Lutz Edzard Livres

In the context of Arabic and Semitic, it is natural to treat case and mood together, as Arab grammarians used the same terms for both independent and dependent forms. This volume primarily focuses on case in Semitic and Afroasiatic languages, addressing controversial data and discussions. Contributions include analyses of Akkadian, Hebrew, Arabic, Ethio-Semitic, Berber, and select Cushitic and Omotic languages. One paper explores the diachronic development of case and mimation in Akkadian, while another examines accepted and controversial aspects of case in Biblical Hebrew, suggesting reanalyses. A critical reading of al-Zaǧǧāǧī’s ʾĪḍāḥ is presented, alongside a summary of recent discussions on case in historical Arabic varieties. The volume also follows up on the topic of Proto-Semitic and Proto-Arabic case. Additionally, it delves into the complexities of defining case and state in Berber and the relevance of the “nominative” vs. “absolutive” distinction within a broader Afroasiatic context. The final paper concludes the volume with general discussions on the verbal system in Semitic, proposing a four-stage model.

The Festschrift dedicated to Jan Retsö on the occasion of his official retirement in 2015 contains within the field of Arabic and Semitic linguistics and neighboring disciplines 29 papers by the following contributors: Slavic linguistics: Silje Susanne Alvestad and Antoaneta Granberg; Arabic linguistics and philology: Werner Arnold, Rudolf de Jong, Werner Diem, Melanie Hanitsch, Barry Heselwood/Janet Watson, Otto Jastrow, Ablahad Lahdo, Pierre Larcher, Gunvor Mejdell, Maria Persson and Ori Shachmon; Arabic literature, science and history of ideas: Lena Ambjörn, Stephan Guth, Pernilla Myrne and Georges Tamer; Hebrew linguistics: Silje Susanne Alvestad/Lutz Edzard, Mats Eskhult, Steven Fassberg, Bo Isaksson, Na? ama Pat-El, and Ofra Tirosh-Becker; Aramaic, Ethiopic, and comparative Semitic linguistics: Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee, Janne Bondi Johannessen/Lutz Edzard, Geoffrey Khan, Fekede Menuta/Ronny Meyer, Sina Tezel and Kjell Magne Yri. The Festschrift is of interest to both scholars and students working in the disciplines of Arabic, Hebrew, Semitic and Afroasiatic linguistics and to linguists and philologists working in the realms of Old Church Slavonic, Slavic in general, Hebrew Bible and the Qur? an.

The majority of these articles dedicated to Michael G. Carter address aspects of Classical Arabic grammar. Ramzi Baalbaki discusses Mu'addib’s treatise Daqa-'iq al-Tas. rif. Kees Versteegh considers questions of the government of 'inna in a treatise by the grammarian al-Warraq. Yasir Suleiman considers the fierce extra-linguistic debates which took place in the wake of two recent publications provocatively featuring Sibawayhi’s name in the title. Pierre Larcher treats questions of authenticity surrounding a longish quotation from al-Farabi's Kitab al-'alfaz wa-l-huruf. Adrian Gully addresses the relationship between two important treatises on syntax and rhetoric from the eighth and sixth centuries AH respectively. Georges Bohas and Abderrahim Saguer consider the extent to which Arabic roots display a biliteral core which can be assigned a fairly constant semantic value. James Dickins provides an in-depth analysis of the system of verbal diatheses in Central Urban Sudanese Arabic. Werner Diem investigates the euphemistic use of the root lhq in its first and fourth forms to refer to death. Ronak Husni and Janet Watson analyse typical patterns of errors in Arabic essays written by English-speaking learners of Arabic. Finally, in a case study of the medieval translations of Aristotle’s Poetics, Lutz Edzard and Adolf Köhnken look at the central status of Arabic for the transmission of Classical knowledge.

The papers in this collection address a wide range of data-related and methodological issues in Arabic and Semitic linguistics. The contributions fall under three categories: (I) “Modern perspectives on Comparative Semitic and Afroasiatic” (papers by Olga Kapeliuk, Rainer Voigt and Andrzej Zaborski); (II) “Modern perspectives on native Arabic grammatical theory” (papers by Michael Carter, Rafi Talmon and Mohammed Nekroumi); and (III) “Modern linguistic and literary theory applied to Arabic” (papers by Pierre Larcher, Utz Maas, Jeffrey Heath, Lutz Edzard and Joseph Bell). In an attempt to foster international scholarly understanding, this volume brings together a variety of different scientific “schools” or “traditions” in the realms of Arabic and Semitic linguistics, from Israel, from Maghreb, from USA, from France, from Norway and from Germany.

In this study, the author challenges the traditional monogenetic „family tree“ model (including wave-theoretical emendations) as an appropriate representation for genetic relationship within language families. As a viable alternative, he proposes a polygenetic model which applies the notions of „convergence“ and „entropy“ to linguistic evolution. A section discussing specific problems in Afro-Asiatic at large is followed by an analogous section dealing with specific problems in Semitic. One major portion of the discussion revolves around a number of longstanding problems in connection with phoneme inventories and sound change in Semitic. This is supplemented by analogous deliberations on morphology and the syntax of complex noun phrases. Special attention is paid to the issue of „bi-radicalism“ vs. „tri-radicalism“ Another focus of the discussion is on the issue of diglossia or polyglossia in Arabic in the light of the proposed theory, and on selected current issues in the history of Arabic linguistics.

This study aims at investigating the important role that language plays as a medium of legal norms and cultural values as surfacing in documents in the United Nations system. The author focuses on diplomatic documents (bi- and multilateral treaties and correspondence) that simultaneously have official status („authenticity“) both in Arabic and in other languages. The investigation of the role of language as a window onto culture and religious background is especially relevant in the case of Arabic due to the interference of religion with law in most Islamic societies. More specifically, problems will be pinpointed in the realms of personal statute law, the legal status of women, the laws of marriage, divorce, inheritance, freedom of opinion and religion, and penal law. At the heart of this study Edzard applies Speech Act Theory to the analysis of the nature and consequences of textual differences between versions of one and the same document in several languages.

The present volume is based on a selection of papers delivered at the workshop “The Morpho-Syntactic Encoding of Tense and Aspect in Semitic”, which was organized at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg on April 26, 2014. Specifically, the contributions focus on Akkadian (Michael P. Streck), Biblical Hebrew (Lutz Edzard and Silje S. Alvestad), modern Hebrew (Nora Boneh), modern colloquial Arabic (Melanie Hanitsch and Salah Fakhry), as well as Ethio-Semitic (Ronny Meyer). One joint paper also touches upon Slavic linguistics (Silje S. Alvestad). While the papers are data-oriented, modern linguistic theory and typological considerations play an important role as well. The volume is of interest to Arabists, Hebraists, and Semiticists, as well as Assyriologists, Biblical scholars, Slavicists, and linguists in general.

The present volume is based on a selection of papers delivered at the “Oslo–Austin Workshop in Semitic Linguistics” on May 23 and 24, 2013. The topics covered include “Reanalysis and new roots: an Akkadian perspective” (John Huehnergard), “The morphosyntax of nominal antecedents in Semitic, and an innovation in Arabic” (Na‘ama Pat-El), “Transitivity and the binyanim” (Øyvind Bjøru), “The b-imperfect once again: typological and diachronic perspectives” (Jan Retsö), “The main line of a biblical Hebrew narrative and what to do with two perfective grams” (Bo Isaksson), “Finiteness as manifested by grounding and deixis: Amharic (Semitic) and Sidaama (Cushitic)” (Kjell Magne Yri), “Hebrew and Hebrew-Yiddish terms and expressions in contemporary German: some (socio-)linguistic observations” (Lutz Edzard), and “Muhamed Hevai Uskufi Bosnevi’s 1631 work Ma? bul-i ? arif from a Turcological perspective: the state of the art” (Silje Susanne Alvestad).

Semitic and Afroasiatic: Challenges and Opportunities, edited by Lutz Edzard, supplies Semiticists and general linguists with thorough sketches and text specimens of the Afroasiatic branches Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, Chadic, and Omotic. The volume presents some of the challenges and opportunities for scholars who want to gain a better understanding of certain notorious problems in Semitic linguistics, many of which deserve and need to be investigated in their wider Afroasiatic context. The reader will also have an opportunity to work with larger text specimens of selected representative languages belonging to the different branches of Afroasiatic. In that respect the volume endeavors to go beyond a purely paradigmatic representation of the languages and branches involved. The volume contains contributions by Lutz Edzard, Ruth Kramer, Mohamed Elmedlaoui, David Appleyard, Kjell Magne Yri, Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Rolf Theil, and Binyam Sisay Mendisu.