Saadia Gaon

[Paul Younan]

Shlama Akhi bar-Khela,

(1) Are the majority of the roots incorporated in three consonants rather than two consonants?

Of course. That's all Semitic languages (do any search on the Lexicon and you'll notice the root is almost always made up of 3 consonants.)

(2) Is infixation used more frequently than suffixes and prefixes to accomplish category changes and create related words?

Sure, Infixation occurs in Aramaic. For instance, Ktaba ("book") becomes Ktabuna ("little book") by the infixation of -un- after the first Consonant-Vowel-Consonant sequence.

(3) Do you have a declension system marked by at least three cases, i.e. nominative, accusative, and genitive?

Almost all languages do. Even Greek has these features (in addition to the Dative.) The difference is in how these are expressed.

In Aramaic, the Genitive (a marker of possession - "of") is marked by the Daleth Proclitic (this is missing in Hebrew.) The Accusative (direct object of a transitive verb) is marked by the Lamedh Proclitic (in Hebrew, this is pointed to by the "Et" direct object marker.) The Nominative is simply a noun which appears as the subject, it preceeds a Lamedh Proclitic that is attached to the relevant object.

(4) Is the singular, dual, and plural used with nouns, verbs, and adjectives?

Yes, yes and yes. ("Nahra" (single river), "Nahrain" (two rivers), "Nahre" (rivers)). In Aramaic, the "-in" suffix signals duality.

(5) Do you have two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, distinguished in nouns and adjectives?

Yes. Nouns are, like in all Semitic languages, either male or female (no neuter.) Gender is also distinguished in Adjectives ("ana" = Masc., "Anitha" = Fem.), examples:

[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]0p0k 0nbw=[/font] Tuwana Keepa = "Blessed Peter"

[font=Estrangelo (V1.1)]Myrm Fynbw=[/font] Tuwanitha Maryam = "Blessed Mary"

(6) Can you reverse polarity in gender agreement exhibited with the numbers from three to ten?

I don't understand? <!-- s:dontgetit: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/dontgetit.gif" alt=":dontgetit:" title="Dont Get It" /><!-- s:dontgetit: --> Please clarify.