Semitic root

The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals" (hence also the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants (or "transfixes") which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate way, generally following specific patterns. It is a peculiarity of Semitic linguistics that a large majority of these consonantal roots are triliterals (although there are a number of quadriliterals, and in some languages also biliterals).

Triconsonantal roots

A triliteral or triconsonantal root (Hebrew: שוֹרֶש‎; šoreš, Arabic: جذر ثلاثي‎; jadhr thulāthy, Syriac: ܫܪܫܐ; šeršā) is a root containing a sequence of three consonants.

The following are some of the forms which can be derived from the triconsonantal root k-t-b (general overall meaning "to write") in Hebrew and Arabic:

Note: The Hebrew fricatives transcribed as "kh" and "bh" above are single phonetic sounds, which can also be transcribed in a number of other ways, such as "ch" and "v" (Eastern-European influenced) or [x] and [v]. They are transliterated "kh" and "bh" on this page to retain the connection with the pure consonantal root k-t-b.

In Hebrew grammatical terminology, the word binyan (Hebrew בנין, plural בינינים binyanim) is used to refer to a verb stem or overall verb derivation pattern, while the word mishqal (or mishkal) is used to refer to a noun derivation pattern, and these words have gained some use in English-language linguistic terminology. The Arabic terms, called وزن wazn (plural أوزان, awzān) for the pattern and جذر jidhr (plural جذور, judhūr) for the root have not gained the same currency as the Hebrew equivalents, and Western grammarians continue to use "stem"/"form"/"pattern" for the former and "root" for the latter—though "form" and "pattern" are accurate translations of the Arabic grammatical term wazn (originally meaning 'weight, measure'), and "root" is a literal translation of jidhr.

Biliteral origin of some triliteral roots

Although most roots in Hebrew seem to be tri-radical, many of them were originally bi-radical, cf. the relation between גזז √ g-z-z ‘shear’, גזמ √ g-z-m ‘prune’ and גזר√ g-z-r ‘cut’, as well as between פרז√ p-r-z ‘divide a city’, פרט √ p-r-ţ ‘give change’ and פרע √ p-r-‘ ‘pay a debt’."^[1] The Hebrew root שקפ √ sh-q-p "look out/through" deriving from קפ√ q-p "bend, arch, lean towards" (cf. קפח√ q-p-ħ, קפה√ q-p-h, קפא √ q-p-' and קפי √ q-p-y "arch, bend"), and similar verbs fit into the shaCCéC verb-pattern. "This verb-pattern is usually causative, cf. שטפ√ sh-ţ-p ‘wash, rinse, make wet’, from טפ √ ţ-p ‘wet’, as well as שלכ √ sh-l-k ‘cast off, throw down, cause to go’, from לכ √ l-k ‘go’".^[1]

Quadriliteral roots

A quadriliteral is a consonantal root containing a sequence of four consonants (instead of three consonants, as is more often the case). A quadriliteral form is a word derived from such a four-consonant root. For example, the abstract quadriliteral root t-r-g-m / t-r-j-m gives rise to the verb forms תרגם tirgem in Hebrew and ترجم tarjama in Arabic, meaning "he translated". In some cases, a quadriliteral root is actually a reduplication of a two-consonant sequence. So in Hebrew דגדג digdeg means "he tickled", and in Arabic زلزال zilzāl means "earthquake".

Generally, only a subset of the verb derivations formed from triliteral roots are allowed with quadriliteral roots. For example, in Hebrew, the Pi``el, Pu``al, and Hitpa``el, and in Arabic, forms similar to the stem II and stem V forms of triliteral roots.

Traditionally in the Semitic languages, forms with more than four basic consonants (i.e. consonants not introduced by morphological inflection or derivation) were occasionally found in nouns — mainly loanwords from other languages — but never in verbs.^[2] However, in modern Israeli Hebrew, syllables are allowed to begin with a sequence of two consonants (a relaxation of the situation in early Semitic, where only one consonant was allowed), and this has opened the door to apparent five root-consonant forms, such as טלגרף tilgref "he telegraphed". But, -lgr- always appears as an indivisible cluster in the derivation of this verb, so that these five root-consonant forms do not display any fundamentally different morphological patterns from four root-consonant forms (and the term "quinqueliteral" or "quinquiliteral" would be misleading if it implied otherwise).

See also

• apophony vs. transfixation (root-and-pattern)
• Arabic grammar
• broken plural
• nonconcatenative morphology
• Phono-semantic matching
• Proto-Indo-European root
• transfix
• Khuzdul

References

External links

• Semitic Roots Repository
• Roots in Quranic Arabic
• Project Root List