Triliteral
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roots A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients. Root or roots may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusing ...
of verbs and most nouns in the
Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...
are characterized as a sequence of
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
s 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 "
transfix In linguistic morphology, a transfix is a discontinuous affix which is inserted into a word root, as in root-and-pattern systems of morphology, like those of many Semitic languages. A discontinuous affix is an affix whose phonetic components ...
es") 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 The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...
languages. Notably, while Berber mostly has triconsonantal roots,
Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
and its modern descendant,
Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...
, 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 K-T-B ( he, כ-ת-ב ; ar, ك-ت-ب ) is a triconsonantal root of a number of Semitic words, typically those having to do with writing. The words for "office", "writer" and "record" all reflect this root. Most notably, the Arabic word ''kitab'' ...
כ-ת-ב ك-ت-ب (general overall meaning "to write") in Hebrew and Arabic: Note: The Hebrew
fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
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 Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
, there is no
gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
. 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 Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
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 In linguistics, a causative (abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...
, cf.


History

According to a study of the
Proto-Semitic Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical reconstructed proto-language ancestral to the Semitic languages. There is no consensus regarding the location of the Proto-Semitic ''Urheimat''; scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant (m ...
lexicon, biconsonantal roots are more abundant for words denoting
Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
materials, whereas materials discovered during the
Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
are uniquely triconsonantal. This implies a change in Proto-Semitic language structure concomitant with the transition to
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
. In particular monosyllabic biconsonantal names are associated with a pre-
Natufian The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction ...
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 Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...
, 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 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 ...
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 Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
''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,
syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
s 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 The Academy of the Hebrew Language ( he, הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית, ''ha-akademyah la-lashon ha-ivrit'') was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on t ...
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 Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...
, 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 __NOTOC__ Wolf Leslau ( yi, וולף לסלאו; born November 14, 1906 in Krzepice, Vistula Land, Poland; died November 18, 2006 in Fullerton, California) was a scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on Semitic languag ...
.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 In linguistics, apophony (also known as ablaut, (vowel) gradation, (vowel) mutation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection etc.) is any alternation wit ...
*
Arabic grammar Arabic grammar or Arabic language sciences ( ar, النحو العربي ' or ar, عُلُوم اللغَة العَرَبِيَّة ') is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities with ...
*
Broken plural In linguistics, a broken plural (or internal plural) is an irregular plural form of a noun or adjective found in the Semitic languages and other Afroasiatic languages such as Berber. Broken plurals are formed by changing the pattern of consonants ...
*
Indo-European ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German ''Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...
*
Khuzdul Khuzdul is a fictional language created by J. R. R. Tolkien, one of the languages of Middle-earth, specifically the secret and private language of the Dwarves. External history Tolkien began developing Khuzdul before the publication in 1936 ...
*
K-T-B K-T-B ( he, כ-ת-ב ; ar, ك-ت-ب ) is a triconsonantal root of a number of Semitic words, typically those having to do with writing. The words for "office", "writer" and "record" all reflect this root. Most notably, the Arabic word ''kitab'' ...
*
Modern Hebrew grammar Modern Hebrew grammar is partly analytic, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than morphological cases. On the other hand, Modern Hebrew grammar is also fusional synthetic: Zuckermann ...
*
Nonconcatenative morphology Nonconcatenative morphology, also called discontinuous morphology and introflection, is a form of word formation and inflection in which the root is modified and which does not involve stringing morphemes together sequentially. Types Apophon ...
*
Phono-semantic matching Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with Phonetics, phonetically and semantically similar words or ...
*
Proto-Indo-European root The root (linguistics), roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic parts of words that carry a lexical (semiotics), lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots usually have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run ...
*
Š-L-M Shin-Lamedh- Mem is the triconsonantal root of many Semitic words and many of those words are used as names. The root meaning translates to "whole, safe, intact, unharmed, to go free, without blemish". Its earliest known form is in the name of S ...
*
Transfix In linguistic morphology, a transfix is a discontinuous affix which is inserted into a word root, as in root-and-pattern systems of morphology, like those of many Semitic languages. A discontinuous affix is an affix whose phonetic components ...


Notes


References

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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)