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Re: Breaking the Semitic Holding Pattern



--- In westasianconlangs@yahoogroups.com, Philip Newton <philip.newton@g...> wrote:
>
> On 1/29/06, Isaac Penzev <isaacp@u...> wrote:
> > The other Semitic languages
> > seem to preserve consonant root structure as a very typical feature. To say
> > nothing about lexical borrowings from European languages in Maltese :)
> 
> Though the Maltese verbal system has, as I understand it, seized on a
> marginal part of the system to accommodate loan verbs, first from from
> Italian and later from English, in a manner that can't really be
> called "using the triconsonantal system" any more -- it's more a stem
> + prefixes and suffixes thing of the kind you might find in a SAE
> language.

Yet, from what I understand, prefixes and suffixes were the essential features of the Proto-
Semitic verbal system until stress patterns and vowel reductions affected it.

> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@g...>
>