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Reconstruction:Proto-Semitic/lV-

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This Proto-Semitic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Semitic

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Etymology

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From Proto-Afroasiatic. Compare Egyptian n, Proto-Berber *n (whence Central Atlas Tamazight (n) and Kabyle n), Somali -lá (with, in company with) and -leh (with, owning).

Preposition

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*lV-

  1. for, to

Reconstruction notes

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Though this entry is notated with the symbol for an unspecified vowel, ⟨V⟩, in this case it does not mean the vowel is indeterminate. Rather, both *li- and *la- existed in opposition and became conflated to various degrees in the descendants, such that it is most parsimonious to unify them under one headword. The same is the case for *bV-.

Descendants

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  • East Semitic:
    • (fossiziled) Akkadian: lapān (before)
  • West Semitic:
    • Central Semitic:
      • Arabic: لِـ (li-), before pronominal suffixes لَـ (la-), with other distributions in dialects
      • Northwest Semitic:
        • Aramaic:
          Old Aramaic: 𐤋
          Imperial Aramaic: 𐡋 (l)
          Biblical Aramaic: ל־
          Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: ל־
          Christian Palestinian Aramaic: ܠ
          Jewish Literary Aramaic: ל־
          Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: ל־
          • Classical Syriac: ܠ-
        • Canaanite:
        • Ugaritic: 𐎍 (l /⁠le⁠/)
        • Akkadian: la
      • Old South Arabian:
    • Modern South Arabian:
      • Mehri: l-
      • Shehri: l-
      • Soqotri: le (distributive)
    • Ethiopian Semitic:
      • North Ethiopian Semitic:
      • South Ethiopian Semitic:
        • Amharic: ለ- (lä-)
        • Harari: -ሌ (-le, postposition)

References

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  • Bravmann, Meïr Max (1977) “Expressions based on the noun yawm- ‘day’”, in Studies in Semitic Philology (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics; 6), Leiden: E. J. Brill, →ISBN, page 390