Ugaritic grammar


Ugaritic is an extinct Northwest Semitic language. This article describes the grammar of the Ugaritic language. For more information regarding the Ugaritic language in general, see Ugaritic language.

Overview

is an inflected language, and as a Semitic language its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian. It possesses two genders, three cases for nouns and adjectives ; three numbers: ; and verb aspects similar to those found in other Northwest Semitic languages. The word order for Ugaritic is verb–subject–object, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective. Ugaritic is considered a conservative Semitic language, since it retains most of the Proto-Semitic phonemes, the basic qualities of the vowel, the case system, the word order of the Proto-Semitic ancestor, and the lack of the definite article.

Grammar

Word order

The word order for Ugaritic is Verb Subject Object, Subject Object Verb, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective.

Morphology

Ugaritic, like all Semitic languages, exhibits a unique pattern of stems consisting typically of "triliteral", or 3-consonant consonantal roots, from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed in various ways: e.g. by inserting vowels, doubling consonants, and/or adding prefixes, suffixes, or infixes.

Verbs

Aspects

Verbs in Ugaritic have 2 aspects: perfect for completed action and imperfect for uncompleted action. Verb formation in Ugaritic is based on triconsonantal roots. Affixes inserted into the root form different meanings. Taking the root RGM for example:

Moods

Ugaritic verbs occur in 5 moods:
MoodVerb
Indicativeyargumu
Jussiveyargum
Volitiveyarguma
Energic 1yargumn
Energic 2yargumanna

Patterns

Ugaritic verbs occur in 10 reconstructed patterns or binyanim:
----

Nouns

in Ugaritic can be categorized according to their inflection into: cases, state, gender, and number.

Case

Ugaritic has three grammatical cases corresponding to: nominative, genitive, and accusative. Normally, singular nouns take the ending –u in the nominative, -i in the genitive and –a in the accusative. Using the word Malk- and Malkat- for example:
NominativeGenitiveAccusative
MasculineMalkuMalkiMalka
FeminineMalkatuMalkatiMalkata

As in Arabic, some exceptional nouns have the suffix -a in the genitive. There is no Ugaritic equivalent for Classical Arabic nunation or Akkadian mimation.

State

in Ugaritic occur in two states: absolute and construct.
If a noun is followed by a genitival attribute it becomes a construct. Otherwise, it is in the absolute state. Ugaritic, unlike Arabic and Hebrew, has no definite article.

Gender

which have no gender marker are for the most part masculine, although some feminine nouns do not have a feminine marker. However, these denote feminine beings such as ʼumm-. /-t/ is the feminine marker which is directly attached to the base of the noun.

Number

Ugaritic distinguishes between nouns based on quantity. All nouns are either singular when there is one, dual when there are two, and plural if there are three or more.
Singular
The singular has no marker and is inflected according to its case.
Dual
The marker for the dual in the absolute state appears as /-m/. However, the vocalization may be reconstructed as /-āmi/ in the nominative and /-ēmi/ for the genitive and accusative. For the construct state, it is /-ā/ and /-ē/ respectively.
Plural
Ugaritic has only regular plurals. Masculine absolute state plurals take the forms /-ūma/ in the nominative and /-īma/ in the genitive and accusative. In the construct state they are /-ū/ and /-ī/ respectively. The female afformative plural is /-āt/ with a case marker probably following the /-t/, giving /-ātu/ for the nominative and /-āti/ for the genitive and accusative in both absolute and construct state.

Adjectives

follow the noun and are declined exactly like the preceding noun.

Personal pronouns

Independent personal pronouns

Independent personal pronouns in Ugaritic are as follows :

Suffixed (or enclitic) pronouns

ed pronouns are as follows:

Numerals

The following is a table of Ugaritic numerals: