Semitic Languages Features, Structures, Relations, Processes [Hardcover]

This book offers a thorough, authoritative account of the branches of Semitic. These include some of the world's oldest attested languages, among them Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, and Ethiopic, as well as various modern languages. Gideon Goldenberg describes their history, geographical distribution, writing systems, and genetic classi?cation. He examines their main features and distinctive characteristics, including their phonology, morphemes, derivational morphology, verbal systems, syntactic relationships, and their typological signi?cance. He also discusses the pioneering work and achievements of medieval Arabic and Hebrew scholars in theoretical and descriptive aspects of grammar, lexicography, and philology. Professor Goldenberg's balanced, undogmatic account presents the fruits of a lifetime of original research: it will be widely welcomed by scholars and advanced students of the Semitic languages and linguistic typology.

Full contents
Glossing Category labels
1. Introduction
2. The Languages
3. Distribution
4. Writing Systems and Scripts
5. Classification
6. Linguistic Traditions
7. Phonology
8. Closed-Class Morphemes
9. Derivational Morphology
10. Entity Terms
11. Syntactic Relations; Case System
12. Predicative Relation
13. Verbal System
14. Attributive Relation
15. Completive Relation
16. Existence, Belonging, and Possession
References
Index

Gideon Goldenberg is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has been a Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 1996 and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy since 1999. He has published extensively on Neo-Ethiopian languages, Syriac, Hebrew, and Neo-Aramaic, syntactic relations and typology, and on the history of linguistics in the Middle East.