The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria

language and script 95

however, does not necessarily match the situation in old aramaic. the
“perfect” with dynamic verbs usually refers to past events, but it is con­
troversial whether the form as such anchors an event in time (past tense)
or simply marks it as completed (perfective aspect) regardless of its posi­
tion on the time line. Various types of past events occur, such as wqm ʿmy
/wa­qām ʿemmī/ ‘and he arose together with me (= to my help)’ (Kai 202
a: 3, punctual and completed in the past) or mh ktbt /mā katabt/ ‘what
i have written down’ (Kai 222 c: 1–2, resultative with present relevance).
other nuances, such as performatives, are not attested in the old ara­
maic inscriptions from Syria and in Samʾalian, even though their existence
can be assumed on the basis of similar usages in official aramaic. With
subordinate clauses, the “perfect” expresses an event anterior to the one
indicated by the verb in the main clause, e.g., zy nzr lh /ðī naðar leh/ ’who
(= because he) had made a vow to him’ (Kai 201: 4).70 Like the “long
imperfect,” it can also appear in the protasis or apodosis of a conditional
clause; this particular usage extends beyond past­tense reference. Sta­
tive verbs in the “perfect,” by contrast, express timeless states, while the
“perfect” of hwī ‘to be’ acts as a past­tense marker (cf. Kai 215: 2).
the “imperfect,” on the other hand, comprises two historically distinct
conjugations, here labeled “long” and “short” form, each with its own func­
tional range. (no traces of the old “subjunctive” survive in aramaic.) they
were once distinguished by a final /­u/ in the long form where the short
one has a zero ending, but the disappearance of short unstressed word­
final vowels leveled the morphological difference in most persons with
sound roots.71 due to the presence or absence of the final /­n/ in certain
forms, a number of instances can still be distinguished in writing (though
the “short imperfect” began to vanish already in official aramaic):

person ‘Long form’ ‘Short form’

3 masc. sg. yktb /ya­ktob­Ø/ yktb /ya­ktob­Ø/

3 fem. sg. tktb /ta­ktob­Ø/ tktb /ta­ktob­Ø/

2 masc. sg. tktb /ta­ktob­Ø/ tktb /ta­ktob­Ø/

2 fem. sg. (later tktb( y)n /ta­ktob­īn/) (later tktby /ta­ktob­ī/)

1 sg. ʾktb /ʾa­ktob­Ø/ ʾktb /ʾa­ktob­Ø/

3 masc. pl. yktbn /ya­ktob­ūn/ yktbw /ya­ktob­ū/

3 fem. pl. yktbn /ya­ktob­(ā)n/72 yktbn /ya­ktob­n(ā)/

70 cf. gzella 2004: 159–161.
71 See gzella 2004: 310–326.
72 Later evidence points to an afformative /­ān/ in the third­person fem. plural, no
doubt patterned after the masculine. it is debated whether old aramaic preserved the