Semitic roots

The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants (or "transfixes") which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate way, generally following specific patterns. It is a peculiarity of Semitic linguistics that a large majority of these consonantal roots are triliterals (although there are a number of quadriliterals, and in some languages also biliterals).

Such roots are also common in other Afroasiatic languages. Notably, while Berber mostly has triconsonantal roots, Egyptian and its modern descendant, Coptic, both prefer biradical and monoradical roots.

Triconsonantal roots

A triliteral or triconsonantal root ( he, שורש תלת-עיצורי, '; ar, جذر ثلاثي, '; syr, ܫܪܫܐ, ') is a root containing a sequence of three consonants.

The following are some of the forms which can be derived from the triconsonantal root k-t-b כ-ת-ב ك-ت-ب (general overall meaning "to write") in Hebrew and Arabic:

Note: The Hebrew fricatives transcribed as "ḵ" and "ḇ" can also be transcribed in a number of other ways, such as "ch" and "v", which are pronounced and , respectively. They are transliterated "ḵ" and "ḇ" on this page to retain the connection with the pure consonantal root כ-ת-ב k-t-b. Also notice that in Modern Hebrew, there is no gemination.

In Hebrew grammatical terminology, the word ''binyan'' ( he, בניין, plural ''binyanim'') is used to refer to a verb derived stem or overall verb derivation pattern, while the word ''mishqal'' (or ''mishkal'') is used to refer to a noun derivation pattern, and these words have gained some use in English-language linguistic terminology. The Arabic terms, called ''wazn'' (plural , ''awzān'') for the pattern and ' (plural , ') for the root have not gained the same currency in cross-linguistic Semitic scholarship as the Hebrew equivalents, and Western grammarians continue to use "stem"/"form"/"pattern" for the former and "root" for the latter—though "form" and "pattern" are accurate translations of the Arabic grammatical term ''wazn'' (originally meaning 'weight, measure'), and "root" is a literal translation of '.

Biliteral origin of some triliteral roots

Although most roots in Hebrew seem to be triliteral, many of them were originally biliteral, cf. the relation between:

as well as between:

The Hebrew root - √sh-q-p "look out/through" or "reflect" deriving from - √q-p "bend, arch, lean towards" and similar verbs fit into the shaCCéC verb-pattern.

This verb-pattern sh-C-C is usually causative, cf.

History

According to a study of the Proto-Semitic lexicon, biconsonantal roots are more abundant for words denoting Stone Age materials, whereas materials discovered during the Neolithic are uniquely triconsonantal. This implies a change in Proto-Semitic language structure concomitant with the transition to agriculture. In particular monosyllabic biconsonantal names are associated with a pre-Natufian cultural background, more than 16,500 years ago. As we have no texts from any Semitic language older than 5,500 years ago, reconstructions of Proto-Semitic are inferred from these more recent Semitic texts.

Quadriliteral roots

A quadriliteral is a consonantal root containing a sequence of four consonants (instead of three consonants, as is more often the case). A quadriliteral form is a word derived from such a four-consonant root. For example, the abstract quadriliteral root t-r-g-m / t-r-j-m gives rise to the verb forms ''tirgem'' in Hebrew, ''tarjama'' in Arabic,ተረጐመ "täräggwämä" in Amharic, all meaning "he translated". In some cases, a quadriliteral root is actually a reduplication of a two-consonant sequence. So in Hebrew ''digdeg'' means "he tickled", and in Arabic ''zilzāl'' means "earthquake".

Generally, only a subset of the verb derivations formed from triliteral roots are allowed with quadriliteral roots. For example, in Hebrew, the Piʿel, Puʿal, and Hiṯpaʿel, and in Arabic, forms similar to the stem II and stem V forms of triliteral roots.

Another set of quadriliteral roots in modern Hebrew is the set of secondary roots. A secondary root is a root derived from word that was derived from another root. For example, the root ''m-s-p-r'' is secondary to the root ''s-p-r''. ''saphar'', from the root ''s-p-r'', means "counted"; ''mispar'', from the same root, means "number"; and ''misper'', from the secondary root , means "numbered".

An irregular quadriliteral verb made from a loanword is:
*
() – "we will sprinkle" or "we will splash", from Yiddish ''spritz'' (from German ''spritzen'')

Quinqueliteral roots

A quinqueliteral is a consonantal root containing a sequence of five consonants. Traditionally, in Semitic languages, forms with more than four basic consonants (i.e. consonants not introduced by morphological inflection or derivation) were occasionally found in nouns, mainly in loanwords from other languages, but never in verbs. However, in modern Israeli Hebrew, syllables are allowed to begin with a sequence of two consonants (a relaxation of the situation in early Semitic, where only one consonant was allowed), which has opened the door for a very small set of loan words to manifest apparent five root-consonant forms, such as ''tilgref'' "he telegraphed". However, ''-lgr-'' always appears as an indivisible cluster in the derivation of this verb and so the five root-consonant forms do not display any fundamentally different morphological patterns from four root-consonant forms (and the term "quinqueliteral" or "quinquiliteral" would be misleading if it implied otherwise). Only a few Hebrew quinqueliterals are recognized by the Academy of the Hebrew Language as proper, or standard; the rest are considered slang.

Other examples are:
*
( – "he synchronized"), via the English word from Greek
*
( – "he did stupid things")
*
( – "he had a flirt"), from the English or Yiddish past tense of the English word

In Amharic, there is a very small set of verbs which are conjugated as quinqueliteral roots. One example is ''wäšänäffärä'' 'rain fell with a strong wind' The conjugation of this small class of verb roots is explained by Wolf Leslau.pp. 566-569, 1043. Wolf Leslau. ''Reference Grammar of Amharic. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Unlike the Hebrew examples, these roots conjugate in a manner more like regular verbs, producing no indivisible clusters.

See also

* Apophony
* Arabic grammar
* Broken plural
* Indo-European ablaut
* Khuzdul
* K-T-B
* Modern Hebrew grammar
* Nonconcatenative morphology
* Phono-semantic matching
* Proto-Indo-European root
* Š-L-M
* Transfix

Notes

References

*

External links

Semitic Roots RepositoryRoots in Quranic ArabicLearn Hebrew Verbs''Alexis Amid Neme and Eric Laporte (2013), Pattern-and-root inflectional morphology: the Arabic broken plural'' , year= ''Alexis Amid Neme and Eric Laporte (2015), Do computer scientists deeply understand Arabic morphology? - هل يفهم المهندسون الحاسوبيّون علم الصرف فهماً عميقاً؟'', available also in Arabic, Indonesian, French

{{Hebrew language

Linguistic morphology
Semitic linguistics
Root (linguistics)