What is it about?
The Aramaic language continues to be spoken today in several subgroups of dialects. The largest subgroup is known as North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA). NENA dialects have a copula expressing the verb 'to be' in predications. In origin this copula is a pronoun. In the NENA dialects the pronoun has developed into a verb, with verbal inflection, through the influence of contact with Iranian languages . The article shows that the degree of historical change from a pronoun to a verb differs across the various NENA dialects and this reflects different degrees of convergence with Iranian.
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Why is it important?
The study of fine-grained differences in degrees of changes across different dialects of a language is important for casting light on the processes of change.
Perspectives
This type of research is based on the documentation of endangered dialects of Aramaic. Language documentation plays an important role in historical linguistics.
Geoffrey Khan
University of Cambridge
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This page is a summary of: The change in the grammatical category of the copula in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic, Journal of Historical Linguistics, April 2022, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/jhl.21019.kha.
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