Expression of the Causative in Ugaritic

IN THE FIRST few years after the discovery of Ugaritic (the language of ancient Ras Shamra) its verbal system presented many problems, some of which are now reaching the stage of solution. Among the most widely discussed of these was the question of the causative. Most scholars expected a causative with h-preformative, more or less like the Hebrew hifil, and this view gained support because of the generally Canaanite character of Ugaritic. However, a number of verbal forms in the Sc-ausative (safel) were soon identified in the texts. The question arose: How was the causative verbal relation 1 of Semitic expressed in Ugaritic? Did Ugaritic use the S-form, or the h(or '-)form, or both ? 2 In order to decide this question, we must investigate all words which seem to be causative in form or in meaning. The meanings alone would not be sufficient evidence; many words with causative meaning, or with meanings which in other Semitic languages are expressed in the causative, may not be in the causative stem in Ugaritic. ilowever, we cannot judge by written form alone, for the paucity of vowel-indication in the Ugaritic script conceals many formal differences; thus we must not be led to exaggerate the relative frequency of S-forms as against possible h-forms merely because the S'-forms are so much easier to discern. The evidence for S-causative is considerable

Ancient history · Causative · Expression (computer science) · Linguistics · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Ancient Near East History · Computer Science · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy