Proto-Semitic '3' (was: Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Norther

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:

> From: "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@...>
> > The reconstruction being offered, ignoring the vowels, is *s'-l-t_
> > (_ for interdental), where <s'> is the sound with Arabic reflex

/s/ and

> > the Hebrew reflex transcribed <s'>, written with sin, and pronounced
> > /s/ by the Jews. (The Samaritans pronounce it differently.)
> ===========
> ok,
> This reconstruction is therefore inadequate as :
> Arabic is th not **s
> Hebrew is sh not s(in)
> Obvious improvement th_l_th < *t_l

No one disputes that most forms indicate Proto-Semitic *t_-l-t_. It's
a question of which is more plausible - *t_-l-t_ > *s'-l-t_ or
*s'-l-t_ > *t_-l-t_?

> > A
> > lateral fricative makes sense as a Semitic reconstruction,
> ========
> No, it does not at all.

What do you propose for what was traditionally written as *s'? (I
favour orthographic stability in protoforms - without it we lose the
ability to communicate.)

> > I note
> > that in Hebrew sin-lamedh-C is disproportionately (just one example in
> > my pocket dictionary) rare compared to initial shin-lamedh-C.

> Because shin reflects many proto-phonemes, when sin reflects only one.

*t_ and *s^ give shin, *s' gives sin. However, I was allowing for sin
being less frequent than shin when I said 'disproportionately'. I
guess you want a chi-squared test. It should be valid, for the rarity
of sin-lamedh was hypothesised on the basis of s'-l-t_ > t_-l-t_.

> > What's the Proto-Semitic 'sun' root currently
> > considered to be? s^-m-s^ or s^-m-s? s^-C-s^ is actually quite
> > common in Hebrew, but that may just be a feature of Hebrew.

> I guess Arabic has shams

Yes, some languages provide evidence for one form, others for the
other. I think I've seen assimilation claimed for Hebrew (and thus
Aramaic and Akkadian), and dissimilation claimed for Arabic (and thus
also for South Arabian). Is there now a consensus?

Richard.