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Yitzik adds: On Tuesday, January 13, 2004 9:45 AM I wrote: > Steg Belsky wrote: > > > If i remember correctly, i think my Comparative Semitic Languages > > professor said that Ethiopic (or at least Ge`ez) lost gemination at > > some point in history, so the script has no way to represent it. > > I'm not sure it's true at the moment. From what I heard, both Ge`ez and Amaregna > has gemination, but it is not represented in script. When I come home, I'll give > a look into my Linguistic Dictionary for more accuracy. The passage from the Linguistic Dictionary says: "Ethio-Semitic verbal system is characterized with gemination of penultimate root consonant in forms without meaning of 'intensive', 'full-voweled' model of imperfective (yə1ä22ə3) [...] Affirmative perfective stem in South E.-S. langs with gemination of the second root consonant is opposed to a non-geminated stem in North E.-S. langs." -- Yitzik