Supplement to Journal of Semitic Studies SX1X|2 Autumn 1984 SEMITIC SIBILANTS IN AN AFRO-ASIATIC CONTEXT * ALICE FABER UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, GAINESVILLE, The problem of the nature and the number of Proto-Semitic sibilants has been so often discussed in the literature that one can legitimately wonder whether, barring discovery of a new language, anything can be added. It is the contention of this work that additional discussion is worthwhile; while the reconstruction of three voiceless non-emphatic sibilants is, in my mind, incontrovertible, it is easy to see why certain individuals, notably Garbini (1971) and Magnanini (1974), are unhappy with it. Any reconstruction that aspires to some degree of phonetic realism inevitably encounters difficulties in the precise specification of the PS sibilants, not least because of the difficulty inherent in providing phonetic descriptions of the sibilant phonemes in the early Semitic languages. In this paper, I do not provide any explicit argumentation for my reconstruction (this is provided in Faber 1980, 1981); I merely outline the reconstruction and some of the problems in Semitic linguistics that it helps solve, and then point out some of the problems attendant upon any attempt to make comparisons within the larger Afto-Asiatic group. Leslau (1938) originated the custom of referring to the voiceless sibilant phonemes by number, e.g. S,. That practice will be followed here, and forms cited by other authors which do not embody precise phonetic claims have been converted. My reconstruction of the PS sibilants is not totally new; certain aspects of it are foreshadowed in the works of Cantineau (1952) and Martinet (1953), others in Brockelmann (1961). However, in that language is a system of tout se tient, the reconstruction, which provides a different set of phonetic * Some of the research reported on in this paper was supported by a Faculty Research Grant from the Division of Sponsored Research of the University of Florida in the summer of 1981. I am grateful for that support. 189SEMITIC SIBILANTS realisations for the phonemes, is new. Based on the realisations of the various sibilant phonemes in the Semitic-speaking area, the representation of the sibilant phonemes in the Semitic orthographies, and the treatment of sibilants in borrowings into and out of Semitic languages, the reconstruction is as follows: S, = /hl/ ([#], and S, = /ts/. In addition, *0 is needed to account for the lexical correspondences. Ample justification for recon- structing a lateral articulation for S, is found in Steiner (1977); there is no need to recapitulate it here. In defence of the reconstruction of S, as /s/, two things ought to be noted. First, there are many mote lexical items containing reflexes of S, which can relatively reliably be reconstructed for PS (c. 90) than there are for S,, S, or *0 (c. 30 each). This proportion has already been noted in the literature (Beeston 1977). In addition to the quantitative justification, phonological patterning is relevant. Rosen (1978:447) remarks in a note that “Tt is very often overlooked that systematic symmetry as well as etymological affinities require that Canaanite S, (rather than S,) be regarded as the unvoiced counterpart of /z/, which leaves S, with no unvoiced counterpart”. Similar patterning is observed in Akkadian. It is well known that in the earliest Akkadian orthography the sibilants were represented as in Table I. SA, etc. SA ZA SA ZA ZA aN OND Tate I. Old Akkadian sibilant orthography. Cardona (1968) has amassed a considerable body of evidence for reconstructing PS *s as an affricate; some of his evidence comes from Akkadian. The nature of the polyphony in the adaptation of the Sumerian syllabary for Akkadian (TA = /ta/, /daj, /ta/) suggests that, if one possible interpretation for ZA was affricated, the others were as well.! This suggestion is 1 This identification of S, (/ts/) and /z/ as voiceless-voiced counterparts contrasts with the Canaanite situation. There is little evidence for affricated variants of *z in Semitic, and it appears to be limited to the Phoenician area (e.g., affricated zefa in Greek written with Phoenician gain). But, given the range of articulations that can give rise to the acoustic effect /s/ — apical or blade — and that blade [s] and apical [s] contrasted in much of mediaeval 190SEMITIC SIBILANTS confirmed by some sandhi phenomena of Akkadian. Third person suffixed accusative and genitive pronouns begin with S,. When these suffixes are added to words ending in dental/ alveolar stops, a fusion takes place. gaggad ‘head’ with suffix -S,i is rendered in the orthography qa-qa-AZ-ZI. It is generally thought that this spelling reflects a phonetic alternation in Akkadian. I submit that, rather, it is exactly the spelling that would be expected for a sequence /d+s/ (or /d+4/, for that matter) if syllable signs like ZA had represented affticates rather than simple fricatives. I further suspect that Akkadian S,/S, (reflexes of the two ate not distinct) was /s/, and that change caused by deaffrication of S, and subsequent shift of S,/S, may well account for the rather messy facts of sibilant spelling described by Goetze (1958) and Aro (1959). ‘As far as I know, the only argument that has been adduced against interpretation of Old Akkadian S,/S, as /s/ is that of Gelb (1961); his argument is crucially based on the premise that Akkadian continued the putative PS value /s/ for S, until the well-known Late Assyrian inversion of values for S,/S, and S,. Since that premise cannot be sustained, there is no reason not to take Old Akkadian S,/S, as /s/.2 Such a reconstruction greatly simplifies matters, as changes in spelling after the Old Akkadian period can be related to changes in pronunciation, as summarised in Table II. Old Akkadian Babylonian S, SA [s/ Ss BI Ss, SA fe) ay s, ZA fts/ SA |s/ ° $A 0] SA 8) Tass I: Old Akkadian and Babylonian sibilant spellings and pronuncia- tions. Europe (Fought 1979, Faber 1982), an explanation is possible. If the earliest Semitic /s/ (S,) was articulated with the tip of the tongue (apical articulation) while *z was articulated with the blade of the tongue, we can differentiate the processes alluded to by Rosen, which were sensitive to the acoustic similarity of S, and *z, and the Akkadian orthographic reflection of the articulatory similarity of S, /ts/ and *z. 2 Steiner (1977:145) claims that the merged $,/S, in Akkadian continued the lateral value of PS S, /4/. His major argument is based on the assumption that early Canaanite S, Was /S); if Canaanite S, was /s/, use of the Akkadian SA seties, rather than the SA series, to represent it does not present a problem. Use of Akkadian SA to spell Canaanite /4/ does not indicate that the normal Akkadian pronuaciation of /3/ was [#], only that was the closest spelling of [#] possible in Akkadian. 191SEMITIC SIBILANTS The spelling changes associated with the pronunciation change would have resulted from continued reference to the sound/sign correspondences of Sumerian. Lack of orthographic reflection of the much later Assyrian sound shift would then reflect the waning of Sumerian influence on Akkadian. I realise that much remains to be worked out before my suggestions about the sibilant system of Akkadian can be accepted. However, I hope that I have given some indications that the hypothesis is worth pursuing. Another virtue of my reconstruction of the Semitic sibilants is that it obviates positing grossly unnatural sound changes like Stehle’s (1940:531) “characteristic South Semitic exchange”, whereby S, (Stehle’s *8) and S, (Stehle’s *8) are alleged to have exchanged phonetic realisations in the ancestor of Arabic and Epigraphic South Arabian. My reconstruction further allows treatment of the merger of S, and *@ in Hebrew as a change from *0 to /s/, in parallel with the change of *8 to /z/ (cf. Diem 1974:225). I would now like to discuss some interesting problems raised by the reconstruction of sibilants that I have presented. These problems reduce to the simple question: when were there four (including *6) sibilants in Semitic? Only the West Semitic languages (pace Goetze 1958) show unambiguous reflexes of S, (sin). The correspondences leave no doubt that the latest ancestor of Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and South Arabian had S,, S, and S,. But it does not follow from this that all three ate to be attributed to PS. Rather than reconstructing all three and positing a merger of S, and S, in Akkadian, we could reconstruct only two sibilants and posit a split in West Semitic. There ate good reasons for accepting the first view, that WS S, was inherited, but the evidence is necessarily speculative. As part of the research summarised in Faber (1980, 1981, ms.), I have culled from dictionaries of Semitic languages and from articles dealing with the sibilant problem lexical items containing sibilant phonemes.} These have been arranged according to semantic field (with a rather permissive view of possible semantic change) and according to the correspon- dences reflécted, with one potential PS lexical item per index card. It is thus possible to determine relatively easily how widely attested a given root is. It is also easy to sort the cards 3 A complete list of the Semitic cognate sets is included in Faber (ms). 192SEMITIC SIBILANTS into sets, according to the sibilant correspondences. Including only those roots that can with a reasonable degree of certainty be reconstructed for PS (roots attested in Akkadian and rather widely in West Semitic) and those that can be attributed to West Semitic, the following statements can be made: (x) S, is more than twice as frequent (on a type basis) as any of the other phonemes. (2) Roots containing *@ do not contrast with roots con- taining S,. (3) Even ignoring the polysemy of the root *S,%t (‘hair’, ‘barley’, ‘storm’), S, co-occurs with /r/ and/or /4/ more than do any of the other sibilant phonemes. (4) There are virtually no potential cognates for items containing S, in the other Afro-Asiatic language groups, while for approximately 25 °%, of the lexical items in the other three groups it is possible to find potential cognates. In the remainder of this paper I will document these problems; I do not have solutions for all of them. Table II] summarises the number of roots containing sibilants that can be reconstructed for PS. While many more of my items presumably reflect PS items, the table includes only items that are attested in Akkadian and in West Semitic, preferably including South Arabian or Ethiopian Semitic. Items in the file requiring implausible semantic shifts were excluded.* I also tabulated all roots that were widely attested within West Semitic, but not in Akkadian.5 S, Ss, S, 6 Total Proto-Semitic 88/49 36/20. 24/t3 33/18 18 West Semitic 40/46 21/24 18/21 8/9 87 ‘Taste III: Numbers of lexical items containing sibilants which can reliably be reconstructed for PS and West Semitic. The numbers fol- lowing the slashes indicate the °% of all items reconstructed for that stage which contain the sibilant in that column. 4 Thus, the process included two stages: a recording of potential cognates, and a selection of those items that are, relatively, the most secure. 5 Since there is no consensus as to the grouping within West Semitic, farther breakdown is meaningless. While it seems likely that there is a Central Semitic group consisting of Arabic, Canaanite and Aramaic 193SEMITIC SIBILANTS It is difficult to find minimal pairs for reconstructed phonemes, since the reconstructed lexicon presumably includes only a fraction of the vocabulary of the earlier language state. I do not insist, with Steiner (1977: 52-3), that the minimal pairs for the proto-language be reconstructed on the basis of parallel minimal paits in several descendants. So much analogical restructuring of the Semitic languages has taken place that there is no guarantee that parallel morphological forms in two languages have a common origin. Rather, I assume that the morphology of PS was similar to that of the attested languages in that roots and patterns interacted in certain, well-specified ways. Thus, if we can reconstruct two contrasting verb roots, there probably were minimal pairs involving those roots. I do not see how Steinet’s reconstruction of actual forms is a guarantee against error. Minimal pairs for PS and West Semitic are listed in (5) and (6). It is assumed that, barring later mergers, items that contrasted in PS continued to contrast in West Semitic and beyond. (5) Proto-Semitic minimal pairs S,/S,: 5,69 ‘seven’ — S,b4 ‘sate’ S,/S,: Ser ‘intoxicate’ — S,ér ‘dam, obstruct’ S,/0° : PS, ‘male’ — Pn6 ‘female’; S,mn ‘oil’ — Omn ‘eight’ $,/0 : 2S,r ‘bind’ — ?6r ‘place, trace’; n5,k ‘pour, beat” — n0k ‘bite’ (Hetzton 1976, Faber 1980) and a South Semitic group consisting of Epigraphic and Modern South Arabian, as well as Ethiopian Semitic, this is by no means certain. In addition, it is still not clear exactly where Ugaritic fits in. 6 Ie will be noted that many of the minimal pairs listed do not, in fact, include members of the same part of speech. But, it should be recalled that many Semitic roots act both as nouns and verbs. For example, in several of the languages, *P@r has nominal meanings like ‘trail, place’ and verbal meanings like ‘to track, to follow’. Similarly, number roots are often used as verbs meaning ‘do n times’ or ‘do for the #’th time’, or as nouns meaning ‘one th’. I have listed virtually all roots containing only two true consonants by those consonants. Even if, in traditional grammars, Hebrew rots is considered to have a final h (or, in more modern treatments, /y/), these additional consonants do not appear in all forms. Furthermore, the boundaries among such morphological categories as ly, Ily/w, Illy (h), ete. ate not always clear. 194(6) West S/S, S,/S;: ws ss : aa” S/O: SEMITIC SIBILANTS Semitic minimal pairs S,kr ‘intoxicate’ — S,ér ‘hire’ grS, ‘coagulate’ — gr5, ‘cut up’ S,ér ‘inscribe’ — Str ‘hide’ : Sir ‘remain’ — Pr ‘kin’ bS,r ‘good news’ ~ bS,r ‘unripe fruit’ S,br ‘consider’ — Obr ‘break’ Table IV shows the number of roots in each stage in which each sibilant co-occurs with /r/. Here, homophonous roots are counted according to the number of distinct meanings rather than according to the number of distinct consonant sequences. Changing to the latter method of counting would slightly lower the numbers for S, but leave the others unchanged. If some aspect of the pronunciation of S, attracted /r/, or if some aspect of the pronunciation of /r/ attracted S,, as assimilation either from another sibilant or some other unrelated segment, careful examination of the lexicon ought to be able to uncover some traces of the processes involved. s, Ss, s, 6 PS 14/16 16/44 7/29 72x Ws 14/35 9/42 7/39 3/38 roraL 28/22, .25/4q 14/33, 10/24 Tawi IV: Co-occurrence of /t/ with sibilant phonemes in the Semitic languages. The figures after the slashes represent the °, of roots containing a given sibilant in which the sibilant co-occurs with /r]. The polysemy of the root *S,r suggests that something in the pronunciation of /r/, perhaps in conjunction with the effect of the pharyngeal /4/, caused some other consonant to change to S,. A more complete study of the Semitic lexicon, not restricted to roots containing sibilant phonemes, might show some consonant to be underrepresented, on a statistical basis, in roots containing /1/ or /S/.7 7 Steiner (1977: 105) lists Arabic doublets in which an item containing /8/ (S,) has a partner with /d/ (*k, an emphatic affricated lateral), its emphatic counterpart. Steiner notes that many of his Arabic doublets are not attested outside of South Semitic, but it should be possible to search out doublets for items containing S, and /t/ in other West Semitic languages. 195SEMITIC SIBILANTS It is very difficult to make sense of the phonological correspondences within Afro-Asiatic. Until recently, most comparative work used one or another of the Berber, Chadic or Cushitic languages as representative of its family, ignoring the degree of variability found within each of these language groups. This tendency has been condemned by Hintze (1951) and von Soden (1965:164), but the methodologically sounder approach of comparing reconstructed PS forms with Proto- Chadic, Proto-Berber and Proto-Cushitic forms has been hampered by the relative lack of reconstructed materials for these language groups. However, in recent years, the gap has been partially filled by the publication of Newman and Ma (1966), Newman (1977), Sasse (1979) and Ehret (1980), works dedicated to Proto-Chadic, Proto-East-Cushitic and Proto-South-Cushitic, respectively. Prasse (1972) is the only comparable work on Berber with which I am familiar, but it is not nearly as comprehensive as Sasse, Newman or Ehret, and it contains no word lists. Work on ancient Egyptian is hampered by the same kinds of difficulties in phonetic interpretation that are encountered with the ancient Semitic languages. Vergote (1945) uses a combination of modern Coptic and reconstructed PS to home in on values for Old Kingdom Egyptian. My conclusions about Afro-Asiatic cognates for PS items are based on the works referred to in this paragraph, Cohen (1947) and reviews thereof, and isolated references to extra-Semitic cognates in articles devoted to Semitic lexico- gtaphical problems. Table V shows how many potential cognates there are containing each of the sibilants.§ I use the term “potential cognate” because, in the absence of a well-worked-out recon- struction of Proto-Afro-Asiatic phonology, there is no possible control of cognates; one can only identify those items that look suspiciously like PS lexical items, both on phonological and semantic grounds. s, 8, Ss 8 PS 31/35 10/28 1/4 6/18 Ws 718 4/39 Ws 3/38 ‘Tapie V: Number of Afro-Asiatic potential cognates for Semitic lexical items containing sibilants. The figures after the slashes indicate the °%, of roots reconstructible with each sibilant for which potential cognates can be found. 8 The items themselves are listed in Appendix A. 196SEMITIC SIBILANTS Undoubtedly, some of the items that I have selected as suspicious will turn out to have resulted from a fortuitous coincidence, while there are other true cognates that I have missed, through lack of awareness of some general phono- logical process early in the history of one of the AA groups. The existence of potential cognates for items that can only be reconstructed as far as West Semitic can be explained in one of two ways. The original procedure for reconstruction, in order to avoid attributing to PS a root that had been innovated in West Semitic, did not allow reconstruction for PS of any item not attested in Akkadian. But it is probably the case that Akkadian did not continue intact the PS lexicon. So, some of the West Semitic-Afro-Asiatic potential cognates no doubt represent PS items that were lost in Akkadian. Another possi- bility is that these are items attested only in Egyptian and Semitic, in which case borrowing, in either direction, cannot be excluded, One such case is *6dy ‘breast’ (Appendix A, #65), which occurs in Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic and Modern South Arabian; Vycichl (1974) cites the Egyptian verb Sdy ‘to nurse’. The most interesting thing to emerge from Table V is the almost complete absence of potential cognates for items containing S,. A similar absence can be seen in the potential Egyptian cognates listed in Vergote (1945). Despite Vergote’s statement that Egyptian ¥ corresponds to PS S, and S,, he lists only two dubious examples for S,, along with 18 relatively secure examples for S,. The only potential AA cognates for PS items containing S, found in my survey ate listed in (7) and (8). (7) Semitic *?/wS,p ‘gather’ — Southern Cushitic *suuf ‘gather’ (8) Semitic *S,b? ‘drink’ — Chadic *sobo ‘suck’ (perhaps better associated with Semitic *S Pb ‘draw (water)’) Semitic *S,kr ‘block, dam’ — Egyptian fakar ‘barrier’ It is unlikely that the PAA phonological system, or any subsystems thereof, could satisfactorily be reconstructed at this stage of our knowledge. Nevertheless, comparison of sibilant phonemes among the AA language groups can be fruitful; if it is impossible what the original phonemes were, it may still be possible to determine when and where certain phonemes were 197SEMITIC SIBILANTS innovated or lost. The data given in Table VI suggest that S, Semitic Chadic South Cushitic East Cushitic Berber? Egyptian s, s s/t/0 s s s Ss, §fhl + sf s 3 s & - ©) F © e s + “fl sit s/s TABLE VI: Sibilant correspondences among Afro-Asiatic language groups. was distinct from other sibilants at the latest shared stage of the languages included in the table; only in Berber is there a lack of contrast. It is difficult to speculate about *0. Change of /s/ to /0/, while not impossible, is not widely attested; change of /0/ to /s/, on the other hand, is extremely common. With S, the situation is murkier still, due to the almost total lack of correspondences. With the exception of *?/wsp -*suuf ‘gather’, cited above (7), there are no reasonably convincing potential Afro-Asiatic cognates to PS items containing S,.° This leaves three possibilities, one methodological and two substantive: (i) $, is a Semitic phoneme retained from earlier stages of Afro-Asiatic, but all items containing reflexes of it have been lost from the other AA language groups, (ii) PS S, only occurs in items that were borrowed into Pre- or Proto- Semitic from non-Afro-Asiatic languages, and (iii) lack of recognition that PS S, was /ts/ prevented earlier researchers from finding potential cognates in Berber and Egyptian. Given (iii), a more thorough search of the lexicons of these languages would be in order. But, if more potential cognates were not discovered, we would still have to deal with hypotheses (i) and (ii). These two hypotheses are, to a certain extent, non- empirical. It is certainly impossible to conceive of evidence that would disprove the hypothesis that a given language formerly had in its lexicon a cognate to a given item, although finding an appropriate item would certainly lend credence to the hypothesis. Hypothesis (ii), concerning borrowing, can only be ° Cohen (1947) provides potential cognates with Berber /z/; some of these are cited in Appendix A. However, it is clear from the discussion in Prasse (1972) that this /z/ resulted from Berber-specific developments. Prasse’s reconstruction of the Proto-Berber consonant system includes a single sibilant *s; *8 is marked with a question mark, indicating Prasse’s doubts that *8 was in fact a PB phoneme. Most cases of /3/ in Tuareg can be shown to have resulted from assimilation of *s to palatalised or labial consonants. 198SEMITIC SIBILANTS substantiated if non-Semitic sources for a reasonable number of Semitic items with S, can be found; the claim cannot be supported on plausibility grounds alone. The study described here presents an interesting problem: within the Semitic language group, it is S, that is the shakiest of the sibilant phonemes, but in greater Afro-Asiatic, the S, correspondences are not in doubt. However, S,, which, until recently, was considered she Semitic /s/ phoneme, cannot be situated within Afro-Asiatic. Another problem raised by this study is that of the affinities of *® within the PS system. The lack of minimal pairs distinguishing S, and *0 suggests that the merger of these two phonemes in Phoenician and northern Hebrew did not result in an increase in the number of homophonous roots. But, in most of the Semitic languages in which the sibilant system was reduced, it was not this contrast that was lost first. In Akkadian, the S,/S, contrast was lost before the earliest records; only after the Old Akkadian period did the resulting phoneme metge with *0. In Biblical Hebrew, *0 and S, merged, while S, and S, merged in Arabic. In Aramaic, *8 merged with /t/, and S, merged with S,. The latter change took place around the beginning of the Christian Era and is also reflected in Biblical Hebrew. A great deal of the progress made in any investigation results from the researcher’s precise formulation of his/her questions ; lack of progress may simply indicate ill-formulated research questions. While the research reported on in this paper may have raised more problems than it has solved, it will lead to greater understanding of the relationships among the Afro- Asiatic languages if it leads to the formulation of more closely constrained and rigorously formulated questions for future research. APPENDIX A Sibilant Correspondences within Afro-Asiatic The correspondence sets in this Appendix are arranged according to the PS sibilant phoneme represented in each item. This should not be construed as a claim that the phonemic system of Proto-Afro-Asiatic was essentially identical to that of PS. The * is used only for reconstructed forms: the Semitic 799SEMITIC SIBILANTS reconstructions are mine, the Chadic forms Newman’s, the East Cushitic forms Sasse’s and the South Cushitic Ehret’s. The parenthetical information at the head of some entries indicates which previous researchers have discussed or listed that item in the context of Proto-Semitic or Common Afro-Asiatic. “Cohen” refers to Cohen (1947), “F” to Fronzatoli (1964-1971), “Diak.” to Diakonoff (1965), “Berg.” to Bergstrasser (1928), and “Miiller” to “Miller (1975). The lists are by no means intended as definitive; it is clear that not enough is known of the other AA language groups for that to be possible. Rather, they are intended as a challenge to other researchers. 8, 1. *aS, ‘weak, small’, WS; Egyptian mdf ‘little’ (Cohen #80, F 2.01) 9 Ugaritic nf ‘be sick’; Hebrew onus ‘be weak, sick’; Socotri Pénes ‘be small’, ud%seh ‘morsel’; Geez na%asd ‘be small’; Amharic mossa ‘young child’, anndsd ‘be less’ ; Harari andsa ‘be little’; Gafat mosiet ‘infant child’; Chaha andsd ‘be small’, masa ‘calf’. It is not clear whether there is any relationship between this set and the following one. 2. *PS,/PnS, ‘person, man’, PS; East Cushitic *?is ‘self (F 2.01, Berg.) Mari Akkadian nifw ‘people’; Ugaritic ni, Pf ‘man’, Pné ‘be masculine’; Early Hebrew ?¥ ‘man’; Phoenician Pf ‘man’; Aramaic Pas ‘man’; Arabic Pinsdn ‘people’, Panasa ‘be sociable’; ESA ys, ‘man, one’, ans, ‘man’; Socotei Pinséyye ‘human’; Geez Pans ‘male’; Tigre Panas ‘person’. 3. *bS|I ‘cook, ripen’, PS; Egyptian fs?, ps? ‘cook’; Chadic *batu ‘ashes’? (Cohen #394, F 6.64, Berg) Akkadian basalu ‘ripen’; Hebrew bosal ‘cook’; Aramaic boiel ‘tipen’, Arabic basala ‘cook’; ESA bs,/ ‘altar for burnt offerings’; Socotri béhel ‘cook’; Mehri lubil ‘cook’ Shauri besal ‘be cooked’; Geez basdld ‘cook’; Harari basdla ‘cook’ ; Selti basala ‘be fertile, ripen’. 1 Geez forms cited reflect the orthographic distinction between # for reflexes of S, and s for teflexes of S,, , and *0, However, this distinction is not reflected in any Geez pronunciation tradition, and’ non-etymological spellings in early Geez manusctipts, which are, to be sure, relatively late copies, indicate a breakdown of the phonemic contrast. 200SEMITIC SIBILANTS 4. *gS,5 ‘belch’, PS; Chadic *gahlo ‘belch’ (F 2.21) Akkadian ge,# ‘belch’; Hebrew go%as ‘shake, make noise’; Aramaic gs? ‘spew forth’; Arabic jafa?a ‘heave’, jaSasa ‘defecate’; Harsusi ges ‘belch’; Geez g”asGa ‘belch’; Chaha gasa ‘belch’. Fronzaroli notes the metathesis in Hebrew, and attributes the anomalous sibilants in Geez and Aramaic to “expressive phonetics”. But, the Arabic and Harsusi forms, which Fronzaroli does not cite, complicate the picture. It may be that two original roots, *g4S, and *gS,?, became conflated. Alternatively, the metathesis, sibilant change and loss of the pharyngeal may be attributed to a combination of taboo avoidance (evident in the Arabic forms) and onomatopoeia. 5. *wS,n, *S.n ‘sleep’, PS; Chadic *sowna ‘dream’; East Cushitic *wisl ‘dream’ (F 2.10, Diak.) Akkadian sittu ‘sleep’; Ugaritic sh, yin ‘sleep’; Yaudi sah ‘sleep’; Hebrew Jeno, yosen ‘sleep’; Aramaic snh ‘sleep’; Arabic wasina ‘sleep’; Socotri wn ‘sleep’, misin ‘sleeping place’; Harsusi senét ‘sleep’. . *hbS, ‘hold tight’, PS; Egyptian sds ‘dress’ Akkadian xabdasu ‘be hard’?; Ugaritic bs ‘sheath, girdle’; Hebrew /ovas ‘tie, hold tight’; Aramaic /vas ‘fetter, tie up’; Arabic pabasa ‘obstruct’, habs ‘prison’; Socotri hebos ‘im- prison’; Harsusi hebos ‘imprison’, bebos ‘embrace’; Tigrinya babbisa ‘bind’. 7. *hmS, ‘womb’, PS; Egyptian hms ‘penis’ (F 2.70 ‘belly’) Akkadian emi ‘womb’; Hebrew homes ‘belly’?; Syriac humisa ‘belly’ ; Socotri hémseh ‘tortoise’; Harsusi ehmés ‘turtle’, ham® ‘lower belly’; Geez hams ‘vulva, womb’; Amharic ams “female genitalia’. . *x8,1 ‘destroy’, PS; Egyptian Air ‘expel’ Akkadian xasalu ‘grind, crush’; Hebrew nexésolim ‘defeated ones’ (Aapax); Aramaic haéal ‘forge’, hs/ ‘crush’; Harsusi xefé/ ‘make a hole’; Geez hasa/a ‘muzzle’. 9. *tS, ‘dirty’, PS; East Cushitic *d’uus ‘fart’ Akkadian suit ‘evil, ugly’; Mishnaic Hebrew suf ‘dirty’; Harsusi ¢’e ‘shower’; Geez fesa ‘smoke’; Tigre tasas ‘drizzle’, ¢’is ‘smoke’; Gafat ¢’is ‘smoke’; Chaha ¢ ’as ‘compound of houses (with a common fireplace)’. 10. *IbS, ‘wear’, PS; Berber a/s ‘reclothe’; Egyptian ams ‘royal garment’ (Cohen #394, Berg.) a ~ 201SEMITIC SIBILANTS Akkadian /abasn ‘wear’ ; Ugaritic /bé ‘wear’; Hebrew brat ‘wear’; Aramaic /bs ‘clothing’ ; Arabic /abasa ‘wear’ ; Harsusi lébes ‘wear’; Geez ldbsd ‘wear’; Harari labdsa ‘wear’; Zway labasd “weax clothes’. . “x8, ‘whisper’, PS, *nhS, ‘mystical word’, PS, ‘copper, bronze’, WS; Egyptian nbs ‘verb of speaking’ (Cohen #4450, F 4.08, 4.09) Akkadian nééu ‘life’; Ugaritic #b# ‘word used in incanta- tion against snakebite’; Hebrew sohas ‘divine’, nohos ‘snake’ ; Syriac mhaé ‘whisper, divine’; Arabic nabs ‘bad omen’. Akkadian /axatu ‘whisper’; Ugaritic /xst ‘whispering’ ; Hebrew Jahai ‘whisper, charm’; Phoenician /Ait ‘incanta- tion’; Aramaic /h¥ ‘whisper’; Syriac /uhsota ‘incantation’; Geez Jabosas ‘whispering’. The distributional evidence suggests original *nhS,, with a split in West Semitic giving, in addition, *IxS,. The original *nhS, then was extended in meaning to cover the new coppet/bronze technology (Hebrew nahosc0, Aramaic nbi, Geez nabs). Non-West-Semitic citation for *nhS. meaning ‘copper, bronze’ (El Amarna nuxastu, Berber ands) must be borrowings, as the earliest known manufacture of copper in the Semitic speech area was around 3100 BC, well after the common Semitic era. The extension of ‘incantation’ to ‘copper’ can be motivated on either of two grounds: (1) the mysterious and poorly understood nature of the copper manufacturing process, or (2) the presumed greater ritual efficacy of objects made of the rare metal (suggested to me by Theodor Gaster). The second possi- bility is supported by the fact that the earliest copper artifacts yet discovered in the Near East-are cult objects, from Nahal Mishmar, near the Dead Sea. . *IS;n ‘tongue’, PS; Egyptian ms ‘tongue’; Coptic /as ‘tongue’; Berber i/s ‘tongue’; Chadic *ahlesi ‘tongue’ (Cohen #436, F 2.58, Berg.) Akkadian /ifdmu ‘tongue’; Ugaritic Jin ‘tongue’; Hebrew /oson ‘tongue’; Aramaic /én ‘tongue’; Arabic /isan ‘tongue’ ; ESA Asn ‘tongue’; Socotri /ésin ‘tongue’; Harsusi Jéen ‘tongue’; Shauti lisdn ‘tongue’; Mehri /isin ‘tongue’; Geez lasan ‘tongue’; Gafat malas ‘tongue’. All of the Semitic citations save the Gafat reflect the nominalising -dn suffix. 2021s. 16. 17. SEMITIC SIBILANTS . *mS,y ‘evening’, PS; Egyptian msn. ‘evening meal’; South Cushitic *aama ‘evening? (F 3.27, Diak.) Old Akkadian musyw ‘evening’; Mishnaic Hebrew mos ‘retire’; Arabic massa ‘arrive in the evening’; Hatsusi amér ‘greet’; Geez mesét ‘evening’, mdsyd ‘become evening’ ; Gafat masiet, maité ‘evening’; Harari maja ‘be evening’, mast ‘evening’; Chaha masa ‘be evening’. The relationship between this item and *?mS, ‘yesterday’ is unclear. . *mS,k ‘pull, animal skin’, PS; Egyptian mses ‘pelt’ (F 2.30) Old Akkadian masku ‘skin’; Hebrew mosax ‘pull, hold firmly’, mesex ‘pouch, purse?’ ; Judeo-Aramaic maska ‘skin’; Arabic Pamsaka ‘sieze’; ESA ms,k ‘take’; Geez mdsiikd ‘bend (a bow)’; Zway mdsdka ‘lead a horse’. *npS, (*nS,p) ‘vital force’, PS; East Cushitic *nass ‘breathe’; Egyptian nsp ‘breathe’ (Cohen #455, F 2.07, Berg.) Akkadian sapaiu ‘blow, breathe’; Ugaritic npf ‘soul, appetite, life’; Early Hebrew nps ‘soul’; Phoenician mps, nbé ‘soul’; Old Aramaic nbs ‘throat’; Syriac nafia ‘soul, self, stele’; Arabic nafs ‘soul’ ; Safaitic nfst ‘gravestone’; ESA nfs, ‘soul, stele, throat’; Socotri nifes ‘give birth’, nefos ‘breathe’ ; Harsusi nefesét ‘soul’; Geez ndfs ‘soul’; Gafat nafas ‘wind’ ; Harari ndfsi ‘soul’; Chaha amfas ‘wind, air’, nafs ‘soul’. Hebrew soiaf ‘bubble’; Socotri nésof ‘pull’, nhof ‘soul’. ¥6tS, ‘sneeze’, WS; Egyptian $/# ‘sneeze’; Tuareg (Berber) Pat °¥ ‘sneeze’; South Cushitic *haad ‘sneeze’ (Cohen #52) Hebrew ‘afiso ‘sneeze’ (hapax); Aramaic Séfei ‘sneeze’; Arabic Safasa ‘sneeze’ ; Harsusi Pat “as ‘sneeze’; Socotri Sat ‘os ‘sneeze’; Mehri ‘af “és ‘sneeze’; Geez Safas ‘sneezing’; Tigre hat *t ‘dia ‘sneeze’ ; Harari hat 't-if baya ‘sneeze’ ; Chaha dt “ista bard ‘sneeze’. It is tempting to treat this root as onomatopoetic, but, even if it is, it may be old, and its wide attestation requires that it be listed. Ehret (1980) treats Ma%a (Cushitic) hatisa as the South Cushitic root given above, with an -ifa root extension, imported from Bantu. Leslau, on the other hand, treats comparable Cushitic forms as borrowings from Semitic. *GS,t ‘one’, PS; Tamazight (Berber) ig, iit ‘one’ Akkadian iifén ‘one’; Ugaritic %#-4ér ‘eleven’; Hebrew Saite-Sasar ‘eleven’; Aramaic 4st? ‘one’; ESA §s,¢ ‘one’. 20318. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. SEMITIC SIBILANTS Kaufmann (1974:60) correctly rejects Ellenbogen’s analysis of the Hebrew and ESA forms as borrowings from Akkadian. *1S, ‘head’, PS; Egyptian r?s, wrs ‘head’ (F 2.42, Berg.) Akkadian réiu ‘head’; Ugaritic ref ‘head’; Hebrew rof ‘head’; Phoenician rf ‘head’; Moabite ri ‘chief ; Aramaic r?s ‘head’; Arabic raPs ‘head’; ESA r?s, head’; Socotri rey ‘head’; Harsusi resid ‘head’; Geez ra?s ‘head’; Amharic ras ‘head’; Harari aris ‘head’. *S,?m ‘barter’, PS; Chadic *maso ‘buy’ Old Akkadian sa?dému, Akkadian Samu ‘buy’; Mishnaic Hebrew som ‘appraise’; Arabic sdma ‘offer for sale’; ESA s,Pm “batter, buy’; Mehri sém ‘sell’; Socotri som ‘sell’; Harsusi som ‘sell’, stem ‘buy’; Harari sema ‘sell’. The South Arabian forms, both ancient and modern, clearly reflect S,. Nevertheless, PS S, is guaranteed by the Hebrew, Akkadian and Arabic forms. *S bh ‘praise’, WS; Egyptian sbp ‘cry out’ (Cohen #258) Ugaritic sbh ‘praise’; Aramaic sbp ‘praise’; Arabic sabbaha ‘praise’; Harsusi sebdx ‘waste breath’?; Geez sdbbibd ‘praise’. I follow BDB in treating Hebrew Jibbeah ‘praise’ as an Aramaic borrowing. Arabic fabbaba ‘raise hands’, suggested by Magnanini (1974) as an anomalous correspondence, must be rejected on grounds of semantic distance (Blau 1977). *S b4 ‘seven’, PS; Egyptian sf ‘7’; Berber sa? ‘7’ (Berg., Diak.) Old Akkadian sibi ‘7’; Ugaritic 509 ‘7’; Hebrew seva$ ‘7’; Phoenician sb ‘7’; Moabite 5b ‘7’; Arabic sab{a ‘7’; ESA 5,05 ‘7°; Socotti Jibé4e ‘7’; Harsusi haba ‘7’; Mehti hoba ‘7’; Shauri 509 ‘7’; Geez sab4a ‘7’; Chaha Sabat ‘7’. *S,d0 ‘six’, PS; Egyptian s?s ‘6’; Berber sids ‘6’; Hausa sidda ‘6’ (Berg., Diak.) Akkadian Jesfet ‘6’; Ugaritic 00 ‘6’; Hebrew iit ‘6’; Punic sf ‘6’; Aramaic J#h ‘6’; Arabic suds ‘one sixth’; ESA 5,d0 ‘6’; Harsusi set? ‘60’; Socotri_yart ‘6’; Shauri #0 ‘6’; Mehri hét ‘6’; Geez sadastu ‘6’; Gafat sadsé ‘60’; Harari siddisti ‘6’; Chaha sadast ‘6’. *S xp ‘milk’, WS; Cushitic Jab, saf, sefi ‘milk’ Ugaritic éxp ‘colostrum’; Mishnaic Hebrew sobuf ‘impo- tent’?; Syriac Jabdpd ‘colostrum’; Arabic saxufa ‘be thin, 20424. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. SEMITIC SIBILANTS insubstantial’; Socotri sof ‘milk’; Mehri sof ‘milk’; Shauri Sof ‘milk’, *S kn ‘reside’, PS; Egyptian suf ‘live’; Agaw (Cushitic) sav ‘live’ (Cohen #255) Old Akkadian sakanu ‘put’ ; Ugaritic ska ‘reside’; Hebrew Soxan ‘reside’; Phoenician skn ‘dwelling’; Arabic sckana ‘be still, inhabit’; ESA s,4n ‘place’; Harsusi sekdn ‘stay’. *S mw ‘name’, PS; Egyptian sm? ‘indicate’; Berber ismawen ‘names’; Chadic *som ‘name’; South Cushitic *so, So ‘name’ Old Akkadian Samu ‘name’ ; Ugaritic sm ‘name’; Hebrew sem ‘name’; Phoenician fw ‘name’; Aramaic sm ‘name’; Arabic Pism ‘name’; ESA s,m ‘name’; Socotri Jem ‘name’; Shauri sum ‘name’; Mehri hem ‘name’; Harsusi hem ‘name’; Geez sem ‘name’; Harari sum ‘name’; Gafat sommd ‘name’; Zway som ‘name’. *S,mn ‘fat’, PS; Egyptian sm? ‘milk, cream’; Berber esim ‘fat’; Agaw send ‘butter’ (Cohen #264, F 2.35) Akkadian sumnu ‘oil, fat’; Ugaritic smn ‘oil, fat’; Hebrew Jemen ‘oil’, omen “fat (adj.)’; Punic émn ‘oil’; Syriac Jumnd ‘fat’; Arabic samm ‘clarified butter’, samin ‘fat (adj.)’. *Sim$ ‘hear’, PS; Egyptian sdm ‘hear’; Chadic *Somi ‘ear’ (Cohen #82, Berg., Diak.) Old Akkadian asma? ‘hear’; Ugaritic sm ‘hear’; Hebrew soma§ ‘heat’; Phoenician fm ‘hear’; Aramaic ém§ ‘heat’; Arabic sami§a ‘heat’; ESA s,m ‘heat’ ; Socotri hemah ‘hear’ ; Harsusi boma ‘heat’, meimé? ‘ear’; Mehti hima ‘hear’; Shauri Sifah ‘hear’ ; Geez sama ‘hear’; Harari séma?a ‘hear’; Chaha séma ‘listen’. *S;m ‘sky, heaven’, PS, *S:mS, ‘sun’, PS; Egyptian sip ‘be light’, Sms? ‘serve’; Haussa sama ‘above’ (Cohen #263, F 3.02, 3.04, Berg., Diak.) Akkadian sJamamu ‘heavens’; Ugaritic sm ‘sky’; Hebrew Somayim ‘heavens’; Aramaic smyn ‘heavens’; Arabic sama ‘sky’; ESA s,my ‘heavens’; Harsusi semé ‘heavens’; Socotri sam ‘sun’; Geez sdmay ‘sky’; Harari sémi ‘sky’; Gafat sdmay ‘sky’; Zway sdmay ‘sky’. Old Akkadian samsu ‘sun’; Ugatitic sps ‘sun’; Yaudi jms ‘sun’; Hebrew semef ‘sun’; Aramaic smi ‘sun’; Arabic Jams ‘sun’; ESA sms, ‘tutelary goddess’. See Appendix B (p. 215) for discussion. *S,nn ‘tooth’, PS; Egyptian s# ‘harpoon, two-toothed’ ; Shilha (Berber) asannan ‘thorns’; Chadic *8an ‘tooth’; South 20530. 31. 32. 33. 35. SEMITIC SIBILANTS Cushitic *atan ‘tooth’; East Cushitic *san ‘nose’; South Cushitic *(i)din”a ‘nose’? (Cohen #262, F 2.59, Berg., Diak.) Akkadian sinnu ‘tooth’; Ugaritic én ‘tooth’; Hebrew sen ‘tooth’; Aramaic senna ‘tooth’; Arabic sinn ‘tooth’; Shauri Sunn ‘tooth’; Geez sann ‘tooth’; Harari sin ‘tooth’; Gafat san ‘tooth’; Chaha sam ‘tooth’. *S fl ‘cough’, PS; Chadic *’jahla ‘cough’ Akkadian sa?alu ‘cough’; Hebrew §94a/ ‘cough’; Syriac Sal ‘cough’; Arabic sa%a/a ‘cough’; Geez sila ‘cough’; Gogot sa/ ‘cold accompanied by a cough’. The Akkadian sibilant is anomalous. *S pr ‘be up early’, PS; Egyptian spr ‘arrive somewhere’ Akkadian fapdru ‘send’; Hebrew Jifro ‘splendour’; Aramaic spr ‘magnificent’; Arabic safra ‘whiteness of dawn’, sdfara ‘travel’, Pasfara ‘shine, glow, be up at dawn’; Socotri sfor ‘voyage’; Harsusi sefér ‘travel’; Chaha safard ‘camp’. *S.qy ‘provide water’, PS; Agaw (Cushitic) seew ‘drink’ (Cohen #257, F 6.03, Berg., Diak.) Akkadian masgitu ‘beverage’; Ugaritic Jgy ‘drink’; Hebrew hisgo ‘give water’, maige ‘beverage’; Aramaic hiqy? ‘give water’; Arabic saga ‘give water’; Safaitic sgy ‘give water’; ESA s,gy ‘irtigate’ ; Harsusi sek ’é ‘irrigate’ ; Socotri ego ‘water’; Shauri jek ’e ‘water’, Jf 7 ‘drink’. *S t ‘buttocks’, WS; Egyptian sd ‘tail’; Kaffa (Cushitic) std ‘vulva’ (Cohen #267, F 2.68, Miiller 413) Hebrew Je@ ‘posterior, penis’; Syriac Pesta ‘deepest part, bottom’; Arabic ?ist ‘anus, posterior’ ; Shauri s/f ‘posterior’ ; Mehti Jit ‘penis’. Ss, . *krS, ‘belly’, PS; Egyptian £ré.¢ ‘burial, mummification’, kans.t ‘belly’; East Cushitic *kils ‘fat’ (F 2.71, Berg.) Akkadian £ariw ‘belly’; Hebrew ores ‘belly’; Syriac karsa ‘belly’; Arabic Aarif ‘stomach (of a ruminant)’ ; Socotri séreé ‘stomach’; Harsusi kéres ‘stomach’; Mehri éras ‘stomach’ ; Shauri surg ‘stomach’; Geez Aar¥ ‘stomach’; Tigrinya Aarsi ‘stomach’; Gafat arsd ‘stomach’; Harari Adrsi ‘stomach’. *4S,b ‘lush growth’, PS; East Cushitic *Gaw8 ‘grass’ (F 5.20) 206SEMITIC SIBILANTS Akkadian esébu ‘grow lushly’; Hebrew Sesev ‘grass’; Aramaic ‘dav ‘grass’; Palmyrene Sfb ‘grass’; Arabic Suib ‘luxurious vegetation’; ESA 4s,b/ ‘pasturage’. Beeston (1977:51) cites the ESA item as an anomaly. Stehle (1940:537) indicates that its context is unclear, so, perhaps, the word is not part of this set. 36. *4S, ‘do, feed’, WS; Agaw (Cushitic) es ‘do’ ; Saho is, ‘do’; Sidamo as ‘make’; Haussa sa ‘put, urge’; Berber asi ‘take’ (Cohen #48, Diak.) Ugaritic “iy ‘fertile’; Hebrew %s ‘do, make’; Moabite Sity ‘I did’; Arabic Saéa ‘give supper’; ESA $s,y ‘do’; Mehri Payse ‘evening meal’; Shauri Sese ‘evening meal’; Harsusi 2a¢ ‘give supper’; Geez Sasa ‘fish’; Harari aia ‘do’; Chaha asa fish’ ; Selti aée ‘do, act, make’. Beeston (1977:53) notes the ESA form as representing one of the true anomalies in the lexical correspondences between ESA and the other Semitic languages. Stehle (1940:535) rejects the association of the ESA and the Hebrew items: “The suspicion arises that the word is not part of the original lexicon of one language or the other”. Cohen treats the Harari form as a borrowing from Cushitic; Leslau (1949), in his review of Cohen, also treats the Geez form as a borrowing. 37. *pS, ‘axe’, PS; Chadic *fago ‘axe’ Akkadian pastu ‘hatchet’; Ugaritic ps ‘axe’; Aramaic ps?, pwst? ‘axe’; Arabic faPs ‘axe’; Mehti fas ‘axe’. The anomalous sibilant in Arabic is consistent with Frinkel’s treatment of the item as a borrowing from Aramaic. The /?/ of the Arabic form is non-organic, inserted by analogy to the orthographic ? of ra?s [ras] (cf. Blau’s (1970:17) discussion of Aas). 38. *pS,y/w ‘extend’, PS; Egyptian pis ‘extend, spread’; Berber fsa ‘extend’ (Cohen #363) Akkadian paiain ‘wipe’?; Hebrew pos ‘spread’; Arabic fasa ‘reveal’; Socotri fii ‘be abundant’; Tigrinya fat bald ‘divulge secrets’. 39. *S,? ‘ovine’, PS; Egyptian s?w ‘sheep’, fw ‘donkey’, #3, Jy ‘pig’; East Cushitic *so? ‘meat’; South Cushitic *tee ‘cow’? Chadic *hlow ‘meat, animal’; Tamazight (Berber) asu ‘cow, beeP (Cohen #279, F 6.48, Diak.) Akkadian J# ‘sheep’; Ugaritic # ‘head of small cattle’; 20740. 4l. 42. 43 SEMITIC SIBILANTS Hebrew se ‘lamb’; Phoenician § ‘sheep, lamb’; Arabic sab ‘sheep’; ESA 5, ‘sheep, goat’. East Cushitic *lo? ‘cows’, which could be adduced as a cognate to this set, supporting an original lateral S,, is, in fact, cognate with PS *lay (Cohen #432). Chadic *hlow may more properly be associated with “lay/*lo? than it is here. At least one of the Egyptian items given above may be a borrowing, presumably from Semitic. *S,?n ‘shoe’, PS; East Cushitic *sa?n ‘footprint’ Akkadian sénu ‘shoes’, mefenu ‘sandal’; Hebrew s9?on ‘sandal’; Aramaic 5?” ‘shoe’, ms?n ‘sandal’; Geez fan ‘shoe’ ; Harari asin ‘shoe’; Zway assn ‘leather sandal’. ed mn open country’, PS; Egyptian dy ‘field’ 5.01 Akkadian Jad# ‘mountain’; Ugaritic Jd ‘field’; Hebrew Sode ‘field’; Phoenician Jd ‘field’; Arabic adda ‘be firm’?; ESA s,dy. *S,¢r ‘hair, barley’, PS; Egyptian ir. ‘barley’, 57? ‘hair’; Berber azar ‘hair’; Agaw (Cushitic) ager ‘hair’ (Cohen #280, #281, F 2.45, 6.36, Ber., Aro) Akkadian Jartu ‘hair’; Ugaritic srt ‘hair, wool’; Yaudi SGrh ‘hair’; Hebrew ser ‘hair’; Aramaic sr ‘hair’; Arabic Sar ‘hair’; Socotri séfihor ‘hair’; Harsusi sor ‘hair’. Akkadian ser?w ‘furrows for planting’? Ugaritic sr ‘barley’; Hebrew s%orim ‘barley’; Aramaic s4rh ‘barley’; Arabic sa%ir ‘barley’; ESA s,%r ‘barley’; Harsusi Jedir ‘barley’; Geez .o%rd ‘grow green’; Tigre sa%ar ‘vegetation’ ; Ennemor sa?ar ‘grass’. Fronzaroli treats ‘barley’ as a WS extension of ‘hair’, but the presence of Akkadian and Afro-Asiatic potential cognates suggests rather an early extension to ‘vegetation’ with a Northwest Semitic narrowing to ‘barley’. The Agaw item suggested by Cohen may be contaminated with the other Cushitic word for ‘hair’, which appears also in Ethiopian Semitic (e.g. Harari ¢ igar). *S.p ‘lip’, PS; Egyptian s.¢ ‘lip’; Sidamo (Cushitic) sumi dip’? (Cohen 4287, F 2.51, Diak., Miller #4) ‘Akkddian Japtu ‘word, lip’; Agatitic i, spf ‘lip’; Hebrew Sofo ‘lip’; Aramaic sph ‘lip’; Arabic Jafa ‘lip’; ESA ft ‘promise’; Harsusi sbith ‘lip’; Mehti stbith ‘lip’. Miiller cites here Sura (Chadic) mishqw33 ‘lip’, which does 2084 46. 47 48. 49. SEMITIC SIBILANTS not belong. It is a metathesised compound of shim+pw33 ‘skin of mouth’ (Shimuzu 1978: 36). . *S,rt ‘scratch, incise’, PS; Egyptian F4d ‘cut, carve’ Akkadian sarafu ‘rip up’; Hebrew Sorat ‘incise’; Syriac serat ‘scratch, make a line’; Arabic sarafa ‘impose a condi- tion on someone’; Tigrinya sarrds’d ‘make something penetrate’; Amharic sdrrat ‘a ‘scratch’; Muher sarrdtd ‘make penetrate, make decorative incisions on a pot’. 8, . *wS,p, ?S,p ‘add, enlarge’, PS; South Cushitic *suuf ‘gather together’? Akkadian estpu ‘gather’; Ugaritic Psp ‘gather’; Hebrew yesaf ‘add, augment’; Aramaic Psp ‘threshold’, ysp ‘gather, increase’; Arabic Pasifa ‘grieve’; ESA ws,f ‘add’; Socotri sef ‘add, follow’. 0 *?n@ ‘woman, female’, PS; East Cushitic *na?s ‘breast’? (F 2.03, Berg.) Akkadian Paftatu ‘wife’; Ugaritic Pn0, P6t ‘woman’; Hebrew 7% ‘woman’; Phoenician Pit ‘wife, woman’; Aramaic Path ‘woman’; Arabic PunOa ‘female’; ESA ?0¢ ‘woman’; Mehri fe@ ‘woman’; Shauri fe@ ‘woman’; Harsusi te@ ‘woman’; Geez amast ‘woman’; Harari anasti ‘female (animal); Gafat amst ‘woman’; Tigre Panas ‘women’; Gogot anast ‘woman’. *? 61 ‘tamarisk’, PS; Egyptian sr ‘tamarisk’ Akkadian asin ‘tamarisk’; Hebrew ?Pege/ ‘tamarisk’; Arabic ?a6/ ‘tamarisk’; ESA ?6/ ‘tamarisk’; Harsusi 400¢/ ‘tamarisk’; Mehri pd0e/ ‘tamarisk’; Shauri J00e/ ‘tamarisk’. *b@ ‘sex organ, shame’, PS; Egyptian dsf.t, wsf.t ‘urine’; Berber bas¥ ‘vagina’; Sidamo (Cushitic) basa ‘vulva’ (Cohen #410) Akkadian bastw ‘shame, sex organ’; Ugaritic b0 ‘shame’; Hebrew bos ‘shame, embarass’; Old Aramaic mb ‘shame’. *0b ‘return’, PS; Egyptian msb ‘answer’ Akkadian Jabu ‘waver, oscillate’; Ugaritic 0b ‘answer, return’; Hebrew sv ‘return’; Moabite ysbh ‘return’; Old Aramaic sb ‘return’; Arabic Oaba ‘return’; Safaitic 6b ‘pile up’; ESA 6wb ‘return’. 20952. 54. SEMITIC SIBILANTS . *0km ‘travel carrying things”, WS; East Cushitic *lukm ‘neck’? Ugaritic Oem ‘carry on the shoulders’; Hebrew biskim ‘get an early start’, sxem ‘shoulder’; Arabic Qakama ‘be diligently occupied with something’, @akm ‘shoulder (of road)’; Shauri JAm ‘set out at night’; Geez sékdma ‘carry on the shoulders’. . *Omn ‘eight’, PS; East Cushitic *tomn ‘ten’! ; Berber sam ‘8’ erg.) Akkadian samdne ‘8’ ; Ugaritic Omn ‘8’; Hebrew samono ‘8’; Phoenician mn ‘8’; Aramaic tray? ‘8’; Arabic Oamaniya ‘8’; Harsusi Oeméni ‘8’; Mehri Orméni ‘8’; Shauri Oani ‘8” ; Socotri teméneh ‘8°. *Ony ‘two, double’, PS; Egyptian snaw ‘2’; Berber sinyat ‘2’; Chadic *sor ‘two’; South Cushitic *taama ‘2’ Akkadian Jani ‘second’ ; Ugaritic Onm ‘2’; Hebtew Sonayin ‘2’; Phoenician 0am ‘2’; Aramaic éren ‘2’; ESA Oy ‘double’; Harsusi Berd ‘2’, Oeni ‘second’; Mehri Osrd ‘2’; Shauri Oroh ‘2’; Socotri tro ‘2’; Geez sanuyd ‘two by two’. The /r/ of the Aramaic cardinal tren, generally attributed to dissimilation (e.g. Moscati 1969:116), must reflect a very old alternation; the same alternation occurs in Harsusi, and the /t/ is also attested in Chadic. Less Likely Potential Cognates . *gS,1 ‘be strong’, PS; Egyptian dsr ‘be mighty’ Akkadian gaidru ‘be strong’; Hebrew geger ‘bridge’; Aramaic gajar ‘join’; Arabic jasara ‘be bold’. *hS,b ‘count, reckon’, PS; Egyptian fib ‘count’ (Cohen #102) Akkadian epéiv ‘do, make’; Ugaritic b0bn ‘account’; Hebrew /oiav ‘think, compute’; Phoenician J ‘accoun- tant’; Aramaic sb ‘consider’; Arabic pasaba ‘count’ ; Socotri béseb ‘count’; Harsusi fesdb ‘count’; Geez asaba ‘reckon’; Harari fesaba ‘think’; Tigre hasba ‘think’; Chaha asabi ‘think’. It is extremely doubtful whether such an item should be reconstructed for the latest common ancestor of Egyptian and Semitic, let alone the lastest common ancestor of Egyptian, Semitic and Cushitic. This implausibility sup- 21035+ 56. SEMITIC SIBILANTS ports Leslau’s (1963) treatment of Sidamo assab/ and Qabenna issabbo? as borrowings. Furthermore, if the Akkadian and West Semitic items given here are indeed to be associated (following Leslau 1938), then the meaning ‘count, compute’ ought to be treated as a West Semitic innovation, in which case the Egyptian form must be a borrowing. *qS,t ‘bow’, PS; South Cushitic *k’oos ‘bow (and arrow)’ (Berg.) Akkadian qistu ‘forest’; Ugaritic gi, git ‘bow’; Yaudi gst ‘bow’; Hebrew gese@ ‘bow’; Phoenician git ‘bow’; Aramaic git ‘archer’, gst? ‘bow’; Arabic qaus ‘bow’ ; Geez qast ‘bow’; Amharic & ‘ast ‘bow’; Chaha & ‘ast ‘bow’. If this etymology is valid, it would force us to place the end of any common Afro-Asiatic period after the development of bow-and-atrow hunting. The earliest archaeological evidence for bow-and-arrow hunting in northern Africa is between 12,000 and 10,000 BC (Hoffman, p. 67). *S,wy ‘be equal’, WS; Egyptian Jw ‘weight’, Pus ‘wave’ (Cohen #261) Hebrew sowe ‘be equal’; Aramaic swy ‘be equal’; Arabic sawiya ‘be equivalent’; Harsusi sewd ‘be equal’. Cohen notes the “irregular” sibilant in sw, attributing it to the influence of the glides; Vergote’s Pwsw is a better item from the point of view of the sibilants, although the semantic fit is worse. . *S,tp ‘give water’, PS?; Egyptian s¢f ‘water (flowers)’ Akkadian Jafapu ‘rescue’; Hebrew sofaf ‘wash away’; Judeo-Aramaic Jifaf ‘wash away’. . *bS,r ‘flesh, good news’, PS (Cohen #395, F 2.32, Berg.) Akkadian bifru ‘child’, basaru “bring good news’ ; Ugaritic bsr “inform, flesh’, bért ‘good news’; Hebrew bosor ‘meat’, basora ‘good news’; Phoenician bér ‘type of sacrifice’; Punic bir ‘child, offspring’; Aramaic biwrh ‘tidings’, bir ‘flesh’ ; Arabic basar ‘flesh’; ESA bs,r ‘flesh, good news’; Socotri ibsir ‘good news’; Harsusi abéier ‘give good news’; Geez hasor ‘flesh’, Pabsdra “bring good news’ ; Gafat buifera ‘animal fat’; Harari basdr ‘meat’. Both the connection between the ‘flesh’ and ‘good news’ lexemes and the possibility that Akkadian bisrw should be associated with the ‘meat, flesh’ lexeme are noted by 211SEMITIC SIBILANTS Fronzaroli (1964a:253). Cohen’s basis for attributing this item to Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) is beyond me, as he cites no extra-Semitic items. 59. *S,g ‘distant’; East Cushitic *seg ‘far’ Hebrew suy ‘move back’; Aramaic syg ‘recede’; Arabic sajja ‘split’. 60. *S,mm ‘poison’, PS; Egyptian sm ‘drug’ Akkadian samma ‘drug’; Aramaic sammd ‘poison’; Arabic samma ‘poison’; Harari summi ‘poison’; Gurage sum ‘poison’. The Egyptian form is cited in the AHw. The Arabic was probably borrowed from Aramaic after the merger in the latter of S, and S,. 61. *S,tp ‘burn’, PS; Tamazight (Berber) Jnf ‘roast’? Akkadian sardpu ‘burn’ ; Ugaritic sp ‘burn’; Hebrew soraf ‘burn’; Aramaic érp ‘burn’; Arabic Jaraf ‘red clay or earth’ ; Harsusi serof ‘roast meat’; Shauri serdf ‘toast meat’. 62. *S,b? ‘drink’, PS; Chadic *saba ‘suck’ Akkadian sab# ‘sesame wine’; Hebrew sove? ‘drink’; Aramaic sovd ‘drink’; Arabic sab? ‘wine’. The Chadic may, alternatively, be associated with *S,?b ‘draw (water). 63. *S,ker ‘block, dam’, PS?; Egyptian sakar ‘barrier’. ari Akkadian sikéru ‘dam up’; Hebrew soxar ‘shut up’; Syriac sokar ‘block’; Arabic sikr ‘dam (of a river)’. 64. *w0S ‘help’, WS; Egyptian wh ‘be large’ (Cohen #78) Hebrew hosiaG ‘save’; ESA ws,9 ‘help’; Geez amse?a “respond. The ESA item is a borrowing from Northwest Semitic (Stehle 1940: 537, citing Halévy 1872; Sawyer 1977); there are Ugaritic and ESA names in *w0%, which are to be related to the Hebrew verb. Thus Arabic wasu%a ‘be wide’, often connected to either the Hebrew or the ESA form, does not belong. It may be that the Arabic form ought to be related to the Egyptian form cited by Cohen; however, I think that an association of the Egyptian form with *pS,h (Hebrew posah ‘pass’, Arabic fasuha ‘be wide’, Harsusi fesob ‘allow, pass’) is more likely. 65. *Ody ‘breast’, WS; Egyptian *Sdy ‘to nurse’ Ugaritic 0d, éd ‘breast’; Hebrew sed ‘breast’; Aramaic sadayya ‘breast’; Arabic Oady ‘breast’; Harsusi 6¢di ‘breast’; Shauri Oédi ‘breast’; Mehri 0édi ‘breast’; Socotri /odi ‘breast’. 212SEMITIC SIBILANTS APPENDIX B Root Strength The root *Sr(S) has a range of meanings clustering about the notion of strength and stability. Cohen (1947) associates all of these as item #260, treating the forms with a second sibilant as a Semitic innovation. Leslau (1968) treats them as reduplicated forms: Sr-Sr. However, based on the forms in Semitic alone, reconstruction of *S,rS, is equally plausible. All of the forms except the Hebrew and Aramaic sores are consistent with such a reconstruction, and these can be explained as having resulted from assimilation. But, this analysis raises problems for any attempt to connect the forms with two sibilants with those with one sibilant. For, if the two-sibilant forms resulted from some sort of reduplication, the two sibilants should be the same or the difference should be attributable to some general phonological process. This problem cannot be avoided be reconstructing ‘root’ *S,rS, with dissimilation of the first sibilant in Arabic and ESA, since there are single-sibilant forms which clearly reflect S,. Whether all of the attested forms can be reduced to one root will be explored in the rest of this Appendix, as will the question of what that root was. Forms based on *Sr This group is the only one for which clear extra-Semitic attestation is found. Chadic *3ar ‘root’; Tuareg (Berber) asar ‘root, nerve’; Egyptian s ‘root’; South Cushitic *sa%ah ‘root’, *sar ‘lower back’, *daa%ar ‘vein’. ESA ?s,r ‘basis, foundation’; Tigrinya sur ‘toot’; Amharic ser ‘root’; Harari ser ‘root’; Zway ser ‘toot’; Chaha asar ‘root’. It would be tempting to treat the Egyptian Semitic items as borrowings from coterritorial Cushitic languages, were it not for the fact that the East Cushitic lexeme for ‘root’ is *hizz. It should be noted that in Sam, a component of East Cushitic, the ‘root’ lexeme also means ‘vein’. In any case, the Ethiopian Semitic forms provide no evidence for the sibilant phoneme, as all of the sibilants (S,, S,, S, and *6) merged in the history of Ethiopian Semitic. 213SEMITIC SIBILANTS Forms based on *SrS Akkadian Juriu ‘root’; Ugaritic Jr¥ ‘root’; Hebrew sores ‘root’; Phoenician srs ‘root’; ESA 4,75, ‘root out’; Aramaic Jr¥ ‘shoot’. These forms are consistent either with *S,rS, or *S) rS,. The absence of fotms based on *SrS in Modern South Arablan could be related to the development of forms like Socotri séres and Shauri sur¥ ‘stomach’ from *krS,, by regular palatalisation. Forms based on *Srr hebrew sorr ‘umbilical cord’; Arabic swrr ‘navel’; Syriac jurra ‘navel’; Hebrew Jorire ‘muscles’ (bapax); Aramaic srr ‘be strong’; Socotti srr ‘be strong’; Geez sarard ‘be firm’. Hebrew/Aramaic/Arabic ‘navel’ is consistent only with *S, rr. Hebrew/Aramaic ‘muscle’ is also consistent with *S,rr, although the Socotri and Geez forms may accord, rather, with *S,rr; the Geez is not decisive and the Socotri might be a hyper- correction. Forms based on *Sr9/h Akkadian ser?anu ‘netve, artery’; Socotri serab ‘toot’, firaS ‘navel’, sérSehan ‘feet’; Harsusi sera ‘navel’; Mehri s7ré? ‘navel’. All of the forms in this group are consistent with *S,r5. *4 is generally realised /9/ or /0/ in Harsusi and Mehri. The Akkadian form and one of the Socotri forms reflect a nominalising morpheme /-an/ as well. Leslau (1937) cites Mehri Sira ‘navel’ and treats Socotri sérSehan as a late variant of serhon. All of the South Arabian forms may be related to Arabic kura$ ‘thin part of the leg’ (Leslau 1945:237); *k often palatalises to [| in South Arabian (Leslau 1937). Forms with /$/ would then be ascribed to hypercorrection, as native /é/ is often realised /8/, under the influence of Arabic. Alternatively, the affinity of S,, |t/ and /9/, discussed on pages 6-7, may be at work hete. If this affinity had somehow depended on the lateralisation of S,, one would expect it to continue in MSA, which, alone of the Semitic languages, maintains in lateralisation. Forms based on *Sty/w Arabic Jaryén ‘artery’; Syriac Jerydnd ‘pulse’; Mehri srayn ‘muscle’; Geez Jorw ‘muscle, nerve’. 214SEMITIC SIBILANTS Miiller treats the Mehri form as a compound of gr§ and in; if so, it should be related to the previous group. The Arabic form Saryan is probably a borrowing from the Aramaic, which may, in turn, be borrowed from Akkadian Jer?dnu, also in the previous group. Other Examples of the Same Problem There are three other lexemes, widely attested in the Semitic speaking area, reconstruction of which poses problems similar to those discussed above in connection with *SrS ‘root’. These are *010 ‘three’, *S,d@ ‘six’ (Appendix A, #22), and *S.mS, ‘sun’ (Appendix A, #28). As the citation sets presented here indicate, either assimilation or dissimilation must be appealed to in order to account for the attested forms of each lexeme. THREE: Old Akkadian Ja/af; Ugaritic 0/0; Hebrew solos; Phoenician 47; Aramaic #/t; Proto-Sinaitic sls (¢=*0, S,); Arabic Oa/a0a; Sabean 6/0; ESA s,/0; Mehri shale0; Harsusi Solays; Shauti shali®; Socotti sile; Geez éalas. six: Old Akkadian Jesset; Ugaritic 640; Hebrew sisi; Phoenician #; Aramaic ¢; Arabic suds ‘one sixth’; ESA 5,40; Mehri side; Mehri Sided ‘six (days’ ; Socotti yart; Harsusi hattah; Shauri $00; Geez sadastu; Gafat sadsd sixt SUN: Antdien samsu; Ugaritic ips; Hebrew Jemes; Phoeni- cian sms; Sytiac Samia; Arabic Jams; ESA s,ms, For these roots, as well as for *SrS, the question is simply whether the original lexemes contained identical or distinct sibilants. While it is unlikely that the numbers ‘three’ and ‘six’ were originally reduplicated forms, it is possible that ‘sun’ otiginated as a reduplicated form *Sm-Sm of *S,m ‘sky’, and it was so analysed in Appendix A. In any case, as is clearly shown in Table VII, the distribution of forms with identical and non-identical sibilants within the Semitic languages is not at all straightforward; thus a complex distribution of assimilation and/or dissimilation processes will need to be posited in order to account for the observed facts. 215SEMITIC SIBILANTS ‘root’ ‘three’ ‘six’ ‘sun’ Akkadian WM & + (+) Ugaritic (+) + ot (+) Hebrew + + (+) ae Phoenician GG) GG) Arabic + ° = ESA Mehri = 7 Harsusi Ca oe Shauri ae a Socotri ° ° ° ° Aramaic + + ° Geez ° - (+) Tani VII: Agreement of sibilants in four common two-sibilant roots in Semitic. Key: + two identical sibilants; (+) identity of the sibilants could be a result of regular phonological change; — non-identical sibilants; 0 root attested, but with only one sibilant. In none of the four lexemes is the identity of the second sibilant at issue. ‘Root’ and ‘sun’ end in S,, while ‘three’ and ‘six’ end in *0. So, for ‘root’ and ‘sun’ either a rule dissimilating S, to S, in Arabic and ESA or a rule assimilating S, to S, in Hebrew and Aramaic is needed. The Ugaritic, Phoenician and Akkadian forms are consistent with either approach, so no decision is possible at this point. The case of ‘six’ is clearer; an independently motivated phonological rule assimilating S, to /0/ is attested in Ugaritic and in the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions. In Ugaritic, when the causative morpheme is prefixed to a root beginning in /0/, it, too, is realized /0/, rather than the customary /3/ (Gordon 1955:28). Gordon cites the following example: y00b (<*y80b) ‘he sent back’. Diem (1974:236) cites the forms sbn ‘put me here’ and mss4 ‘he saves’, from *@b and *w04, respectively, in the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions. Albright (cited in Diem) accounts for these by positing an assimilation process in the language of the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions similar to that discussed for Ugaritic. The same assimilation rules that affected the causatives could also have affected intra- morphemic sequences of s,-0 (despite the intervening phono- logical material), thus giving Ugaritic 40 (<*8,d0). The same rule could have been productive in Geez, Hebrew and Phoenician, but, since none of these languages distinguishes teflexes of S, and *@, the question is moot. It is furthermore impossible to determine whether the causative assimilation 216SEMITIC SIBILANTS process was active in the prehistories of those languages, as they have 4/? causatives rather than scausatives. Akkadian, however, at least in the oldest stages, preserves both s-causatives and a phonemic distinction between reflexes of S,/S, and those of *0. It has long been recognised that, in the oldest Akkadian, SV signs most often represent etymological *0, while SV signs ate used for reflexes of S,/S,. Gelb (1957) transliterates both s; AHw, following Aro (1959), uses ¥ for the latter. However, it is clear from the erratic spellings in the relatively complete lists of forms in Gelb (1957) that a certain amount of etymological sophistication on the part of the analyst is sometimes prerequisite to a successful transcription of a given lexical item.'! To a certain extent, this confusion may be a result of the incipient merger of *0 and S,/S, in at least part of the Old Akkadian area. The uncertainty means that it is difficult to make definitive statements about the phonemic status of any assimilation process, as it is by no means clear that any such process would accurately be reflected in the spelling. The difficulties are only exacerbated by the non-differentiation of sibilants in the VC signs. The Arabic ordinal sadis and the fraction suds ‘one sixth’ are explained by Moscati (1969:116) as having resulted from assimilation of *6 to /s/; but contact with Ethiopian languages, or later Assyrian, in which comparable forms would have had |s/ instead of /9/ or /3/, cannot be precluded. Loss of /d/ in words for ‘six’ is also generally attributed to assimilation. In later Akkadian, Phoenician and Hebrew, *d0 appears as /88/; in Arabic and some of the South Arabian languages, *d@ appears as /tt/. /t/ also appears in Aramaic, but, as /t/ is the normal Aramaic reflex of *0, the development in Aramaic may have 11 Lest this comment be thought unnecessarily snide, I offer the following excerpts from Marcus (1978), an introductory textbook. They do not refer specifically to sibilants. “Where the principle of harmony [that sequences VC-CV are to be interpreted as containing two identical consonants] leads to more than one possibility then only knowledge of grammar and the lexicon determines the correct reading” (p. 13). “When dealing with a polyphonous sign, the correct value must be selected for the transliteration. This is determined by elimination based on vowel and consonantal harmony, and on a knowledge of the grammar and the lexicon” (p. 15). Similar caveats are found in all introductory level Akkadian manuals with which I am familiar. 217SEMITIC SIBILANTS been more nearly like that of Hebrew and Akkadian than like that of Arabic; in all cases but Arabic, the result of the assimilation/fusion is the normal reflex of *0. While the above discussion indicates that reconstruction of *8,d0 ‘six’ with regressive assimilation of S, to /0/ is uncontroversial, the situation with ‘three’ is less clear. In all of the South Arabian languages, as well as in Geez, the first segment of ‘three’ is a reflex of S,; in Harsusi, this S, conditioned subsequent dissimilation of the original *0: slays. The analytical problem is simply whether to reconstruct *010, using the dissimilation to s,/9 as an argument for a South Semitic group (Cantineau 1932:184), ot *s,10, with assimilation of S, to /0/ in Ugaritic, Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician (Blau 1972).!2 The assimilation that produced 640 in Ugaritic could also have produced 6/0 from *S,10. And a similar rule could have been active in the histories of Hebrew and Aramaic, since its effects would have been masked by the loss of *0. But such a rule could not have been active in any direct ancestor of Arabic; if it had, no forms of ‘six’ in Arabic would contain /s/. On the other hand, there is no barrier to positing an item specific assimilation producing 6/0 from *S,1@ in Central Semitic (Hetzron 1976, Faber 1980) which became generalised in Ugaritic. Of course, the same change could be viewed, perhaps more profitably, as a dissimilation of the sequence s,-/, containing two laterals, to one containing only one lateral. The alternative reconstruction, *@10, could be challenged on the grounds that it fails to explain why South Arabian and Ethiopian developed variants with S,, rather than with S, or S,. This objection loses cogency from the fact that a phonetic motivation for the dissimilation to S, can be formulated in the case of *SrS. We thus have the following reconstructions: *S,rS,, S,mS,, $,10, and $,d0, and the following processes: i, lateral dissimilation: S, dissimilates to @ before /; Central Semitic. 2 ‘The early Akkadian evidence is ambiguous, Aro (1959) lists saliitu (indicating S,/S,. But AHw, which differentiates ¢ and ¢ for Old Akkadian, provides salas, ‘which is consistent with *616. In any case, it should be noted that the use of Sumerian-based logograms makes definitive statements about Akkadian numbers difficult to formulate. 218SEMITIC SIBILANTS ii, @-assimilation (perhaps a re-analysis of i.): regressive assimi- lation of S, to 8; obligatory in Ugaritic. iii, Sibilant-dissimilation: The first of two identical sibilants changes to S,; South Arabian (ancient and modern) and Ethiopian, and Arabic, perhaps under the influence of South Arabian. Summaty The dissimilation solution for ‘root’ and ‘sun’ is clearly less complicated than the assimilation solution; the latter requires the positing of unusual rules in several different languages, and there are no common threads. In contrast, the assimilation solution for ‘six’ is supported by an independently motivated assimilation rule in Ugaritic. 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P- ERRATA Alice Faber, "Semitic Sibilants in an Afro- Asiatic COntext," JSS 29: 189-224, 1984 [1986]. (Due to trans-Atlantic mail delays, the following errors were not corrected before the journal went to press.) 190: 191: 201: 206: 208: 213: 214: line 6 should read: "S.=/s/, S5=/8/ ((2]), and S3=/ts/" in Table II, the top line should conclude: "Bab. S,=5a /3/" item #6 *hms, 'womb' should be reconstructed instead *hmO and be listed on p. 209 #30 should be headed *s,%1; the Chadic form should be *'Jahla. last line-read "mishpw33" 8 lines from bottom, read "Ethiopian" instead of "Egyptian" line 10, read "Hebrew"; 7 lines from bottom, the page reference should be to’ p. 195. 220: 198: delete the second line of the Cantineau reference. add the following reference: Diem, Werner, "Das Problem von & im Althebraischen und die kanaan&ische Lautverschiebung," ZDMG 124:221-252, 1974. Footnote 9 refers to "Berber"-in Table VI.