Observations on the Phonological Reconstructions of Proto-Semitic Consonants: A Comparative Approach

Abstract

This paper describes the reconstruction of the Proto-Semitic (PS) consonantal phonemic inventory via comparative methods. Specifically, it illustrates the changes undergone by certain consonants over time and explains how other consonants were retained in the investigated languages (i.e., Classical Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic). Twenty-nine consonants of PS phonemes were reconstructed in the form of cognate sets and correspondence rules that reflected the proto-consonants onto individual reflexes. The analysis revealed that the vast majority of PS phonemes were retained unchanged in the investigated languages. Moreover, the results indicated that Arabic, unlike Hebrew and Aramaic, retained the highest proportion of PS phonemes, as its consonants are identical to those in PS. The majority of fricatives in Hebrew and Aramaic have been merged, whereas they have been maintained in Arabic. The voiceless bilabial stop is the only sound change to have occurred in the PS labials, weakening to become a voiceless fricative (lenition). The velar fricatives /x/ and /ɣ/ were retained in Arabic and merged with the pharyngeal fricatives /ħ/ and /ʕ/ in Hebrew and Aramaic. In addition, while /*w/ has been retained in Arabic, it underwent a conditional sound change in both Hebrew and Aramaic, which initially transformed it into /y/.