The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria

language and script 93

in a consonant (most singulars and the fem. plural) or a vowel (masc.
plural, the dual, and some vocalic singular bases), these suffixes undergo
certain changes so that, from a synchronic point of view, two different
sets of suffixes can be distinguished. a short linking vowel intervenes
between a consonantal noun base and a suffix beginning in a consonant.
in all likelihood, this vowel is a remnant of the original case ending. When
morphological case marking disappeared in northwest Semitic around
1000 B.c., the corresponding vowel lost its grammatical function. Later
vocalized traditions of aramaic suggest that it had the same quality as
the final vowel of the respective suffix, which is also assumed in the fol­
lowing reconstruction, but this cannot be verified for older stages of the
language. once again, official aramaic evidence fills in some gaps in the
paradigm:

Suffix after consonants (sg./f.pl.) after vowels (m.pl./dual)

(“singular suffixes”) (“plural suffixes”)

3 masc. sg. -h /­eh/ -wh /­áw­hī/ (later -why)

3 fem. sg. -h /­ah/ -yh /­áy­hā/

2 masc. sg. -k /­ákā/ -yk /­áy­kā/

2 fem. sg. (later -ky /­ékī/) (later -yky /­áy­kī/)

1 sg. -y /­ī/ -y /­ayy/

3 masc. pl. -hm /­ohūm/ -yhm /­ay­hūm/

3 fem. pl. -hn /­ehenn/ —

2 masc. pl. -km /­okūm/ -ykm /ay­kūm/

2 fem. pl. (later -kn /­ekenn/) (later -ykn /­ay­kenn/)

1 pl. ­n /­ánā/ (later -yn /­áy­nā/)

the reason for the dissimilation of the construct ending /­ay/ before the
third­person masc. singular “plural” suffix is debated.65 of the few Semitic
nouns whose singular construct state ends in a (long) vowel, the suffixed
form ʾbwh /ʾabūhī/ ‘his father’, according to aramaic spelling, occurs in
Samʾalian (Kai 215: 2).66

4.3 Verbal Conjugations

the intersecting semantic notions of tense, aspect, and modality are
expressed by inflectional categories. tense denotes the location of an
event or a state in time in relation to some reference point, distinguish­
ing between past and present­future in the older stages of aramaic; aspect

65 See, for instance, Brockelmann 101965: 49f (§83).
66 as opposed to the defective spelling ʾbh without a word­medial vowel letter accord­
ing to local custom in Kai 214: 29; 215: 1, 3, 7.