On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 01:07:45 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer <
mcv@...> wrote:
>We must be dealing with some obsolete convention for transcribing Ge'ez
>including the article -u. Come to think of it, Ge'ez doesn't even have a
>grapheme /u:/ (nor a phoneme), so that must definitely be -Cu-u.
I've looked into it some more, and perhaps it's an etymological spelling.
The usual developments from PS -> Ge'ez are:
*a > ä
*i > &
*u > &
*a: > a
*i: > i
*u: > u
*ay > e
*aw > o
giving the seven vowels (orders) of the Ethiopic syllabary (ä, u, i, a, e,
&, o).
The spelling -u: for -u is then historical.
In any case, all of this has no bearing on the Proto-Semitic form, which is
*sáb`at-u-n or *sab`át-u-n (f. *sáb`-u-n). The case endings -u, -a, -i
were never stressed.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...