1. Introduction
Both Berber and Semitic distinguish two genders, masculine and feminine. In both language families the feminine can be regularly marked with a suffix *-t (also *-at, in Semitic) to derive feminine nouns from masculine nouns (Huehnergard Reference Huehnergard and Woodard2004: 147f.; Kossmann Reference Kossmann, Frajzyngier and Shay2012: 52f.).
Besides the common feminine formations in Semitic that are marked by the suffixes *-t or *-at there are at least two other, less common, feminine formations which surface as -ā and -āʔ- in Arabic, which, as we will see later, also have reflexes in other Semitic languages (Huehnergard Reference Huehnergard and Woodard2004: 148).
Similarly, besides the suffix *-t, Berber has two other feminine suffixes *-e and *-a (Prasse Reference Prasse1974: 44f.), which are more common and productive in Berber than they are in the Semitic languages, but are nevertheless much less common than formations with -t.
In this paper I will examine the origins, morphology and semantic function of these, less common, feminine suffixes found in Semitic and Berber. I will argue that these must be reconstructed to *-ay and *-āy; and belonged to a shared ancestor of Semitic and Berber which we will call Proto-Berbero-Semitic here.Footnote 2
We will start by examining these feminine suffixes in Arabic, where it appears to have been retained in its most original form. Then we will examine the Semitic evidence outside of Arabic and reconstruct the feminine suffixes for Proto-Semitic. In the second part we will examine these feminine formations in the Berber languages, and reconstruct them for Proto-Berber. In the final part of the paper, we will consider the similarities in formation, morphology and semantics between Semitic and Berber, and suggest a preliminary reconstruction of this feminine formation in a language ancestral to these languages.
In this paper a variety of lexical items will be cited from a large number of different languages. When no further reference is given, the following sources were used for the respective languages: Arabic: Lane Reference Lane1863–1893; Geez: Leslau Reference Leslau1987; Ghadames: Lanfry Reference Lanfry1973; Mali Tuareg (abbreviated M): Heath Reference Heath2006; Niger Tuareg (Iwellemmeden dialect W, Ayer dialect Y): Prasse et al. Reference Prasse, Alojaly and Mohamed1998; Figuig: Benamara Reference Benamara2013; Middle Atlas Berber: Oussikoum Reference Oussikoum2013; Mzab: Delheure Reference Delheure1984; Ouargla: Delheure Reference Delheure1987; Awjila: Van Putten Reference Putten2014; Siwi: Naumann (Reference Naumannunpublished).
2. The feminine suffixes *-ay- and *-āy- in Arabic
We will discuss the feminine suffixes and their morphology individually.
2.1. The *-ay- suffix
Arabic has a feminine suffix -ā, normally written with the alif maqṣūrah (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §64b). This alif maqṣūrah points to an original suffix *-ay in Proto-Arabic.Footnote 3 This feminine suffix is commonly found on the feminine counterpart to the masculine ʔafʕal elatives. Feminine elatives have the fuʕl-ā feminine formation (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §127). As these nouns do not take nunation, unlike other nouns that end in a final diphthong (e.g. fatan < *fatay-Vn), it seems that these feminine formations were originally diptotes, just like their masculine counterparts (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §125a).
masculine feminine
nom. *ʔakbar-u *kubr-ay-u ‘greatest’
gen./acc. *ʔakbar-a *kubr-ay-a
Besides the feminine counterpart of elatives, the *-ay- suffix is also employed for several other adjectival formations. The faʕl-ā is the feminine counterpart to masculine faʕl-ān-u adjectives, e.g. kaslānu ‘lazy’, fem. kaslā (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §119).
We also find nouns with the *-ay- suffix with the patterns *faʕl-ay-, *fiʕl-ay- *fuʕl-ay- and *faʕal-ay. These generally denote abstracts and verbal substantives (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §75b): daʕwā ‘claim’, ḏikrā ‘memory’, bušrā ‘good tidings’, ǧafalā ‘everyone without distinction’
This formation occasionally denotes concrete nouns:
miʕzā ‘goats’ (besides miʕzan)
siʕlā ‘female demon’ (besides siʕlāh)
šiʕrā ‘sirius (star)’
The pattern *fuʕāl-ay is used to denote names for birds (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §77): ḥubārā ‘bustard’.
The plural of nouns with this suffix are formed with faʕālin, faʕālā (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §99a):
fatwā pl. fatāwin, fatāwā ‘legal opinion’
ḏifrā pl. ḏafārin, ḏafārā ‘camel's sweat gland behind the ear’
When followed by the sound feminine plural suffix, the etymological y of the suffix appears, e.g. ḥublā ‘pregnant’ pl. ḥublayāt-, ḏikrā ‘memory’ pl. ḏikrayāt- (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §105b).
2.2. The *-āy- suffix
There is a group of feminine nouns and adjectives with a diptotic suffix *-āʔ-. This ending is attested as the feminine counterpart to the ʔafʕal- adjectives of colour or bodily defects. Feminines of this type always have the stem shape faʕl-āʔ-. The Classical Arabic paradigm is given below:
masculine feminine
nom. ʔabyaḍ-u bayḍ-āʔ-u ‘white’
gen./acc. ʔabyaḍ-a bayḍ-āʔ-a
nom. ʔaṭraš-u ṭarš-āʔ-u ‘deaf’
gen./acc. ʔaṭraš-a ṭarš-āʔ-a
Besides this adjectival pattern, there are several other formations with this feminine suffix. It generally has the same abstract and verbal substantive function as nouns with the *-ay- suffix. The vast majority of the abstract nouns have a faʕl-āʔ formation, e.g. baʔsāʔ- ‘suffering’, baġdāʔ- ‘hatred’, ḍarrāʔ- ‘hardship’, sarrāʔ- ‘ease’, naʕmāʔ- ‘favour’, faḥšāʔ- ‘immorality’, dakkāʔ- ‘level’. There is, moreover, a degree of free variation between the *-ay- suffix and this feminine suffix, e.g. ruhbā, ruhbāʔ- ‘dread’ (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §75b.4).
Occasionally, concrete nouns also have this suffix:
ṣaḥrāʔ- ‘desert’
ʕaḏrāʔ- ‘virgin’
saynāʔ- ‘Mount Sinai’
Based purely on Classical Arabic evidence, it is difficult to decide what the origin of this feminine ending is. It may come from either *-āʔv̆, *-āwv̆ or *-āyv̆, as Classical Arabic has undergone a shift from *w, y > ʔ /ā_v̆ (Brockelmann Reference Brockelmann1908: 138; Al-Jallad Reference Al-Jallad2014a: 11–2).
Old ArabicFootnote 4 evidence, however, seems to answer this question unambiguously. Both Safaitic and Hismaic have not regularly undergone the *w, y > ʔ /ā_v̆ shiftFootnote 5 and show evidence of the feminine (and plural) suffix as */-āy/. Graf and Zwettler (Reference Graf and Zwettler2004), discussing the Hismaic Madaba inscription, translate the following phrase thus:
w-ytḥlb ṣḥry
‘and (now) he sweats feverishly (as a horse[?])’
Ahmad Al-Jallad (p.c.) has reinterpreted this inscription, a publication of which is in preparation, where he parses this phrase differently, yielding a much more plausible interpretation:
w-ytḥl b-ṣḥry
‘and he encamped in the desert’
Accepting this interpretation, we now have a likely example of */saḥrāy/ in Old Arabic.
Additional evidence is found in Safaitic, which has the noun ʕrḍ ‘valley’ with a corresponding plural ʔʕrḍy, which Al-Jallad (Reference Al-Jallad2015: 65) convincingly argues can only be interpreted as being a reflex of the plural formation that corresponds to Classical Arabic ʔafʕil-āʔu (e.g. qarīb- pl. ʔaqribāʔ- ‘relative’, see Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §100), i.e. */ʔaʕriḍāy/.
Not only has this shift not affected all of Old Arabic, it has not taken place in several dialects of Yemeni Arabic of the Ṣaʕdah region either. Behnstedt (Reference Behnstedt1987: 41) argues that the shift has not taken place in the dialects of Rāziḥ and Xawlān, as is shown by the active participles of medial weak verbs where medial w and medial y have not merged, e.g. ṭāyir ‘flying’, CAr. ṭāʔir-; gāwul ‘saying’, CAr. qāʔil-. Other dialects always have y in this position. For these dialects it is unclear whether they underwent a shift *āwi, *āyi > *āʔi with a subsequent shift to āyi, or whether *āwi and *āyi simply merged to āyi.
Reflexes of this sequence in other positions, however, suggest that other dialects of the region did not undergo the shift to āʔ either. For example, the faʕāl verbal nouns of final weak verbs retain this semi-vowel (which is always y, as III-w and III-y verbs have merged to III-y) in many more dialects than just Xawlān and Rāziḥ. It is also found in Banī Maʿāḏ, Im-Maṯ̣ṯ̣ah, Šidāʾ, Ḥijlah, Xāšir and Banī ʿAbādil (Behnstedt Reference Behnstedt1987: 59), e.g. ġadāy(-in) ‘lunch’, CAr. ġadāʔ-; ʕašāy(-in) ‘dinner’, CAr. ʕašāʔ-; ġalāy ‘becoming expensive’, CAr. ġalāʔ-; ŝirāy ‘buying’, CAr. šarāʔ-.Footnote 6
We might therefore expect these dialects to have the shape of the feminine suffix -āy-. Behnstedt (Reference Behnstedt1987: 60f., and wordlist s.v.) describes the reflex of this feminine suffix for the Rāziḥ and Im-Maṯ̣ṯ̣ah dialects and shows that while Im-Maṯ̣ṯ̣ah has the predicted -āy-, Rāziḥ has -āʔ:
Rāziḥ Im-Maṯ̣ṯ̣ah
bēḏ̣āʔ bayṯ̣āy ‘white’
ṣafrāʔ stafrāy ‘yellow’
n/a stanǧāy ‘deaf’
ʕamyāʔ ʕamyāy ‘blind’
Behnstedt considers the appearance of this y “allerdings […] unetymologisch”, and suggests that it arose through a sound law *āʔu > *āyu > āy. There is, however, no evidence for such a shift, and in light of the Old Arabic evidence, it seems that the y certainly is etymological.
The Rāziḥ dialect, while it did not undergo the w, y > ʔ /ā_v̆ shift, appears to have undergone a shift *āy > *āʔ word-finally. This is confirmed by a variety of lexical items that have /ʔ/ word-finally, where /y/ would be expected (examples from the wordlist in Behnstedt Reference Behnstedt1987):
samāʔ ‘heaven’, cf. Safaitic smy */samāy/ (Al-Jallad Reference Al-Jallad2015: 342), Geez samāy.
balāʔ ‘affliction’ verbal noun of balē ‘to ruin, afflict’ √bly.
ḥamāʔ ‘heat’, verbal noun of ḥamē ‘to heat’ √ḥmy.
A reconstruction of the feminine suffix as *-āy-, rather than the *-āʔ- therefore seems more likely. A final argument in favour of a suffix *-āy- over a suffix *-āʔ- are the broken plural patterns associated with nouns of this shape. Like nouns with the feminine suffix *-ay, the semi-vowel of the suffix is incorporated into the broken plural pattern in Classical Arabic (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §99a):
Singular Plural
ʕaḏrāʔ ʕaḏārā, ʕaḏārin (عذار(ى ‘virgin’ < *ʕaḏāray-u, *ʕaḏāriy-un
ṣaḥrāʔ ṣaḥārā, ṣaḥārin (صحار(ى ‘desert’ < *ṣaḥāray-u, *ṣaḥāriy-un
These plurals that contain a consonant y, not overtly present in the singular. would be difficult to understand if the feminine suffix -āʔ- did not come from an original form *-āy-.
Nouns with this suffix may also have a sound feminine plural suffix, in which case the final ʔ (< *y) turns into a w (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §105b):
Singular Plural
ṣaḥrāʔ- ṣaḥrāwāt- ‘desert’
ḫaḍrāʔ- ḫaḍrāwāt- ‘herb’
ʕaḏrāʔ- ʕaḏrāwāt- ‘virgin’
The shift of the feminine ending *-āy- to *-āw- when followed by the sound feminine plural suffix cannot be motivated by any regular sound law in the Arabic language, and is difficult to explain as an internal innovation in Arabic, which suggests that this alternation may be old.
2.3. The feminine suffixes in other Semitic languages
The feminine endings *-ay and *-āy are quite a marginal group within Arabic, but are attested even more sparsely in other Semitic languages. Despite their highly vestigial status in most Semitic languages, there are clear indications that they exist outside of Arabic and must be reconstructed for Proto-Semitic. Brockelmann (Reference Brockelmann1908: 410 ff.) discusses these suffixes in Proto-Semitic in some detail, and considers them part of a larger ancient noun-class system. Hasselbach (Reference Hasselbach2014) considers these formations simply as marginal feminine endings, and shows that their use as verbal abstract and formation are attested across most branches of Semitic.
2.3.1. *-ay in other Semitic languages
Hasselbach (Reference Hasselbach2014: 332) identifies the Arabic ending that we reconstruct as *-ay as coming from Proto-Semitic *-ā, but the spelling of this final -ā with yāʔ, as well as evidence from the rhyme in the Quran and other evidence (see Van Putten Reference Putten2017), leave little doubt that the Arabic suffix should be equated to what Hasselbach reconstructs as *-ay.
Hasselbach (Reference Hasselbach2014: 336) expresses some doubt as to whether the *-ay ending can be reconstructed for Proto-Semitic, as she does not think it is clearly attested in Akkadian. However, Wilson-Wright (Reference Wilson-Wright2014) reconstructs this ending for the feminine Proto-Semitic numeral ‘one’: *ʕast- fem. *ʕast-ay- based on Akkadian ištēn fem. ištī(a) < *ištay-at and several vestigial forms such as that found in Hebrew ʕaštē ʕāśār ‘eleven’. Accepting this reconstruction, we can state that there is some evidence of this feminine ending in Akkadian as well, and it can therefore probably be reconstructed for Proto-Semitic.
Besides the numeral ‘one’, the feminine ending *-ay appears on a variety of isolated feminine nouns throughout Semitic. Syriac, for example, has several feminine nouns ending in -ay: salway ‘quails’,Footnote 7 kawkḇay ‘a kind of bird’, ḥēp̄ay ‘a kind of gnat’; gwāḡay ‘spider’; tanway ‘condition (terms)’ ṭūʕyay ‘error’; ṭūšyay ‘concealment’ (only in b-ṭūšyay ‘in secret’) (Nöldeke Reference Nöldeke and Crichton1904: §83).Footnote 8
Geez also has a small set of feminine nouns with the suffix -e (< *-ay). They generally have a stem shape CaCC or CəCC (Dillmann Reference Dillmann2005: §128 (c)). The formation is thus parallel to the Arabic formation *fv̆ʕl-ay-.
śarwe ‘beam of wood’
sarwe ‘army’
ʔarwe ‘beast’
talbe ‘flax’ (also təlabe, talabe, təlābe)
karbe ‘myrrh’
zoṗe ‘ebony’
ḍāḍe ‘moth’
qaṣāṗe ‘chameleon’
ʔanqe Footnote 9 ‘hawk’ (pl. ʔanāqəy, cf. Ar. fatwā pl. fatāwin)
kāʕse ‘dung’
gəmʕe ‘pitcher’ (pl. gamāʕəy, gamāʕəw, gəmʕeyāt)
qwasṭe ‘big stomach of ruminants’
qwəsṭe ‘hump of animal’
Besides these, Geez, like Arabic, uses this suffix to derive abstract verbal nouns. In Geez, however, they are used to derive these from derived verbs (Dillmann Reference Dillmann2005: §120). The patterns seem to be based on CuCāC-ay, a pattern we only find as a plural formation in Arabic (Fischer Reference Fischer2002: §122). The Geez formation retains the lengthening of the vowel and/or the consonant of the verb it is derived from:
L-stems/t-L-stems: CuCāCe
burāke ‘blessing’ bāraka ‘to bless’
gubāʔe ‘assembly’ gābəʔa ‘to gather, collect’
kufāle ‘partition’ takāfala ‘share among themselves’
D-stems CəC̄āCe
həllāwe ‘existence, being’ hallawa, hallo ‘to exist’
ḥəddāse ‘renewal’ ḥaddasa ‘to renew’
śəllāse ‘Trinity’ śallasa ‘to triple’
With traces of the *-ay ending present in Arabic, Geez, Aramaic, Hebrew and Akkadian, it seems readily reconstructable for Proto-Semitic.
2.3.2. *-āy in other Semitic languages
On the basis of Old Arabic and modern dialectal evidence, we have argued that the Classical Arabic *-āʔu feminine ending must go back to a Proto-Arabic suffix *-āy-. Hasselbach (Reference Hasselbach2014: 333), who would reconstruct this suffix as *-āʔ- equates it to the Akkadian suffix -āʔ-, which may mark verbal nouns that express planned or regular actions, citing Old Akkadian muḫurrāʔum ‘regular receipt’ and distributive numbers such as Old Babylonian šulušā ‘three each’ < *šulušāʔ.
The fact that Akkadian has -āʔ-, while Proto-Arabic must have had *-āy- is no great impediment to reconstructing the suffix as *-āy- for Proto-Semitic. Like Classical Arabic, and Aramaic, Akkadian appears to have undergone a shift of *āy/wv > *āʔv. This can be seen from the active participle of medial weak verb, which replaces the medial radical with ʔ (Huehnergard Reference Huehnergard1997: 196).
A possible reflex of this ending might be present in Ugaritic. Van Soldt (Reference Soldt, Shehata, Weierhäuser and Zand2010) has shown that Ugaritic names belonging to females with the (hypocoristic?) ending -āyu are overrepresented. He counts (p. 316) 40 per cent of the names as belonging to females, while over the whole corpus of Ugaritic less than 5 per cent of the attested names belong to females. This form is of course quite similar formally to the Arabic *-āy- suffix, and the connection with feminines makes a comparison plausible. It should however be noted that still a small majority of the nouns with this ending refer to masculine names, which makes the equivalence far from perfect.Footnote 10
Van Soldt (Reference Soldt2005) also shows that this same suffix -āyu occurs in several place names, such as maʕrabāyu. He argues that these may be feminine, if we assume that the word for ‘town’, a feminine noun (qarītu or qar(a)tu) on which such a place name would depend, is elided. maʕrabāyu could then be understood as ‘the western (town)’. While it is possible that the -āyu ending for place names is feminine, there is no positive evidence for this. Moreover, not all nouns with the ending -āyu in Ugaritic are feminine.
There appears to be one example of a verbal abstract feminine noun in Ugaritic that has a suffix -y, namely: nʕmy */naʕmāyu/ ‘delight, goodness, beauty’, cf. Ar. naʕmāʔ- ‘favour, good will’ (Olmo Lete and Sanmartín Reference Olmo Lete, Sanmartín and Watson2003: 615). The retention of *y in the consonantal writing implies that the suffix was -āyu and not -ayu, as Ugaritic underwent a shift of *-ayv̄̆ 2 > *v̄̆ 2 (Huehnergard Reference Huehnergard2012: 28; Tropper Reference Tropper2000: 198 ff.).Footnote 11
The Geez feminine suffix -ā has close parallels with the Arabic feminine ending *-āy that suggest a common origin. Nouns of this type generally have the shape CV̆CC or CaCaC + the suffix -ā.Footnote 12 They are used to form verbal nouns and abstract nouns as well as, occasionally, concrete nouns. As discussed in section 3.2.1 above, this suffix should not be connected with Classical Arabic -ā, as this likely corresponds to the -e ending instead. Therefore it is more likely that this ending corresponds to the Classical Arabic -āʔu ending instead.
There are a number of verbal nouns derived from the G-stems and D-stems with the shape CaCaCā (Dillman Reference Dillmann2005: §111 (a)):
makarā ‘trial, temptation’ makkara ‘to tempt’
ʔabasā ‘transgression, sin’ ʔabbasa ‘to sin’
ʕamaḍā ‘injustice’ (also ʕamaḍ) ʕammaḍa ‘act unjustly’
zalafā ‘reproof, correction’ zalafa ‘to rebuke’
maʕazā ‘odour’ məʕza, maʕaza ‘to smell sweet’
ḥatatā ‘searching, inquiry’ ḥatata ‘to search’
xaśaśā ‘inquiry, searching’ xaśaśa ‘to seek, seek out’
nakarā ‘wonder’ ʔankara ‘to wonder’
There are some cases where the noun retains the gemination found in the corresponding verb:
dammanā ‘cloud, mass’ dammana ‘to cover with clouds’
qabbalā ‘meeting’ taqabbala ‘to go out to meet’
Besides this, there are several nouns with this formation that are not deverbal but simple nouns:
qaṣalā ‘crown, diadem’
kawalā ‘rear, behind’
ḥamadā ‘snow’
saqalā ‘tent’
Several deverbal nouns from G-stems and general nouns have the shape Cə/aCC followed by -ā (sometimes interchanging with -at) (Dillmann Reference Dillmann2005: §127(b):
ḥənṣā, ḥənṣat ‘building’ ḥanaṣa ‘to build’
gwəyyā, gwəyyat ‘flight’ gwayya, gwayaya ‘to run, flee’
nətgā, nətgat, nətg ‘lack, defect’ nataga, natga ‘to cease, stop’
nəfqā, nəfqat, nəfq ‘half, middle’ nafaqa ‘to tear off, divide (in two)’
māḥəlā Footnote 13, maḥalā ‘oath’ maḥala ‘to swear’
labḥā ‘earthenware’ labḥa ‘to make earthenware’
Besides this, there are several simple nouns with this formation:
miʕā ‘oil of myrrh'
taqdā ‘coriander’
kwallā, kwallat ‘valley’
zabdā, zabd, zabdəw ‘pelt, skin garment’
A few deverbal nouns have the formation CəC̄əCā:
nəssəḥā ‘penitence’ nassəḥa ‘to repent’
fəśśəā ‘joy’ tafaśśəḥa ‘to rejoice’
The stems that the -ā feminine suffix of Geez can connect to (mostly CaCaC, CaCC, CəCC), are similar to the Arabic *-ay- and *-āy- suffixes (which connect to CaCaC, CaCC, CiCC and CuCC). Moreover, the formation is generally used to form abstract deverbal nouns, but can also be used for general noun formations. As in Arabic, -ā is not a derivational feminine suffix, and a noun cannot be made masculine by removing it.
The parallels between Arabic and Geez are manifold, but the etymological connection is somewhat difficult. From lexical items such as Geez samāy ‘sky’ ~ Ar. samāʔ ‘id.’, and Geez māy ‘water’ ~ Ar. māʔ ‘id.’, Geez śəqāy ‘torment, torture, pain’ ~ Ar. šiqāʔ ‘id.’ we can see that āy in Geez generally corresponds to Arabic āʔ < *āy. We might therefore expect the Arabic feminine suffix *-āy- to be reflected in Geez as **-āy, not as -ā.
The difference between *samāy-, and feminines in *-āy, however, is that in Arabic the former is a triptote and the latter a diptote. If we project the diptosy of this ending back to a common ancestor of Ethio-Semitic and Arabic (e.g. Proto-West-Semitic), we may imagine that this gave rise to a difference in reflexes by assuming *-āyv̆ yielded *-ā, while the loss of *y was guarded by mimation in the triptotic nouns.
1. *samāyum *hamad-āy-u/a
2. *samāyum *hamad-ā (Proto-Geez *-āyv# > *-ā)
3. *samāyəm *hamad-ā (Loss of u/i-contrast before mimation, see
Al-Jallad Reference Al-Jallad2014b)
4. samāy hamad-ā
This rule is ad hoc as there are no parallel environments to this feminine ending with which we could confirm this development.Footnote 14
With the presence of the *-āy- suffix in Arabic, Ugaritic, Akkadian and probably Geez, this suffix is also safely reconstructable for Proto-Semitic.
2.3.3. Conclusion on feminine nouns in Arabic and Semitic
Summing up, there is clear evidence that the feminine suffixes *-ay and *-āy existed in Proto-Semitic. These suffixes may only be placed on a limited amount of stems. The ones identified are Cv̆CC, CaCaC and CuCāC. In Arabic and Geez these formations are fairly productive, in other Semitic languages they are purely vestigial. Formations with this suffix are mainly employed to form abstract deverbal nouns, and besides that, may also refer to concrete nouns. Finally, it has been argued that the y~w alternation found in sound plural of feminines with the suffix *-āy- such as *ṣaḥrāy, pl. *ṣaḥrāwāt cannot be explained easily as an Arabic internal development and therefore might be old.
A final similarity between these Arabic and Geez feminine endings is that the suffixes cannot be used as derivational feminine suffixes, e.g. Ar. ʕaḏrāʔ-, ‘virgin’, does not have a counterpart **ʕaḏr- ‘male virgin’. Whenever the feminine suffixes *-ay and *-āy are attested as a productive suffix beside a masculine form, as in the ʔafʕal adjective classes of Arabic, we find that the feminine suffix is not the only distinguishing factor between the stems, but that the masculine and feminine forms also use different stems.
3. The feminine suffixes -e and -a in Berber
The most common Berber feminine suffix is -t, which is cognate to the Semitic *-t/-at. This feminine ending can be productively used to form diminutives or feminines of masculine nouns, e.g. a-ɣyul ‘donkey’,Footnote 15 ta-ɣyul-t ‘she-donkey’.Footnote 16 A smaller group of feminine nouns take the suffixes -e or -a, which do not normally have a masculine counterpart. These nouns consistently have a stem shape *CəCC or *CăCC, or shapes with long vowel, the latter presumably due to the loss of a Pre-Proto-Berber radical. Many lexical items with these suffixes can be easily reconstructed for Proto-Berber,Footnote 17 and this formation is commonly attested as a verbal noun formation in all Berber varieties. Its reconstruction to Proto-Berber is therefore uncontroversial. The similarity between these suffixes, and the Arabic suffix *-ay/-āy was recognized by Prasse (Reference Prasse1974: 45). This section will examine the morphology, semantics and plural formation of these Berber feminine noun formations.
Nouns of this type are often deverbal abstract nouns. Some examples from Mali Tuareg are:
ta-năkr-a ‘getting up’ ənkər ‘to get up’
te-hădd-e ‘standing up’ əbdəd ‘to stand up’Footnote 18
ta-nəbr-e ‘pasturing at night’ əmbər ‘to be taken to pasture at night’
tă-zuɣ-e ‘redness’ izwiɣ ‘to be red’
This formation is also often attested for concrete nouns, e.g.
te-năll-e ‘thread’
ta-wəkk-e ‘worm’
ta-fəkk-a ‘body’
ta-səṭṭ-a ‘broken-off, dry branch from a tree’
Denominal collective nouns are also occasionally derived with this formation, e.g.
ta-ɣəss-a ‘body’ e-ɣăss ‘bone’
Some nouns have only two root consonants and a long vowel instead of a third radical. These long vowels have been hypothesized to come from a lost radical (for example by Prasse Reference Prasse1972: 67 ff.; 1974: 338, 334–5) as shown in Table 1.
Pre-Proto-Berber origin of biradical feminine formations with -e and -a
3.1. Evidence for *Vy > *V in word-final position
There is no direct Berber-internal evidence that the feminine suffix *-a, may be reconstructed for Pre-Proto-Berber *-ay. There is however some evidence that word-final *-a can come from an earlier sequence *-ay or *-aw, making it plausible that the feminine suffix *-a originally comes from *-ay and can therefore be compared to the Proto-Semitic feminine suffix *-āy-. There are examples of masculine nouns with a word-final plain vowel which corresponds to a feminine noun with a final cluster *-y-t or *-w-t, e.g.
Fig. a-ɣənža ‘big spoon’ ta-ɣənžay-t ‘spoon’
Fig. a-ziza ‘blue (m.)’ ta-zizaw-t ‘blue (f.)’
Similar alternations are found between the masculine singular and plural:
Fig. a-ɣərda i-ɣərday-ən ‘rat’
Fig. a-ziwa i-ziway-ən ‘bunch of dates’
Fig. a-εəqqa i-εəqqay-ən ‘part of a necklace’
This alternation is best explained by assuming a Pre-Proto-Berber loss of word-final *y, and *w, where the semi-vowel resurfaces when it is no longer in word-final position. As such, the feminine ending *-a may come from Pre-Proto-Berber *-ay, and therefore can formally match the Proto-Semitic *-āy.
In Awjila Berber, final *y is occasionally found in nouns that have a feminine ending *-a in other dialects:
Awj. taɣmáy pl. taɣmawín ‘thigh’, cf. Tashl. taɣma; Tuareg taɣma; Ghadames taɣma, etc.
Awjila tqárṭay pl. tqarṭiwín ‘paper’; Siwi tyaṛṭa ‘paper’Footnote 20
There is one metathesized example that also seems to point to a feminine suffix -ay:
Awj. təkšáymt ‘watermelon’, Ghadames tammăksa ‘melon’, Siwi taṃəksa ‘id.’.
There are several other cases where word-final -ay not related to a feminine suffix also corresponds to word-final a in other dialects,Footnote 21 e.g.
Awj. aẓmáy ‘rush’, cf. Siwi aẓəmma ‘id.’
Awj. aziwáy ‘bunch of dates’, cf. Ghadames aziwa ‘id.’, Fig. aziwa ‘id.’, Ouargla taziwayt ‘bunch’, Mzab taẓiwayt ‘id.’
There are, however, other cases where the final -a in other Berber languages simply corresponds to -a.
Awj. tamə´sna ‘the outside’, cf. Ghd. tamăsna ‘desert’
Awj. tuqə´rṭa ‘theft’, cf. Nef. tukə́rḍa
Awj. tkirzá ‘ploughing’, cf. MA tayərza
It is unclear what causes the double reflexes of the suffix -a in Awjili.
3.2. Proto Berber *-e < Pre-Proto-Berber *-ăy
The feminine suffix *-e shows up in the majority of the languages as -i. Only Tuareg and Ghadamsi retain this contrast.Footnote 22 Prasse (Reference Prasse1974: 44) suggests that this suffix came from an earlier *-ăy. This is mainly based on the comparison with the Arabic feminine suffix *-ay. This equation is attractive and a development *ăy# > *e is phonetically plausible. There are, however, some cases of word-final *ăy that can be reconstructed for Proto-Berber. This mostly occurs in the perfective stem of verbs with a final *y. These can plausibly be explained as the result of analogy:
Aorist Perfective
*y-ălməd *y-əlmăd ‘to learn’
*y-ărwəy *y-ərwe >> *yərwăy ‘to knead’
There are no clear examples of nouns that end in *-ăy, nor are there many examples of nouns that end in *-e where it does not involve this feminine suffix under discussion. This makes it difficult to prove that a development *ăy# > *e has taken place, but there is no clear counter-evidence for it either. A reconstruction of the feminine suffix as *-ăy for Pre-Proto-Berber, equating it to the Semitic suffix, seems possible.
3.3. Plural formation of the feminine endings *-e and *-a
Berber has a variety of plural formations of nouns that end in *-e and *-a. Some are formed through suffixation, while other are formed by apophonic formations. We will focus here on the suffixed plural formation.
The suffixes that are found for these nouns are *-iw-en and *-aw-en.Footnote 23 These two suffixes are in complementary distribution. If the preceding vowel is low (a, ă or e Footnote 24) the suffix is *-iw-en, if the preceding vowel is high (u, i or ə) the suffix is *-aw-en.Footnote 25
3.3.1. Tuareg
The examples below are taken from Heath's (Reference Heath2006) Mali Tuareg dictionary. The alternation found in Tuareg is almost completely regular.Footnote 26
te-hădd-e ti-hadd-iw-en Footnote 27 ‘height, standing up’
ta-năkr-a ti-nakr-iw-en ‘standing up’
ta-wəkk-e ti-wəkk-aw-en ‘earthworm’
ta-fəkk-a ti-fəkk-aw-en ‘body’
t-aɣm-a t-aɣm-iw-en ‘thigh’
t-eɣs-e Footnote 28 t-aɣs-iw-en ‘sheep, goat’
t-ord-a t-ord-aw-en ‘expectation, hope’
t-uks-e t-uks-aw-en ‘heat’
t-ikr-a t-ikr-aw-en ‘theft’
t-iws-e t-iws-aw-en ‘tribute, tax’
tă-mar-a ti-mar-iw-en ‘force, vigour’
te-ner-e ti-nar-iw-en ‘desert’
tă-kob-a ti-kob-aw-en ‘sword, sabre’
ta-hoḍ-e ti-hoḍ-aw-en ‘oath’
ta-kiy-a ti-kiy-aw-en ‘body’
3.3.2. Ghadames Berber
Ghadamsi appears to have the same allophonic distribution as Tuareg, but the limited number of lexical items with this formation found in Ghadamsi, and some internal developments obscure the distribution somewhat. The lexical data is taken from Lanfry (Reference Lanfry1973).
ta-waεn-e Footnote 29 t-wăεn-iw-én ‘load, burden’
ta- β al-e t- β al-iw-én ‘sheep’
t-amẓ-a t-ămẓ-iw-én ‘ogre’
t-aɣm-a t-ăɣm-iw-én ‘thigh’
t-akn-a t-akn-iw-én ‘co-wife’
t-arw-a t-arw-iw-én ‘child’
t-aεl-a t-aεl-iw-én ‘wick’
ta-qărqăb-a tə-qărqab-iw-én ‘skull’
ta-ma/ăsn-a tə-masn-iw-én ‘desert’
ta-faṣk-a tə-făṣk-iw-én ‘religious feast’
ta-băǧn-a tə-băǧn-iw-én ‘skull’
ta-kərḍ-a tə-kərḍ-iw-én Footnote 30 ‘letter, written paper’
ṭ-ărš-i Footnote 31 ṭ-ărš-iw-én ‘date before maturity’
ta-waεn-e t-wăεn-iw-én ‘a load’
ta- β al-e t- β al-iw-én ‘sheep’
ta-waǧ-e t-wəǧǧ-iw-én Footnote 32 ‘bread’
ta-naḍr-e tə-naḍr-iw-én ‘half a handful (of s.th.)’
ṭo-ḍăβl-a ti-ḍəβl-iw-én Footnote 33 ‘a plank of palm’
ta-măks-a tə-məks-iw-én ‘melon’
ṭ-ór-a ṭ-ór-aw-én ‘lung’
t-ós-a t-os-aw-én ‘liver’
ta-maṣur-a t-maṣur-aw-én ‘type of vase’
t-ədr-a t-ədr-aw-én ‘spike of a palm trunk’
t-əfr-a t-əfr-aw-én ‘leaf’
ta-zrir-a t-əzrir-aw-én ‘type of flower holder’
to-sənt-a ti-sənt-aw-én ‘cushion’
(also: ti-sənt-iw-én)
to-ḍiḍḍ-a ti-ḍəḍḍ-aw-én ‘type of worm’
(also: ti-ḍəḍḍ-iw-én)
An unusual exception, with a suffix -ew-en rather than -aw-en or -iw-en is attested once:
ta-ləqq-e t-ləqq-ew-én ‘poor person’
Another form that seems to be an exception is the following:
tó-rəǧl-a ti-rəǧl-iw-én ‘large bunch of dates’
One wonders whether this exception is related to the neutralization of ă and ə before ǧǧ (see n. 32).
Two exceptions remain that defy any obvious explanation:
to-lifs-a ti-ləfs-iw-én ‘viper’
tamənḍa tə-mənḍ-iw-én ‘upright beam of a loom’Footnote 34
3.3.3. Figuig
In the Zenatic dialects,Footnote 35 the distribution has become less clear, due to the loss of numerous relevant contrasts: *i and *e merge to i, and *ə and *ă merge to ə. This has led to a restructuring of the allophony, but the choice of -aw, and -iw in many environments remains predictable. The distribution found for Figuig seems to be similar to other Zenatic languages. A corpus of all Figuig feminine nouns that end in -i and -a that pluralize with either -iw-in or -aw-in have been established. The resulting list of 140 words displays the following distribution:
If a noun ends in -i (< *-e), the plural suffix is always -iw-in.
t-idd-i t-idd-iw-in ‘height’ (cf. Tuareg te-hădd-e pl. ti-hadd-iw-en)
t-wil-i ti-wil-iw-in ‘a quantity’
ta-yur-i ti-yur-iw-in ‘going’
t-amm-i t-amm-iw-in ‘eyelash’
ta-zəwɣ-i ti-zəwɣ-iw-in ‘redness’ (cf. Tuareg tă-zuɣ-e < *ta-zəwɣ-e)
If nouns end in -a, the plural suffix is -iw-in or -aw-in, conditioned by the stem vowel as in Tuareg and Ghadamsi:
t-ifs-a t-ifs-aw-in ‘spring’
t-biš-a ti-biš-aw-in ‘rain’
t-ufr-a t-ufr-aw-in ‘concealment’
t-šum-a ti-šum-aw-in ‘loins’
t-mall-a ti-mall-iw-in ‘pigeon’
t-ɣaws-a ti-ɣaws-iw-in ‘case, thing’
There are two examples of nouns with a stem-internal a whose suffix is -aw-in. They both have the shape t-CaC-a, but tyaṛa ‘residue’ also has this shape and does have the expected plural tiyaṛiwin:
t-naf-a ti-naf-aw-in ‘slumber’
t-ɣara ti-ɣar-aw-in ‘manner’
If, however, the stem has a suffix -a and the stem vowel a is stem-initial, the suffix is usually -aw-in (13x), but three cases have the expected -iw-in, and one noun is attested with both suffixes.
t-an-a t-an-aw-in ‘gums (mouth)’
t-ašl-a t-ašl-aw-in ‘spending the day’
t-ard-a t-ard-aw-in ‘washing’
t-amar-a t-amar-aw-in ‘pain, suffering’
t-aɣ-a t-aɣ-iw-in ‘artichoke’
t-aɣm-a t-aɣm-iw-in ‘thigh’
t-ayd-a t-ayd-iw-in ‘cypress; wood’
t-awl-a t-awl-aw-in, ‘wandering’
t-awl-iw-in
Finally, nouns without a plain stem vowel may have either -aw-in or -iw-in as a suffix. This is to be expected, as the ə that we find in such stems is a merger of *ă and *ə. These two vowels would condition a different suffix. Notice that in the examples below, the suffix corresponds with the original stem vowel in three cases for which I have found cognates in Tuareg and Ghadamsi. Nouns with the -iw-in suffix outnumber nouns with the -aw-in suffix (4:1).
ta-ḍṣ-a ti-ḍṣ-iw-in ‘laughing’ (cf. Tuareg WY ta-ḍăẓ-a)Footnote 36
ta-rəwl-a ti-rəwl-iw-in ‘fleeing’ (cf. Tuareg ta-răwl-a)
ta-ləfs-a ta-ləfs-iw-in ‘viper’
ta-məɣṛ-a ti-məɣṛ-iw-in ‘feast’
ta-šərz-a ti-šərz-iw-in ‘sowing’
ta-šətš-a ti-šətš-aw-in ‘worm’ (cf. Ghd. tokəkka; Tuareg tawəkk-e)
ta-ḥənn-a ti-ḥenn-aw-in ‘present, gift’
ta-qənt-a ti-qənt-aw-in ‘type of dish’
ta-səlɣ-a ti-səlɣ-aw-in ‘globe daisy’
ta-fɣ-a ti-fɣ-aw-in ‘artichoke’
Despite the regularization of the alternation with nouns with the old *-e suffix, the allophonic conditioning of this suffix -iw-/-aw- seems to have been the original form in Figuig (and other Zenatic varieties) as well.
3.3.4. Middle Atlas Berber
Middle Atlas Berber, as well as the other languages of Kossmann's Western Moroccan + Kabyle block (Tashelhiyt and Kabyle; Kossmann Reference Kossmann and Vossenforthcoming) have lost the allophony of this plural suffix. -awin is completely absent.
t-aɣm-a t-aɣm-iw-in ‘thigh’
ta-bard-a ti-bard-iw-in ‘pack saddle’
ti-məzgid-a ti-məzgid-iw-in ‘mosque’
t-ixs-i t-ixs-iw-in ‘sheep’
ti-wiš-i ti-wiš-iw-in ‘giving; gift’
t-ukk-i t-ukk-iw-in ‘giving; gift’
ta-gun-i ti-gun-iw-in ‘sleep’
ta-yuggw-a ti-yuggw-iw-in ‘pair of oxen’
3.3.5. Conclusion on the plural formation
The allomorphy between the suffixes *-iw-en and *-aw-en appears to be reconstructable for Proto-Berber. We may assume that this phonetically conditioned allomorphy goes back to a single form. In light of the similarities of this Berber feminine formation with that of Semitic, I would suggest that this plural suffix can be equated to the plural suffix with the sg. *-āy pl. *-āw-āt alternation that we find in Arabic. In this case, it seems most attractive to reconstruct the original suffix as *aw-en for a Pre-Proto-Berber stage.
There is some reason to assume that the feminine plural suffix *-en derives from a Pre-Proto-Berber *at-ăn (for a similar suggestion see Vycichl Reference Vycichl1989). In Tuareg, verbs that end in an augment -ăt end in -at in the imperfective. When this augment is followed by the 3pl.m. suffix -ăn, both -ăt and -at become -en (Heath Reference Heath2005: 294–9). While the origins of this -ăt augment are unclear, at least some of these final-t verbs with Ø~t alternation seem to point to some kind of intervocalic lenition of *t (Awjili, for example, has similar alternation in three verbs, Van Putten Reference Putten2014: 95).
3.4. Conclusion on the feminine formation in Berber
To summarize, Proto-Berber has two feminine suffixes: *-e and *-a. Feminines of this type may only be built in a limited number of stem formations, namely: cvcc (and forms that are probably ultimately from the same formation like v̄cc and cv̄c). These feminines can be used to form deverbal abstract nouns, but are also occasionally used to form general nouns. The plural suffix is *-a/iw-en where the a~i alternation appears to have originally been allophonic. Finally, these feminine endings do not productively form feminine counterparts to masculine nouns, and are therefore not derivational feminine markers (unlike the feminine marker *-t).
4. Summary and conclusions
In the previous two sections we have looked at the Proto-Semitic feminine markers *-ay and *-āy, and the Proto-Berber feminine markers *-e and *-a. It is argued that the Berber suffixes could go back to earlier *-ăy, *-ay, matching the Semitic suffixes.
These feminine formations show remarkable similarities in stem formation, meaning, and plural formation, which strongly suggests a shared origin. These similarities are displayed schematically side-by-side in Table 2.
Comparison of the Semitic and Berber feminine formations
The striking similarities in formation, semantics, and the similar morphological idiosyncrasies of the plural formation, are difficult to understand as the result of chance correspondences. It therefore seems probable that this formation goes back to the common ancestor of Proto-Semitic and Proto-Berber. Whether this common ancestor is Proto-Afro-Asiatic or a lower branch (e.g. Proto-Berbero-Semitic) will require further investigation. It is hoped that researchers with expertise in other branches of Afro-Asiatic will find the data presented in this article useful, and will be able to use it as a framework to study feminine formations in their respective languages of expertise.
For now I will hazard a tentative Proto-Berbero-Semitic reconstruction of this nominal formation:
*CV̆CC-ay/āy pl. *CV̆CC-āw-āt
