language and script 85
can be partially supplemented by evidence from the subsequent stage of
aramaic:
person Singular plural
1 masc./fem. ʾnh /ʾanā/ — (later: ʾnḥn(h) /ʾanáḥnā/)
2 masc. ʾt /ʾáttā/ — (later: ʾntm /ʾattom/)
2 fem. — (later: ʾnty /ʾáttī/) —
3 masc. hʾ /hūʾ/ (> hw /hū/) hm(w) /hóm(ū)/
3 fem. hʾ /hī ʾ/ (> hy /hī/) —Samʾalian, by contrast, differs from all known varieties of aramaic in that
it consistently exhibits the “long” firstperson singular personal pronoun
ʾnk. Since it remains unclear whether this form has been inherited from an
older stage of northwest Semitic, which used both a long form /ʾanāku/
and a short form /ʾanā/ (these occur side by side in ugaritic), or bor
rowed from phoenician (with */ʾanāku/ > /ʾanōkī/),35 its exact pronuncia
tion cannot be determined. however, one instance of the plene spelling
ʾnky (Kai 215: 19) indicates that the final vowel of this pronoun has shifted
to /ī/, which appears to be a typical feature of canaanite36 and thus sup
ports the idea of a phoenician loan (phoenician being the most obvious
candidate for canaanite influences in this region). the secondperson
masculine singular form is always spelled without a final vowel letter in
old and official aramaic, presumably because unstressed wordfinal /ā/
was normally written defectively. in addition to the independent personal
pronouns, suffixes could be added to nouns and verbs in order to high
light a pronominal possessor or a pronominal direct object. these will be
discussed below in the section on nouns.
a set of proximal demonstratives (‘this, these’) consists of znh /ðenā/
(masc. singular, later > /denā/), zʾ /ðāʾ/ (fem. singular, later > /dā/), and
ʾl /ʾellɛ̄/ (Kai 202 a: 9.16; B: 8) or ʾln /ʾellɛ̄n/ (masc. and fem. plural). Varia
tion in the northwest Semitic demonstrative pronouns is reflected, on the
micro level, in old aramaic and Samʾalian. the tell fekheriye inscription
contains an example of the fem. singular zʾt /ðāʾt/ (Kai 309: 15), otherwise
unattested in aramaic but with straightforward cognates in hebrew and
Moabite. Samʾalian, on the other hand, has the masc. singular form zn
35 gianto 1995; cf. Beyer 2004: 15 (“die phönizischen Wörter [sc. in Samʾalian] stammen
aus der vorhergehenden Schriftsprache”).
36 the /ī/ can be explained as a result of dissimilation of two back vowels, following
the canaanite shift of the preceding vowel /ā/ to /ō/, an analogy to the canaanite firstper
son singular “perfect” ending /tī/, or an assimilation to the common Semitic firstperson
singular possessive suffix /ī/.