That's right, Will. Solid evidence in Semitics is always a better basis for one's opinion than personal speculation . The latter has become more and more the norm in this list.
As for the Arab equivalent to the Heb. /oti//otkha/ etc, I know off hand only the form "Ayyaka" ( a Shaddah in the Y); it is in one of the first verses of the Quran. In the earlier Phoenician there are quite a few examples of /)t/ , /)yt/. Uri Hurwitz > I don't think it's tenable to derive (e.g.) אתה (/'atta:/) from את + הו (/'e:t/ + /hu:/). The pronoun /atta:/ corresponds to forms in other Semitic languages that have an internal /nt/, such as the Arabic form ﺍﻧﺖ (/'anta/), whereas forms such as אתי (/'o:ti:/) pretty much exclude the possibility of the preposition /'e:t/ having an original /nt/. (We would expect to see a form with a daghesh in the taw if that were so.) -- Will Parsons < _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
