Possessive and genitive constructions in Dahālik (Ethiosemitic)
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Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle
Abstract
There have been few comparative studies of possessive or genitive relationships within the Modern South Arabian (MSA) group, but Dahalik, an Ethiosemitic language, had never been the subject of any study on this topic. In fact the language itself was completely unknown until 1997 and could not be fully investigated because of the inaccessibility of the region since 2006. This article attempts to give details on these constructions in Dahalik to compare the different strategies for determining the noun in some Southern Semitic languages of Arabia and the Horn of Africa.
By providing such comparisons this chapter highlights the common features of these languages and the characteristics of Dahalik within the Southern Semitic group as a specific Afrosemitic language.
All the Dahalik data have been collected during my fieldworks in Eritrea,1 on the three inhabited islands of Dahlak Archipelago, on the continent in Massawa and suburbs. They are compared with the available data on MSA, Tigre and Tigrinya (see references below and Simeone-Senelle 2014: 686–687).
Abstract
There have been few comparative studies of possessive or genitive relationships within the Modern South Arabian (MSA) group, but Dahalik, an Ethiosemitic language, had never been the subject of any study on this topic. In fact the language itself was completely unknown until 1997 and could not be fully investigated because of the inaccessibility of the region since 2006. This article attempts to give details on these constructions in Dahalik to compare the different strategies for determining the noun in some Southern Semitic languages of Arabia and the Horn of Africa.
By providing such comparisons this chapter highlights the common features of these languages and the characteristics of Dahalik within the Southern Semitic group as a specific Afrosemitic language.
All the Dahalik data have been collected during my fieldworks in Eritrea,1 on the three inhabited islands of Dahlak Archipelago, on the continent in Massawa and suburbs. They are compared with the available data on MSA, Tigre and Tigrinya (see references below and Simeone-Senelle 2014: 686–687).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
-
Introduction
- Afroasiatic 1
-
Part I. Afroasiatic
- Did Proto-Afroasiatic have marked nominative or nominative-accusative alignment? 11
- The limits and potentials of cladistics in Semitic 23
- Lexicostatistical evidence for Ethiosemitic, its subgroups, and borrowing 41
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Part II. Forms and functions
- Reconsidering the ‘perfect’–‘imperfect’ opposition in the Classical Arabic verbal system 61
- The imperfective in Berber 85
- Condition, interrogation and exception 105
- The semantics of modals in Kordofanian Baggara Arabic 131
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Part III. Predication and beyond
- Insubordination in Modern South Arabian 153
- Possessive and genitive constructions in Dahālik (Ethiosemitic) 167
- The characterization of conditional patterns in Old Babylonian Akkadian 185
- Locative predication in Chadic 203
- Unipartite clauses 235
- The Interaction of state, prosody and linear order in Kabyle (Berber) 261
- Index 287
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
-
Introduction
- Afroasiatic 1
-
Part I. Afroasiatic
- Did Proto-Afroasiatic have marked nominative or nominative-accusative alignment? 11
- The limits and potentials of cladistics in Semitic 23
- Lexicostatistical evidence for Ethiosemitic, its subgroups, and borrowing 41
-
Part II. Forms and functions
- Reconsidering the ‘perfect’–‘imperfect’ opposition in the Classical Arabic verbal system 61
- The imperfective in Berber 85
- Condition, interrogation and exception 105
- The semantics of modals in Kordofanian Baggara Arabic 131
-
Part III. Predication and beyond
- Insubordination in Modern South Arabian 153
- Possessive and genitive constructions in Dahālik (Ethiosemitic) 167
- The characterization of conditional patterns in Old Babylonian Akkadian 185
- Locative predication in Chadic 203
- Unipartite clauses 235
- The Interaction of state, prosody and linear order in Kabyle (Berber) 261
- Index 287
