The Development of the Semitic Definite Article: A Syntactic Approach

The Impact of Contact Languages on the Degrammaticalization of the Hebrew Definite Article

“…We explain below why the Classical Hebrew ha-is best treated as a word-level prefix marking state inflection rather than definiteness, which is a phrase-level category. Our approach favors the morphological origin of these Central Semitic affixes as the Proto-Semitic presentative adnominal affix hā/han/hal (Hasselbach 2007;Pat-El 2009), but is also compatible with the view that these are original demonstrative pronouns that underwent a process of grammaticalization (Rubin 2005:65-90 and references cited therein). 2 We uniformly transcribe the Hebrew article as ha-, which is accurate for Modern Hebrew, though in Classical Hebrew the article includes a consonant that typically assimilates to the following consonant; e.g.…”

gahwat al-murra: the N + DEF-ADJ syntagm and the *at>ahshift in Arabic

“…However, she argues that it was not originally a construct; rather, she connects it with a stage in the development of the definite article in Central Semitic, in which the deictic particle * hal (> al in Arabic) was prefixed to an adnominal attribute. This is supported by evidence from, e.g., Hebrew, Phoenician, and Syriac, in which the syntagm occurs where the noun is clearly in the absolute, and not the construct (examples taken from Pat-El 2009: 35–6):Hebrew: ʾel mābō haš-šlīšī “to the third entrance”; naʿarā ham-məʾōrāsā “a betrothed maiden” (San. 7: 4)Phoenician: ʾlnm hqdšm ʾl (KAI 14: 22) “these holy gods”Syriac: hānnōn tlāṯā gaḇrīn zaddīqē (Aph.…”

“…A few scholars have attempted to explain how the appositional relationship between noun and adjective became re-analysed as one of annexation. The most common explanation is that the syntagm was reanalysed by speakers as a construct due to a superficial similarity between this syntagm and the construct (Hopkins 1984: §186, n. 1; Brockelmann II: 209; Pat-El 2009: 31) 7 . That is, following the loss of case, the superficial similarity between the two syntagms led to re-analysis of the appositional N + DEF-ADJ as a construct.…”

“…15This trajectory, from adjective to noun, is quite common, as Pat-El (2009: 39, n. 59) observes. She cites several examples, including the generalization of the sound plurals ūna / īna and āt from the adjective to nouns in NW Semitic.…”

“…has suggested that the article spread from a dialect in which tanwīn had been lost, leading speakers to contrast the definite form, which possessed case marking but not tanwīn , with an indefinite form, which, in their dialect, would have still possessed tanwīn . However, even though the use of * han / hal as an article was likely not a feature of proto-Arabic, Arabic nonetheless likely did inherit its function as a marker of adnominal attributes, as Pat-El (2009; 2017) has argued.…”