A Bird's-Eye View of Personal Pronouns and Accusative Markers in Ancient Semitic Languages. (15th February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cohen, Ohad
• Is Part Of: Journal of Semitic studies. Volume 63:Number 1(2018)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 17
• Publication Date: 2018-02-15
• Subjects: Semitic philology -- Periodicals; Jews -- Periodicals; 299.2
• DOI: 10.1093/jss/fgx034
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-4480

Abstract

Abstract: In this comparative study of ancient Semitic languages, I present data on the development of personal pronouns and accusative markers. My meta-analysis combines what is known about the major representative languages from both East and West Semitic languages in order to focus on three gradual, corresponding developments: (1) the erosion of inflected oblique independent personal pronouns; (2) the disappearance of the case-ending system; and (3) the emergence of the independent object marker. A bird's-eye view of the documented evidence on Semitic languages suggests that in West Semitic languages, both the oblique independent personal pronoun and the case-ending system gradually disappeared. In parallel, a set of object markers was introduced into West Semitic. This process will be shown to progress at a different pace for the various languages in this branch, and to be relevant not only to the North-west Semitic branch, but rather to the span of old West Semitic languages.