The Twentieth North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics
(This account, written by Prof. John Huehnergard (Harvard University), appeared in Languages of the World & Linguistic News Lines 5/3: 59–60 and Orientalia 62: 11–13.)
The twentieth annual North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics was held March 31 - April 3, 1992, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., USA. Forty-eight papers were read, including those presented in two sessions held jointly with the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society. The schedule of papers is presented below. Copies of paragraph-length abstracts of most of the papers may be obtained upon request for US$5 by writing to the address below.
Tuesday, March 31, afternoon session (held jointly with the American Oriental Society); David Noel Freedman (University of Michigan), chair: Hebrew Literature and Linguistics.
Timothy J. Lavallee (University of Michigan). Talking
heads: Divination and Rachel's theft of the teraphim according
to Targum Pseudo-Jonathan.
David Noel Freedman (University of Michigan). Curious features
in Psalms 25 and 34.
David Rothstein (University of Judaism). Psalm 148:6 in
its ancient Near Eastern matrix.
S. David Sperling (Hebrew Union College, New York). Inner
Aramaic transiations in the Talmuds.
Steven E. Fassberg (Hebrew University). The lengthened
imperative in Biblical Hebrew.
Alan D. Corre (University of Wisconsin). Indo-European
loanwords in classical Hebrew.
Ariel A. Bloch (University of California, Berkeley). Linguistics
and the "pious bias" in Bible exegesis.
Wednesday, April 1, morning session (held jointly with the American Oriental Society); Carleton T. Hodge (Indiana University), chair: Linguistics.
Peter T. Daniels (University of Chicago). Edward Hincks's
decipherment of Mesopotamian cuneiform.
Anne F. Robertson (New York University). Who taught the
Egyptians to read Akkadian?
Alan S. Kaye (California State University, Fullerton).
Does Ugaritic go with Arabic in Semitic genealogical sub-classification?
Gary A. Rendsburg (Comell University). The dialect of the
Deir ‘Alla inscription.
Jaan Puhvel (University of California, Los Angeles). Lexical determinants
of Anatolian origins.
Carleton T. Hodge (Indiana University). Establishing a
Lislakh base.
Leo Depuydt (Brown University). Expressing contiguous events
in Egyptian.
Wednesday, April 1, afternoon session; Edwina M. Wright (Harvard University), chair: Chadic, Cushitic, Ethiopian Semitic.
Ronald L. Cosper (Saint Mary's University). Jimi, Jum
and the South Bauchi languages.
Zygmunt Frajzyngier (University of Colorado). From demonstratives
to nominal and verbal plural in Chadic.
David L. Appleyard (University of London). "Kaïliña"
— A "new" Agaw dialect and its implications for Agaw dialectology.
Ephraim Isaac (Institute of Semitic Studies). Verbal modes
in Oromo.
Iwona Kraska (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign).
From verb to clitic and nominal suffix: the Somali -e, -o
nouns.
Abraham Demoz (Northwestern University). Between grammar
and lexicon: The case of the Amharic derived stems.
Anne Loring (University of Minnesota). An underlying four-vowel
system for Tigrinya: Evidence from behavior of glottal and pharyngeal consonants.
Thursday, April 2, morning session; Kristen Brustad (Harvard University), chair: Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Arabic Dialects.
Ami Elad (Harry S Truman Research Institute). Varieties
of language usage in dialogue in the modern Egyptian village novel.
Peter Behnstedt (University of Heidelberg). A new dialect
atlas of Syria: First results.
Dominique Caubet (INALCO, Paris). A transcategorial approach:
The particle gae in Moroccan Arabic.
Heinz Grotzfeld (University of Minister). Rabi‘
al-‘awwal and Nahr el-kibir: The notion of polarity
and its expression in Arabic.
Devin J. Stewart (Emory University). A Shiite survival
in popular Egyptian speech.
M. Woidich (University of Amsterdam). Upper Egyptian Arabic
and dialect mixing in historical perspective.
Thursday, April 2, afternoon session; Robert D. Hoberman (State University of New York, Stony Brook), chair: Judaeo-arabic, Modern Hebrew.
Benjamin Hary (Emory University). The Cairo collection.
M. Piamenta (Hebrew University). The decay of Jerusalem
Judaeo-Arabic under the impact of socio-political transformation.
Ofra Tirosh-Becker (Hebrew University). Rabbinic Hebrew
quotations embedded in Judeo-Arabic Karaite writings.
Shmuel Bolozky (University of Massachusetts). Global and
local strategies in modern Hebrew word-formation.
Robert Fradkin (Old Dominion University). More on the "How
Russian is Hebrew ?" Question.
Naftali Stern (Bar-Ilan University): Substitutes, tahlîpîm,
and particles, millîyôt, in contemporary Hebrew.
Friday, April 3, morning session; John Huehnergard (Harvard University), chair: Neo-Aramaic; Comparative Semitic.
Samuel Ethan Fox. The common roots of the North-East Neo-Aramaic
dialects.
Robert D. Hoberman (State University of New York, Stony
Brook). Modern Aramaic šimma "name" and the nature
of the minimal word.
Michael L. Brown (Messiah Biblical Institute and Graduate
School of Theology). Etymology and semantics: A positive assessment for
Semitic studies.
Lutz Edzard (University of California, Berkeley). Polygenesis,
entropy and wave theory: An alternative model of linguistic evolution applied
to Semitic linguistics.
Orin D. Gensler (University of California, Berkeley). Verbs
with two object clitics: A Semitic archaism.
Peter T. Daniels (University of Chicago). The protean Arabic
alphabet.
Olga Kapeliuk (Hebrew University). The double function
of the “possessive complex” in Semitic.
Friday, April 3, afternoon session; Paul Mankowski (Harvard University), chair: Comparative Afroasiatic.
C. R. Clamons (with Ann E. Mulkern and Gerald Sanders;
University of Minnesota). On the history of Afroasiatic agreement.
Cyrus H. Gordon (Brandeis University). An epigraphically
attested link between the Egypto-Semitic sphere and China ca. 1200 b.c.e.
John A. C. Greppin (Cleveland State University). A note
on the etymology of Old Egyptian trr.
Saul Levin (State University of New York, Binghamton).
The definite article, an Egyptian/Semitic/Indo-European etymology.
Vladimir Orel (Hebrew University). The Hamito-Semitic etymological
dictionary: flora and fauna (read in absentia).
Leo Depuydt (Brown University). An exception to the Stern-Jernstedt
rule and its history.
Robert R. Ratcliffe (Yale University). Afroasiatic plural
problems: report on work in progress.
Dept. of Near Eastern Languages
and Civilizations
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02183 (USA)
