THE CASE FOR PROTO-SEMITIC AND PROTO-ARABIC CASE: A REPLY TO JONATHAN OWENS Cover Image

THE CASE FOR PROTO-SEMITIC AND PROTO-ARABIC CASE: A REPLY TO JONATHAN OWENS
THE CASE FOR PROTO-SEMITIC AND PROTO-ARABIC CASE: A REPLY TO JONATHAN OWENS

Author(s): Ahmad Al-Jallad, Marijn Van Putten
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Morphology, Descriptive linguistics
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti
Keywords: Proto-Semitic case; Proto-Arabic case; case inflection;

Summary/Abstract: In several works (1998a;b, 2006/9, 2015), Professor J. Owens has developed a revisionist history of the Arabic system of nominal case inflection. Rather than reconstructing the case system of Classical Arabic, cognate with Akkadian and Ugaritic, for Proto-Arabic, he proposed several scenarios in favor of a caseless variety of Proto-Semitic from which the modern Arabic dialects descend. This article engages with the Owens’ methodology, data, and claims in a defense of the traditional reconstruction – Proto-Arabic had a nominal case system similar to Classical Arabic that was lost in the modern dialects. We reconstruct a historical scenario to explain the eventual breakdown and disappearance of case in modern Arabic.

  • Issue Year: XVII/2017
  • Issue No: 17
  • Page Range: 87-117
  • Page Count: 31
  • Language: English
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