Proto-Austronesian Hebrew/Verbs
The confluence of the Semitic binyanim/aspect system and the Proto-Austonesian alignment/triggers is among the most labyrinthine combinations in the history of morphosyntactic amalgamation. In the realm of phonaesthetics, PAH progressivelty capitulated to its surroundings. Here, however, it subsumed and appropriated new processes while maintaining all of its original syntax.
History
PH was a Nominative-Accusative language, favoring VSO 40% of the time. SVO occurred in 34% of cases, VOS 17%, OSV 5.3%, SOV 2.3%, and OSV 0.98%. Definite direct objects were marked with the preposition /eθ/. Thee enclitic, post-position location marker /aː/ was slowly giving way to the preposition /lə/ and the relative clause marker /ʃə/ was being replaced by the relative pronoun /ʔaʃer/. Theere was no tense per se[1], but a complex system of seven voices[2], two aspects[3], four moods[4] and a binary system of reduplication[5]. Most of these could be conjugated for person, number, and gender.
Most Hebrew grammars deem stems to have expressed either the active or the passive voice. They are said to be either ‘simple’, ‘intensive’, or ‘causative’. The hitha’el is was the ‘causative reflexive’. However, the medio-passive role of the niphal and the shadowy remnants of a Qal-passive voice make some Semitologists conjecture a nine-part system of nine binyanim in the earliest stages of Hebrew development, not seven
| Simple | Intensive | Causative | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active | qatal | piel | hifal |
| MIddle | nifal | hitpael | qutal[6] |
| Passive | pual | nitfael[7] | hofal |
- ↑ However, the qatal system does seem to have been only for the past tense, see Alleged Non-Past Uses of Qatal in Classical Hebrew, M.F. Rogland Ph.D dissertation
- ↑ simple active/passive, intensive active/passive, causative active/passive, and reflexive
- ↑ perfective and imperfect
- ↑ indicative, imperative/cohortative/jussive, infinitive construct, and participial
- ↑ an admittedly Austronesian way to discuss the infinitive absolute
- ↑ reconstructed in PH from such forms as אֻּכַל and יֻּתַן
- ↑ unattested in the literature we have preserved from the ANE
