Development of Tense/Aspect in Semitic in the Context of Afro-Asiatic Languages

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 | Memorial University of Newfoundland | St. John’s, Canada
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ISBN 9789027248565 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00
 
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ISBN 9789027265838 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00
 
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The author applies the comparative method for the reconstruction of earlier aspectual systems in the Afro-Asiatic phylum of languages. Moving ‘upstream’ from the documented systems of Semitic, Berber and Old Cushitic the state of affairs during the common stage of Proto-Semito-Berbero-Cushitic is reconstructed. With the addition of Egyptian and Chadic data important conclusions regarding the elusive Proto-Afro-Asiatic are reached. Moving ‘downstream’ the trajectory of individual aspectual systems through their later stages is analyzed. A central piece of the monograph is the reconstruction of intermediate stages reflecting the long-term developments of aspectual and temporal categories of individual languages from the Old towards their Middle periods. The continuity and innovation in the aspectual systems towards the contemporary state of affairs in analytic (serial) constructions of Modern Aramaic and Arabic vernacular languages is explicated. The author demonstrates that it is imperative to work in a larger typological framework and that in the field of Afro-Asiatic linguistics valuable insights can be gained from the study of parallel phenomena in Indo-European languages. At the same time, Indo-Europeanists will profit from the study of typologically earlier aspect-prominent systems of Afro-Asiatic languages. The monograph offers important contributions to our understanding of universals and to the typology and diachrony of tense and aspect.
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 337] 2017.  xx, 228 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 18 April 2017
Table of Contents
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Notarius, Tania
2022. Passive, Stative, and Impersonal in Ugaritic: The G-stem Internal Passive Reconsidered. Journal for Semitics 31:1 DOI logo
Bubenik, Vit
2019. Grammaticalization and degrammati(calizati)on in the development of the Iranian verb system. In Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 345],  pp. 193 ff. DOI logo
Bubenik, Vit
2024. Reconstructing the Proto-Berber Verb System in Afro-Asiatic Perspective. In The Handbook of Berber Linguistics [Springer Handbooks in Languages and Linguistics, ],  pp. 291 ff. DOI logo
Vit, Bubenik
2018. Eleanor Coghill: The rise and fall of ergativity in Aramaic. Cycles of Alignment Change . Folia Linguistica 52:s39-s2  pp. 495 ff. DOI logo

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Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CFF: Historical & comparative linguistics

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009010: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Historical & Comparative
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2017001397 | Marc record