📄 Tripartitioning the Linguistic Roots in the Five Nominals: A Comparative Study of Semitic Languages

Summary

The paper revisits how to identify the root of the Arabic "five nominals" (the kinship and related nouns ab, akh, ham, fu, dhu). Classical Arab grammarians treated ab, akh and ham as triliteral nouns whose weak third radical (a waw) was dropped and then resurfaces in the dual, plural, diminutive and relational forms. Al-Raheb tests this view comparatively. She sets the Arabic forms recorded in Lisan al-Arab beside their counterparts in Akkadian, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic and Hebrew dictionaries, and she tracks regular sound correspondences between them. She concludes that these nouns go back to a shared Semitic two-consonant base. The apparent third radical arose later, when a short case vowel was lengthened. The comparison also suggests that inflecting these nouns with long vowels was not an arbitrary invention of the grammarians. Some sister languages show a moving case vowel that was later fixed to a single vowel. The study matters because it shows how comparative evidence can correct traditional etymology. It also supports the case for a historical dictionary of Arabic.

Key points

• Cognate sets compared include Arabic ab(u)/aḥ/ḥam, Akkadian abu/aḫu/emu, Ugaritic and Phoenician ab/aḥ, Hebrew ab/aḥ/ḥām, and Aramaic aba/aḥa/ḥma.
• Two sound correspondences are noted:
  • Arabic and Akkadian kh (ḫ) corresponds to ḥ in Hebrew, Phoenician and Aramaic.
  • The initial glottal stop is weakened or lost in Akkadian.
• Vowel endings differ across the languages:
  • Akkadian forms end in a short -u.
  • In Aramaic, the final -a was reinterpreted as the definite article.
  • Ugaritic writes the glottal stop with three distinct signs (a/i/u), which the author takes as evidence that case inflection existed.
• Lexical sources:
  • Lisan al-Arab for Arabic.
  • von Soden's AHw for Akkadian.
  • Tomback's lexicon for Phoenician.
  • Gordon's Ugaritic Textbook for Ugaritic.
  • Separate Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries.
• Akkadian is treated as the oldest attested Semitic language, written from about 2500 BC. This makes it the anchor for dating the phenomenon.

Interesting ideas

• I1. Instead of positing a deleted root letter, the author explains the "missing" consonant as a lengthened vowel on a shorter base, which yields a simpler underlying form with fewer invented segments.
• I2. Derived forms (dual, plural, diminutive) are used as diagnostic evidence for the hidden shape of a word, and that evidence is cross-checked against independent related languages rather than a single tradition.
• I3. Traditional authorities are treated as hypotheses to be tested against external, older data, not as ground truth.
• I4. The cognate table is organised as aligned forms plus explicit sound correspondences, so that each claimed link is justified by a stated regular mapping.
• I5. The closing call for a historical dictionary records how a word changed across periods.

For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

• I1 (tokens): When building lemma rules for irregular English stems, prefer the minimal stem plus a regular alternation over ad-hoc "restored" letters, so that every analysis stays explainable.
• I2 (tokens): Inflectional paradigms can be used as evidence when inducing or checking lemma and morphology entries, rejecting an analysis that fails to explain all forms of the paradigm.
• I3 (learn): Rules inherited from one treebank or one teacher should be validated against independent witnesses before they are promoted into silver data.
• I4 (back): Translation through the meta-world could log explicit, stated correspondence rules for each mapped word, keeping cross-language links auditable.
• I5 (world): Lexicon entries in the compiled knowledge layer could carry dated sense or form history, helping readers interpret archaic wording in fables and tales.