic relationship between lexical and grammatical categories. In so doing, the book highlights the idea that processes and outcomes of language change long held to be universally relevant may be more sensitive to cultural and typological variability than previously assumed.
Taken as a whole, this collection brings together perspectives from language documentation and historical linguistics to point the way forward for richer understandings of both language change and documentary-descriptive approaches, making this key reading for scholars in these fields.
with substantives is not always predictable, although gender assignment
is not affected. The question of this gender-number morphological mismatch in all phases of Hebrew is a long-standing problem; attempts
to explain it have mostly been synchronic and restricted to evidence from Hebrew. In this paper, I contextualize the Hebrew
case within a wider Semitic context and ask whether this system
is especially typical of Hebrew, and, if not, what that tells us
about plural formation in Hebrew.
We will show that there are a number of significant problems with the reconstruction of the relative pronoun, which, when taken together, make tracing its origin to the demonstrative highly unlikely. We will discuss the syntactic behavior and morhology of the relative marker to show that it is unlikely to be derived from the demonstrative. Instead, we will argue, that the opposite is true: the demonstrative in West Semitic is a secondary formation on the basis of the relative marker.
Aramaic was the lingua franca of much of the Levant and Mesopotamia, and speakers of Arabic and Aramaic were in frequent contact for centuries. It is thus not surprising that scholars of Syrian and Mesopotamian dialects have identified the origin of a number of features of these dialects as Aramaic. Most studies dedicated to this topic have concentrated on the lexicon (Fraenkel 1886; Feghali 1918; Hobaika 1939; Hopkins 1995; Contini 1999; Müller-Kessler 2003; Retsö 2006). Much less work has explicitly focused on phonological, morphological and syntactic features (Diem 1971; Fleisch 1974; Behnstedt 1991; Arnold and Behnstedt 1993; Retsö 2000; del rio Sánchez 2013); nevertheless, a number of features have become widely (though not universally) accepted as examples of transfer from Aramaic into Arabic via second-language acquisition by Aramaic speakers after the Islamic conquests; for example, the shift ā > ō (e.g., lisān > lisōn; fallāḥ > fallōḥ) in a number of Lebanese and Anatolian dialects; 3rd and 2nd plural pronouns (e.g., hinnōn/hinnēn; kon/ken) in a number of Syrian dialects, and others.
In this paper, reexamine some of these proposed features. We will argue that many of these features are better explained as the result of common linguistic processes. Others are well attested in a number of Semitic languages, and may therefore constitute a retention in Arabic. Overall, we will argue that the influence of Aramaic on the contemporary Arabic dialects of the Levant and Mesopotamia is indeed quite limited. Further, we will argue that we should not expect a great deal of Aramaic influence on these dialects for several reasons. First, Arabic was more widespread in the pre-Islamic period than is typically appreciated (Al-Jallad forthcoming). Second, there has been a great deal of convergence in modern dialects. Finally, given the long history of Aramaic/Arabic contact, bilingualism was probably extremely common, and thus rapid imperfect acquisition of Arabic by Aramaic speakers in the early Islamic period, which would have ostensibly led to the transfer of many Aramaic features, can now be considered very unlikely. Our results may have implicatiosn to our understanding of the social structure of the region and the difference between speakers in urban versus rural areas.
This proposal not only outlines a more coherent family tree for Northwest Semitic, but also accounts for numerous “Aramaic”-like features in biblical Hebrew, which have thus far been treated as the result of language contact in the early Iron Age.
may have one of three explanations: (1) an existing common syntactic feature on
the basis of which a subsequent development is built (i.e., parallel development); (2)
areal contact (i.e., Sprachbund); and (3) independent development due to typological
tendencies. Khan notes that it is possible that in most cases none of these explanations
would be verifiable. It seems, however, that in most historical studies, only the latter
two options are taken into account, while similarity stemming the first is considered
unusable for subgrouping or reconstruction (starting from Meillet 1918). In this paper,
I will argue that in some well-defined cases, parallel development can be proven as a
feature of the linguistic structure and is therefore relevant for historical linguistics. I
further suggest that parallel development is likely to recur in languages of a genetically
cohesive family, which share relevant structural features. Several Semitic examples will
serve to illustrate this point.
that linguistic change is restricted by the initial material from which it arose. Grammaticaization
theory assumes change is possible only in a specific direction (lexical
> grammatical), and Sources and Targets have a close functional relationship. For
example, copulas change to existentials, dative becomes possessor etc. Thus, similar
source-to-target combination in different languages are treated as an identical process.
In this talk I will argue that a superficial similarity, such as dative-to-possessor in
different languages does not imply similarity of processes and that methods focusing
on source-to-target are superficial and do not explain language change; rather, our
focus should be on the process itself, regardless of source or target. I will review a
few cases of classic source-to-target changes in Semitic and Indo-European languages
which do not reflect similar process despite their superficial similarities.
References:
Heine, Bernd and Tania Kuteva (2002). World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Vincent, Nigel (1995). Exaptation and Grammaticalization. Historical Linguistics
1993. H. Andersen. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 433–445.
Although there have been several critical evaluations of the idea of Israelian Hebrew, There hasn’t been a systematic evaluation of the linguistic evidence (Fredericks 1996; Schniederwind and Sivan 1997). In this paper, I will examine the linguistic features that have been claimed to be distinctive of the northern dialect. The results will show that despite biblical stories reporting on the dialects, there is little if any linguistic evidence for different dialects in the language of the Hebrew Bible. That is not to say that a dialectal differentiation did not exist, but rather that we cannot identify these dialectal features from the text of the Bible. These findings are also important for the dating of biblical texts, as alleged dialectal features have been used to dismiss the validity of dating (Young et al. 2008 I: 200).
In this paper I suggest that in the paradigm of the West Semitic perfect (< Akkadian stative), the suffixes of the third person are nominal (i.e., reflect genfer-number inflection), while first and second person suffixes are pronominal (i.e., reflect gender-number-person). In other words, I suggest that proto Semitic did not have a third person subject form at all. The short vowel used to mark the 3ms perfect form is, I suggest, a reanalysis of the 3fs –at.
In this paper, we review the arguments in favor of the micro classification of the Northwest Semitic sub-branch. We will show that the arguments in favor of a Ugaritic-Canaanite sub-branch are linguistically weak. We offer a number of features which we suggest can establish an Aramao-Canaanite sub-branch: fs proximal demonstrative, the direct object marker, dative subjects, construct with prepositions and the G imperfect inflection of geminate roots.
Following the well established strength of morphosyntax in demonstrating genealogical relations, the evidence in favor of grouping Aramaic and Canaanite together as a separate subgroup is much stronger than the case previously made in favor of other combinations.
1. Expansion: S [NP] > S1 [S2]
2. Integration: S1 + S2 > S1 [S2]
But are these typological pathways viable cross linguistically and properly representative of the diachrony of relative clauses? On the basis of evidence from Semitic, it will be suggested that the assumption that sentential subordination is a unique pattern because it has complex internal syntax is biased. The evidence in Semitic does not follow any of the paths outlined above. It is therefore better to acknowledge that Proto-Semitic did not have a specific strategy to subordinate sentences and they were treated as any other nominal attribute. Typologists regularly note languages where the relative and genitives fall together (Gil 2011). I argue that in Semitic adnominalization is a category.
In this paper I will discuss several morpho-syntactic features in modern Arabic dialects, which are not found in Classical Arabic. I will show that these features date back to earlier phases, namely before the split of the Arabic sub-branch, and were lost in the Classical language. The data presented in this paper strongly suggests that some dialects preserved important archaic features where the Classical language innovated. In other words, we cannot assume a-priori that Classical Arabic is conservative; rather, the relative archaism of any Arabic feature needs to be evaluated compared with evidence from other Semitic languages. I argue, therefore, that Classical Arabic existed in tandem with some of the existing dialects hut is unlikely to be their source. I further discuss the role of standardization and prestige in preserving archaisms in non-standard variants.