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--- 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...> >