Transcription
Table 1 shows the transcription used in this article and in the works cited.
Key to transcription in this and other works cited below
Table 1 Long description
The table maps a small set of IPA sounds to the symbols used in five different transcription conventions: this work, Johnstone, CSOL, Miller and Morris, and MLZ. For the glottal stop, all systems use a related apostrophe-like sign, while MLZ uses the Arabic hamza. For the voiced pharyngeal fricative, the Latin-based systems use a turned or modified character, and MLZ uses the Arabic letter ayn. The voiceless lateral fricative is written with an s plus acute in most Latin-based columns, while CSOL uses an s with a different diacritic and MLZ uses a distinct Arabic-derived character. The ejective lateral fricative shows the greatest mismatch: this work and CSOL use a marked s form, Johnstone uses a different marked letter, Miller and Morris report it as not occurring in the analyzed items, and MLZ uses an Arabic letter. The ejective dental fricative is marked in this work and Johnstone, but CSOL notes it is not part of the language, and the other columns do not provide a corresponding symbol. The vowel written as turned v in IPA is retained in this work and Miller and Morris, but is not represented in the other listed systems.
1. Introduction
Reduplication is a widely attested morphological device in Semitic, and a number of studies have described the traits of reduplicated patterns, starting with a subsection of the Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen (Brockelmann Reference Brockelmann1908: 517–9), to more recent studies exclusively concerned with this phenomenon (Butts Reference Butts2011; Unseth Reference Unseth and Bender2003). Among the reduplicated morphological patterns described, C1C2C3C2C3 has received relatively little attention. Brockelmann (Reference Brockelmann1908: 519) states that “Im Altarab. ist so wahrscheinlich der XII. Stamm gebildet mit nachträglicher Dissimilation des 3. Radikals in der 1.” and derives the form XII verb اخضوضر ixḍawḍara “be green; be dark” (Steingass Reference Steingass1884: 828) from an unattested earlier form *ixḍarḍara.
Butts (Reference Butts2011: 99–104), carries out a meticulous reconstruction of its Proto-Semitic archetypes for adjectives and substantives (*C1aC2aC3C2v̆C3 and *C1aC2aC3C2v̄C3 respectively), and outlines the semantics of the lexical items of this pattern: according to him, substantives do not have “discernible semantic characteristics, although isolated examples of diminutives are found in Gəʕəz, Arabic, and Israeli Hebrew”, whereas adjectives “fall into well-defined semantic groups, such as diminutives, intensives, sound-symbolic terms, and bodily or personal characteristics, including defects and color terms” (ibid. 99). As will be seen below, Butts’ definition of adjectival semantics holds true in Modern South Arabian for both nouns and adjectives of this pattern (see section 5).
Unseth’s analysis (Reference Unseth and Bender2003) surveys the presence and productivity of this pattern (which he calls “bi-consonantal reduplication”) in the nominal systems of various Semitic subgroups. Moreover, the pattern in question is cursorily mentioned in several descriptions of the morphological typology of Semitic (for example, Gensler Reference Gensler, Weninger, Khan, Streck and Watson2011).
However, none of the aforementioned studies point out that the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 exists in Modern South Arabian and is particularly productive in Jibbali/Shehret and Soqotri.Footnote 5 Its semantics, along with the description of various phonologically conditioned allomorphs, form the focus of this article, and will be dealt with in the following sections, the first of which will offer a general description of this pattern. The subsequent two sections will survey its productivity and characteristics in western (Mehri, Harsusi, Bathari and Hobyot)Footnote 6 and eastern (Jibbali/Shehret and Soqotri) Modern South Arabian. The discussion section puts forward some generalizations about the morphophonology and semantics of this pattern in the MSAL. Finally, the conclusion will recapitulate and summarize the contents of the paper and draw some comparisons with other Semitic and Afroasiatic subgroups.
2. The reduplicated pattern C1C2C3C2C3 in Semitic
This pattern is known to occur throughout West Semitic (Butts Reference Butts2011: 99). With regard to Akkadian, despite a lack of direct attestation, some nouns, such as zuqāqīpu “scorpion”, are thought to derive from *zuqapqīpu (Brockelmann Reference Brockelmann1908: 158 apud Butts Reference Butts2011: 99). In West Semitic, it is sparsely attested in Arabic,Footnote 7 Hebrew, and Syriac (Butts Reference Butts2011: 100–4), and significantly productive in Ethio-Semitic (Leslau Reference Leslau1987 passim for Gəʕəz, Unseth Reference Unseth2002 for Amharic).
In most cases, nominals and verbs of this pattern can be traced back to a triliteral C1C2C3 root, with which they maintain a noticeable semantic connection: for example, Arabic kuḏubḏub “liar” < kḏb “to lie” (Butts Reference Butts2011: 100), Gəʕəz wərəqrəq “glistening” < wärq “gold” (Unseth Reference Unseth2002: 74), and xasarsara “be reviled, be humiliated” < xasra “be disgraced, suffer disgrace” (Leslau Reference Leslau1987: 265–6). A similar semantic connection can be detected in the relevant MSAL lexical items: for example, Jibbali/Shehret ənšəṭərṭér “to bear many females” (Johnstone Reference Jonhstone1981: 264) to be compared with šɔ́ṭər, “2–3-month-old female calf” (lbid.), and Soqotri knimnīmoh “itch-louse” (Naumkin and Porkhomovsky Reference Naumkin and Viktor1999: 111) to be compared with kónum, “louse” (ibid.). However, the semantic relationship between a reduplicated term and its non-reduplicated counterpart may occasionally be rendered opaque by peculiar semantic developments: for example, Amharic tä-zräfärräfä “dribbled (of bits)” < zrf “pillage” (Unseth Reference Unseth2002: 72).
Butts (Reference Butts2011: 104) points out that “The pattern *C1C2C3C2C3 became increasingly more common throughout the history of Hebrew to the point that it is partially productive in Israeli Hebrew”, so that it may be used to form diminutive nouns, such as klavlav “little dog” < kelev “dog”, and approximative adjectives like šmanman “fattish” < šamen “fat” (ibid.).
Unseth’s PhD thesis (Reference Unseth2002) offers an in-depth analysis of the verbal forms of this pattern in Amharic and Ethio-Semitic at large. His analysis offers a valuable description of the semantics of these verbs highlighting a substantial number of semantic fields, which can be summarized thus: writhe, wriggle, lines of people moving, gait impairment, shake, vibrate, flutter, be wet, damp, turbid, slippery, slimy, dribble, leak, ooze, gush out, boil, overflow (ibid.: 216, 218–20). In general, the author states that these verbs tend to carry a strongly evaluative component, often with a negative connotation (ibid.: 216). Outside of Ethio-Semitic, mentions of this pattern in the verbal morphology of other Semitic languages are very sparse: apart from the reconstruction of the proto form at the basis of form XII in Arabic (see above), Butts (Reference Butts2011: 103) mentions Ugaritic “<ttpp> “she makes herself beautiful”, which is most likely a T-reflexive of the reduplicated verbal stem *C1C2C3C2C3 from the root √ypy “to be beautiful”. Two occurrences of the pattern are found in Ancient South Arabian, within the Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions (CSAI): Central Middle Sabaic ḏ-hlmlm (MuB 7 = Ir 16) and Late Sabaic ḥlmlm (Ry 520). Both are tribe names and, therefore, poor indicators of productivity and autochthony in the language in which they occur.
From the above reports, the morphological pattern under examination would appear to be scarcely productive in Semitic subgroups, with the exception of Ethio-Semitic. The data presented below will, however, slightly alter this picture and show that the pattern is moderately productive in the nominal and verbal systems of Modern South Arabian languages.
3. Western Modern South Arabian
Semitic scholars who are not specialists in Modern South Arabian may not be held accountable for not noticing the existence of the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 in Mehri and closely related languages. In fact, it does not appear in the classical reference work for Mehri, the Mehri Lexicon (Johnstone Reference Johnstone1987). As for Harsusi, the plant name kebśebéś “a plant, used to prepare snuff and a smoking mixture” found in the Harsusi Lexicon (Johnstone Reference Johnstone1977: 66) is the only recorded occurrence of this pattern in the corpus. As for Bathari and Hobyot, no trace of it could be found in the literature until very recently.
A cursory but significant mention of this pattern can, however, be found in Johnstone’s article about diminutive patterns in Modern South Arabian, in which he states that the plural patterns of diminutives formed with a long vowel after the second root consonant, or after the third root consonant in the case of quadriliterals, are “of considerable interest, in that some of them involve reduplication of the two final radicals” (Johnstone Reference Johnstone1973: 102). He then provides the following examples for Mehri: ḥōṭər “kid” > ḥewāṭār (SG.)/ḥeṭrɛ̄ṭōr (PL.), nēḥer “side-valley” > newāḥār (SG.)/neḥrɛ̄ḥōr (PL.), ḏ̣arb “wood” > ḏ̣ewɛ̄rēb (SG.)/ḏ̣erbɛ̄rōb (PL.), ṣ́ayga “cave; pen; fold” > ṣ́ewɛ̄gɛ̄ʔ (SG.)/ṣ́egāgew (PL.), ḳarš “Maria Theresa dollar” > ḳewɛ̄rēš (SG.)/ḳeršɛ̄rōš (PL.) (Johnstone Reference Johnstone1973; see also Rubin Reference Rubin2018: 102). Watson et al. (Reference Watson, al-Mahri, al-Mahri, al-Mahri and al-Mahri2020: 227) report a few more occurrences of this plural diminutive pattern: ṣaḳrɛ̄ḳōr “falcons”, ṭafnɛ̄fōn “rock hyraxes”, saknɛ̄kōn “families”. Importantly, Watson et al. add that this is the morphological pattern on which most masculine nouns that take stress on the first syllable form the diminutive plural.
A limited number of adjectives and non-diminutive nouns of this pattern can be found in Alexander Sima’s MahriyōtFootnote 8 texts (Sima Reference Sima2009): ṣḥamḥām “etwas braun” (p. 136), ʕfarfōr “place name” (p. 164), xalḳālōḳ (p. 168),Footnote 9 ṣbarbēr “plant name” (p. 406), jśarśār “grob gemahlen” (p. 410), ḥśamśām “scharf” (p. 412), xśafśēf “insect name” (p. 458), xarṭarāt “plant name” (p. 470), ġbarbār “gemischtfarben” (p. 470). Interestingly, according to some Dhofari Mehri speakers, the adjectives ṣḥamḥām, jśarśār, ḥśamśām and ġbarbār do not inflect for gender, in a parallel fashion to quadriliteral adjectives.Footnote 10
The pattern is found in Bathari for diminutive plural forms, albeit in a considerably more limited fashion than in Mehri. Morris and Gasparini (Reference Morris and Gasparini2025: 121) list the following items: xáder “place offering shade; cave (housing people and livestock)” > xadāwər (SG.)/xadərdār (PL.) and zəríbət “enclosure, pen; rubble stone dwellings of earlier times” > zwɛ̄rīb (SG.)/zərbərāb (PL.). In addition to the above, there are two nouns of this pattern that do not appear in the singular and exhibit a slightly different pattern: ḥaṣ́əlṣ́īl, “string of beads, shells” and ḥaṣəlṣīl “small pebbles, gravel” (ibid.: 99).
No trace of the pattern under examination can be found in the published literature on Hobyot, and its absence in the morphology of lexical items whose Mehri and Bathari cognates exhibit it may effectively speak to its absence. For example, xádər “shelter; cave settlement; sheltered overhang”, cognate of Bathari xáder “place offering shade; cave (housing people and livestock)” (see above) has a diminutive singular form xidér and a plural xidərútə (Morris et al. Reference Morris, Watson and Eades2019: 120). A recent description of this language does list a small number of plural diminutives, but none of them can be ascribed to the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 (Manoubi Reference Manoubi2023: 168–9).
With regard to verbal morphology, the published literature does not report any verbal forms exhibiting the pattern C1C2C3C2C3, which was confirmed during remote fieldwork with Mehri and Hobyot speakers.
4. Eastern Modern South Arabian
Jibbali/Shehret and Soqotri present the scholar with a picture of this pattern which differs substantially from that provided by Mehri and its closely related languages. As will be seen below, the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 is attested both in nominal (substantives and adjectives) and verbal morphology. Hence this section is subdivided into language-specific subsections.
4.1. Jibbali/Shehret
Johnstone (Reference Johnstone1973: 103) states that Jibbali/Shehret “seems to have no comparable formations” to those discussed above for the Western MSAL. However, while nothing points to a comparable productive pattern, one might want to consider hermerúm “small plant” (Morris Reference Morris2002: 9), no doubt connected to herúm “tree” (Johnstone Reference Jonhstone1981: 99).Footnote 11 Non-diminutive substantives of this pattern are plentifully attested in the Muʕǧam Lisān Ẓufār (al-Maʕšani Reference al-Maʕshani2014, henceforth MLZ). Table 2 illustrates a number of them.
Substantives on the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 in Jibbali/Shehret
Table 2 Long description
The table lists nine Jibbali/Shehret substantive terms, each paired with an Arabic definition, a transliteration, an English gloss, and an MLZ page reference. Meanings range from an abstract quality like deep blackness with a shine to social and emotional states such as an unwelcoming sojourn and pretended sadness and weeping. Several entries name living things, including a plant name, a type of grass, a glowing fly, a male sparrow, and a mythical creature. The remaining items describe processes or qualities, including convergent change. References span multiple MLZ pages, indicating the items are drawn from different parts of the source. One transliteration note indicates that the sound written as g may be pronounced differently by speakers of different dialects, so pronunciations may vary even when the term is the same.
In the lexical items above, the underlying nominal pattern *C1əC2əC3C2v́C3 is realized as a series of allomorphs triggered by the lowering effect of gutturals on adjacent vowels (items 2, 3, and 4),Footnote 13 the rising effect of nasals on adjacent vowels (item 9),Footnote 14 re-syllabification in the presence of liquids (items 3 and 5),Footnote 15 and the so-called “idle glottis effect”Footnote 16 whereby no vowel can stand between two unaccented voiceless and non-emphatic consonants (items 1 and 9). With regard to items 6, 7, and 8, their vocalic melody diverges from that of the other nouns listed in the table above, bearing a striking similarity with that of the adjectival pattern presented below.
Adjectives of the pattern in examination are attested, albeit in a moderate fashion. Some of the relevant items are presented in Table 3.
Adjectives on the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 in Jibbali/Shehret
Table 3 Long description
The table lists six Jibbali or Shehret adjectives following a specific consonant pattern, giving masculine singular and, when available, feminine singular forms. Each row also provides an Arabic definition when known, transliterations for the masculine and feminine forms, an English gloss, and a source reference. Only the first two adjectives include both masculine and feminine singular forms; the remaining four provide masculine forms only. Two items describe colour terms, one glossed as milky colour and one as matte colour, with the second lacking an Arabic definition. Four items describe physical traits, including strong constitution, wide chest, and huge chest, and one entry notes a physical defect with an uncertain gloss. Several Arabic definition cells are blank, indicating missing or unavailable meanings for those entries. References come from MLZ for four rows and from Suhail al-Amri for two rows.
The underlying pattern for the adjectives of this pattern is *C1əC2əC3C2ɔ́C3 for the masculine singular and *C1əC2əC3C2éC3 for the feminine singular. All the above adjectives exhibit allomorphy triggered by the lowering effect of gutturals (items 1, 2, 3, and 4), re-syllabification in the presence of liquids (items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6) and the lowering effect of nasals (item 4). In addition to the items listed above, items 6, 7, and 8 in Table 2 appear to be substantivized adjectives (Rubin Reference Rubin2014: 93–4) by virtue of the pattern they exhibit.Footnote 17
Finally, the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 in Jibbali/Shehret is also moderately productive in the verbal system. Table 4 shows a list of verbs of this pattern.
The n-prefixed verbs with the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 (N3-stem) in Jibbali/Shehret
Table 4 Long description
The table lists six Jibbali/Shehret verbs of the N3-stem type and gives four forms for each verb: perfect third masculine singular, imperative third masculine singular, subjunctive third masculine singular, and imperative second masculine singular, plus an English gloss and a reference. Across all six entries, the perfect and second-person imperative forms begin with an n sound written as “ə n”, indicating a stable n-prefix in these paradigms. The third-person imperative forms consistently add a d at the start compared with the perfect, while the subjunctive forms consistently add a y at the start. Example meanings include ‘grow visibly old,’ ‘become hunchback,’ ‘be absent-minded,’ ‘bear only female calves,’ ‘set or rise (sun or moon),’ and ‘become stiff.’ References are mostly to MLZ with one item cited to Johnstone 1981. The table provides exemplars rather than counts or frequencies, so it supports pattern comparison across forms but not conclusions about how common each verb type is.
The verbs of this pattern, all of which are n- prefixed, constitute a newly described verbal class in Jibbali/Shehret, labelled N3-stem in Castagna and al-Amri (Reference Castagna and al-Amri2025). The pattern of the third person singular of the perfect is ənC1əC2əC3C2éC3, the imperfect is dinC1əC2əC3C2éC3, the subjunctive is yənC1C2ɛ́C3C2əC3, and the imperative is formed on the pattern ənC1C2ɛ́C3C2əC3. The tokens above reflect rather faithfully the underlying patterns, except item 6, which exhibits the lowering effect of the guttural [ʕ] between C1 and C2.
4.2 Soqotri
Mentions of the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 are plentiful in Soqotri lexicography, and nouns are particularly abundant: for example, the Corpus of Soqotri Oral Literature (Naumkin et al. 2019) reports di-riḳóbḳob “Omasum, third stomach of a ruminant” (p. 361). Elsewhere, Naumkin and Porkhomovsky (Reference Naumkin and Viktor1999: 111) report knimnīmoh “itch-louse”. The ethnobotanical treatise Ethnoflora of the Soqotra Archipelago (Miller and Morris Reference Miller and Morris2004) contains a vast number of such nouns corresponding to plant names, among which it is worth mentioning di ḥaṭárṭəhʌr Footnote 18 “Actiniopteris semiflabellata” (p. 285),Footnote 19 ʕaṣábṣʌb “Pluchea obovata” (p. 509) and śerúbrub “Hypericum scopulorum” (p. 575). However, an even greater number of items appear to be substantivized adjectives such as ṣebérbəher “Doryopteris concolor” (p. 287) said to mean “sour, astringent” and used to indicate not only Doryopteris concolor, but also a number of other plants with sour juices (Miller and Morris Reference Miller and Morris2004 passim). In a similar fashion, the following items are noteworthy: ʕalímləhum “Anagallis arvensis”, but actually meaning “striped, marked” (p. 657), ḥalíblibo “Portulaca kuriensis” and “buttermilk-like” (p. 654), ḥaríṭrəṭ “Teucrium balfourii” and “weak” (p. 585), rxʌ́mxʌm “Lachnocapsa spathulata” and “grey-coloured” (p. 531).
Indeed, Johnstone describes a comparable diminutive plural pattern for Soqotri nouns (Reference Johnstone1973: 102) and reports the following examples: ḥágel “eyebrow” > ḥáwgehal (SG.)/ḥegálgehɔl (PL.), ḥarf “amulet” > ḥáwref (SG.)/ḥarúfruf (PL.), setreb “sunshade” > sáwater (SG.)/setértɔr (PL.), śɔrṭ “condition” > śoraṭ (SG.)/śeréṭrɔṭ (PL.), śarḳ “combed-out hair” > śoraḳ (SG.)/śeréḳrɔḳ (PL.) and ḳarš “Maria-Theresa dollar” > ḳaréšrɔš (PL.).
As for the verbal system, no trace of the pattern under examination could be found at the time of writing, although the rather high number of relevant verbal forms found in Jibbali/Shehret calls for a specific investigation into comparable forms in Soqotri.
5. Discussion
The attestation of the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 in Modern South Arabian is summarized in Table 5. Plural diminutives that entail the reduplication of the second and third root consonants of a triliteral root are attested in Mehri, Bathari, and Soqotri, with only one attestation in Harsusi,Footnote 20 which may well speak to borrowing. Non-diminutive nouns and adjectives of this pattern are scantily attested in Mehri within the western subgroup, whereas they are rather widespread in both Jibbali/Shehret and Soqotri. As for verbs, they are attested in Jibbali/Shehret only.
Attestation of the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 in Modern South Arabian
Table 5 Long description
The table records whether a specific morphological pattern is attested in six Modern South Arabian languages, grouped into Western and Eastern varieties, across four word classes. Mehri shows attestation for plural diminutives, nouns, and adjectives, but not for verbs. Soqotri shows attestation for plural diminutives, nouns, and adjectives, but not for verbs. Jibbali or Shehret shows attestation for nouns, adjectives, and verbs, while plural diminutives are uncertain. Harsusi has uncertain evidence only for plural diminutives and no attestation for nouns, adjectives, or verbs. Bathari attests plural diminutives but not nouns, adjectives, or verbs, and Hobyot shows no attestation in any category. Overall, nouns and adjectives are attested in three languages, verbs only in Jibbali or Shehret, and plural diminutives are mixed with uncertainty in some languages; question marks indicate unclear or incomplete evidence.
All parts of speech exhibiting this pattern possess interesting and poorly described features. In the first place, whilst in reduplicative constructions “increase of quantity (Augmentation) and increase of degree (Intensification) are universally preferred over decrease of quantity (Diminution) and decrease of degree (Attenuation)” (Uspensky Reference Uspensky1972: 70), reduplication is an uncommon pluralization strategy in Semitic that, at any rate, almost invariably involves the repetition of the last root consonant only (Ratcliffe Reference Ratcliffe1996: 298–302). Therefore, the plural diminutives attested in Mehri, Bathari, and Soqotri represent a rare instance in Semitic, where the reduplication of C2 and C3 is used productively to express plurality.
The non-diminutive nouns of this pattern can be said to express intensive characteristics and exaggeration. However, in order to gain a better understanding of their intensive semantics, one must compare the meaning of a reduplicated lexical item with its non-reduplicated counterpart. For example, Jibbali/Shehret təngjnɛ́gjət “deep blackness with a shine” (MLZ: 159) vis-à-vis tinɛ́g “ash used to colour the gums black” (Johnstone Reference Jonhstone1981: 271), ṣərdərɛ́d “glowing fly” (MLZ: 540) vis-à-vis ṣerɛ́d “light” (Johnstone Reference Jonhstone1981: 241), and Soqotri knimnīmoh “itch-louse” vis-à-vis kónum, “louse” (Naumkin and Porkhomovsky Reference Naumkin and Viktor1999: 111). By the same token, adjectives of this pattern convey a nuance of intensity: Jibbali/Shehret ʕaṯ̣əmṯ̣úm “of strong constitution” (MLZ: 637) vis-à-vis ʕaṯ̣ím “great” (Johnstone Reference Jonhstone1981: 8), and Soqotri ḥalíblibo “buttermilk-like” (Miller and Morris Reference Miller and Morris2004: 654) vis-à-vis ḥélob “lait” (Leslau Reference Leslau1938: 174). Furthermore, these adjectives are particularly interesting, at least in Jibbali/Shehret, in that their feminine is apophonic, similarly to a substantial number of non-triliteral adjectives in this language and Soqotri: ḥalblɔ́b “milky colour” (M.SG.) (MLZ: 255) > ḥalbléb (F.SG.), and ḥalḳəlɔ́ḳ “matte colour” (M.SG.) (Suhail al-Amri, p.c.) > ḥalḳəléḳ (F.SG.). See Lonnet (Reference Lonnet2008) for an in-depth description of this adjectival class and a hypothesis regarding its origin. Strikingly, however, Soqotri adjectives of the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 would seem to take the feminine suffix -o: ḥaliblíbo “buttermilk-like” (Miller and Morris Reference Miller and Morris2004: 654) would seem to speak to this state of affairs. However, more research is needed to ascertain the full inflectional morphology of these adjectives in Soqotri, including the masculine and feminine plurals.
The Jibbali/Shehret verbs on this pattern partly share their vocalic melody with other anisomorphicFootnote 21 verbal classes. In the perfect, the accented vowel is /ɔ/ for all persons and numbers except the third persons (singular and plural) which have /e/. The imperfect has /e/ for all persons and numbers except the second feminine singular, second and third masculine plural which have /i/ (Castagna and al-Amri Reference Castagna and al-Amri2025: 426). In terms of accented vowels, however, the subjunctive of the N3-stem exhibits a state of affairs that rather reflects H1, Š1, QH1, and QN1-stems from isomorphic root, that is a /ɛ/ for all persons except the second feminine which has /i/, and /ɔ/ for the second and third masculine plural (ibid.). Some verbs of this class, derived from roots with a /b/ or an /m/ as C2, surface as ənC1ēC3C2éC3 due to the intervocalic deletion of labials (Rubin Reference Rubin2014: 28). For example, əndērmír “(water) to become muddy” < *əndəmərmír,Footnote 22 from √dmr which in Jibbali/Shehret conveys the meaning of “mud”, as well as the more recent Arabic meaning of “destroying” (MLZ: 338). A word of caution should apply to the above results, which have been obtained from a limited number of speakers, all of whom come from the area of Sadḥ and Gufɛ in eastern Dhofar. It is then likely that the same verbs would yield different vowel arrangements in different varieties of Jibbali/Shehret. As for semantics, these verbs carry an unmistakable nuance of intensity vis-à-vis their non-reduplicated counterparts: ənšəṭərṭér “to bear only female calves” to be compared with ešṭér “to bear many female calves” (Johnstone Reference Jonhstone1981: 264), and ənśəḳərḳér “to set/rise (sun or moon)” (MLZ: 513) to be compared with śɔ́tḳər “to be light-sensitive and squint in strong light” (JL: 252).
The specific patterns for diminutives, non-diminutive nouns, non-diminutive adjectives and verbs on the model C1C2C3C2C3 are summarized in Table 6.
Realizations of the C1C2C3C2C3 pattern in Modern South Arabian with vocalic melody
Table 6 Long description
The table compares how a specific consonant pattern is realized across six Modern South Arabian languages, split into Western (Mehri, Harsusi, Bathari) and Eastern (Hobyot, Jibbali/Shehret, Soqotri), for plural diminutives, nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Mehri provides patterns for plural diminutives, nouns, and adjectives, but has no verb entry. Harsusi has a single plural diminutive form and no entries for nouns, adjectives, or verbs. Bathari lists one plural diminutive pattern and has no entries for the other word classes. Hobyot shows no data in any row. Jibbali/Shehret lists patterns for nouns and adjectives, including separate masculine and feminine adjective forms, and also provides a perfective verb pattern. Soqotri lists patterns for plural diminutives, nouns, and adjectives, but no verb entry. Dashes indicate missing or unattested forms, so gaps may reflect unavailable data rather than true absence in the language.
On a final note, and with the above data in mind, one wonders if a C1C2C3C2C3 form might underlie certain uncommon verbal nouns in Mehri and Jibbali/Shehret corresponding to basic stem verbs with */w/ as C1 exhibiting the loss of C1 and the reduplication of C2 and C3: for example, Mehri kəbkēb < √wkb “to enter” (Johnstone Reference Johnstone1987: 425), zemzēm < √wzm “to give” (Jahn Reference Jahn1902 apud Kungl Reference Kungl, Gasparini, Russell and Watson2024: 219), and Jibbali/Shehret gəḥgɛ́ḥ < √wgḥ “to enter” (MLZ: 970), zəkzə́k (sic.) (Kungl Reference Kungl, Gasparini, Russell and Watson2024: 219) < √wzk “to be ill; to groan” (Johnstone Reference Jonhstone1981: 295).
6. Conclusions
The aim of this article was to confirm the existence of the morphological pattern C1C2C3C2C3 in Modern South Arabian and describe its forms and functions, which was achieved largely by condensing and reporting a considerable number of passing remarks in previous works. The resulting picture is a complex one, with Soqotri patterns exhibiting a great variety of vocalic arrangements, so that, based on the data analysed, the only plausible generalization is that the plural diminutive pattern has /ɔ/ between the reduplicated C2 and C3, while nouns and adjectives may have an array of short vowels. This state of affairs certainly warrants further research on the pattern in examination in this language. With regard to the realizations of this pattern in the other MSAL, their vocalic arrangements and phonologically motivated allomorphs seem to be more predictable, as shown in Table 6.
Based on currently available materials, Harsusi and Hobyot would appear to be almost completely devoid of this morphological pattern. However, one must take into account multiple factors that may hinder its detection in these languages. First, diminutives in Harsusi are particularly rare (Johnstone Reference Johnstone1973: 103), although not unheard of. Second, despite the recent compilation of an excellent sketch grammar in the form of a PhD thesis (Manoubi Reference Manoubi2023), the documentation of Hobyot is still in its infancy. It is therefore likely that focused inquiries may reveal the existence of the pattern in examination of these languages.
Finally, it is not superfluous to point out that the morphological pattern C1C2C3C2C3 is attested not only in Semitic, where it has been reconstructed to the proto language (Butts Reference Butts2011: 99–104), but also in the Egyptian language, where it is scantily attested in the old and middle phases but significantly more frequently in late Egyptian and Coptic,Footnote 23 as well as in ChadicFootnote 24 and Berber.Footnote 25 Although not strictly relevant, one is compelled to mention the Cushitic morphological pattern C1C2C1C2C3, that is, the prefixed reduplication of the first and second root consonant, commonly used to express nominal plurality, frequentative, pluractional and habitual formations (Mous Reference Mous2008). In light of this, a systematic study on the reconstructibility of the pattern C1C2C3C2C3 and its allomorphs to Proto-Afroasiatic would constitute an interesting and potentially informative endeavour.
Abbreviations
- M.
Masculine
- F.
Feminine
- Sg.
Singular
- Pl.
Plural
- Prf.
Perfect
- Impv.
Imperfect
- Sbjt.
Subjunctive
- Imp.
Imperative
- √
Lexical root
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Letizia Cerqueglini for our conversations which prompted me to reflect on the issues discussed in this article (as well as in others) in a more profound and comprehensive manner than I would have without her criticism and encouragement. I would also like to express my gratitude to Suhail al-Amri, whose unfailing friendship, support, and rigorous linguistic advice are to credit for my scholarly activity over the past three years. Any remaining shortcomings in this and other papers are of course my own responsibility.
