Lutz Edzard Book order

The present volume is based on a selection of papers delivered at the workshop “The Morpho-Syntactic Encoding of Tense and Aspect in Semitic”, which was organized at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg on April 26, 2014. Specifically, the contributions focus on Akkadian (Michael P. Streck), Biblical Hebrew (Lutz Edzard and Silje S. Alvestad), modern Hebrew (Nora Boneh), modern colloquial Arabic (Melanie Hanitsch and Salah Fakhry), as well as Ethio-Semitic (Ronny Meyer). One joint paper also touches upon Slavic linguistics (Silje S. Alvestad). While the papers are data-oriented, modern linguistic theory and typological considerations play an important role as well. The volume is of interest to Arabists, Hebraists, and Semiticists, as well as Assyriologists, Biblical scholars, Slavicists, and linguists in general.

The present volume is based on a selection of papers delivered at the “Oslo–Austin Workshop in Semitic Linguistics” on May 23 and 24, 2013. The topics covered include “Reanalysis and new roots: an Akkadian perspective” (John Huehnergard), “The morphosyntax of nominal antecedents in Semitic, and an innovation in Arabic” (Na‘ama Pat-El), “Transitivity and the binyanim” (Øyvind Bjøru), “The b-imperfect once again: typological and diachronic perspectives” (Jan Retsö), “The main line of a biblical Hebrew narrative and what to do with two perfective grams” (Bo Isaksson), “Finiteness as manifested by grounding and deixis: Amharic (Semitic) and Sidaama (Cushitic)” (Kjell Magne Yri), “Hebrew and Hebrew-Yiddish terms and expressions in contemporary German: some (socio-)linguistic observations” (Lutz Edzard), and “Muhamed Hevai Uskufi Bosnevi’s 1631 work Ma? bul-i ? arif from a Turcological perspective: the state of the art” (Silje Susanne Alvestad).

Semitic and Afroasiatic: Challenges and Opportunities, edited by Lutz Edzard, supplies Semiticists and general linguists with thorough sketches and text specimens of the Afroasiatic branches Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, Chadic, and Omotic. The volume presents some of the challenges and opportunities for scholars who want to gain a better understanding of certain notorious problems in Semitic linguistics, many of which deserve and need to be investigated in their wider Afroasiatic context. The reader will also have an opportunity to work with larger text specimens of selected representative languages belonging to the different branches of Afroasiatic. In that respect the volume endeavors to go beyond a purely paradigmatic representation of the languages and branches involved. The volume contains contributions by Lutz Edzard, Ruth Kramer, Mohamed Elmedlaoui, David Appleyard, Kjell Magne Yri, Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Rolf Theil, and Binyam Sisay Mendisu.

„Verbal Festivity in Arabic and Other Semitic Languages“ edited by Lutz Edzard and Stephan Guth deals with one of the most essential and fascinating, though still much neglected aspects of Middle Eastern culture(s) – politeness and the ways it can be expressed or encoded in language. The contributions to the Proceedings of a workshop held in Bonn in 2009 attempt to shed spotlights on several aspects of Verbal Festivity. They include a comparative approach (English-German-Arabic) to the cultural concepts of “politeness”, “Höflichkeit”, and “adab” in general (Stephan Guth); a survey of everyday-life polite formulae and expressions of courtesy in Palestinian Arabic (Avihai Shivtiel); a study of the morphological patterns of Arabic formulaic terminology itself (Pierre Larcher); a linguistic analysis of how the wish, or intention, to fulfill ethical duties or prescriptions is expressed in some neo-Aramaic dialects (Geoffrey Khan); a comparative investigation, covering several Semitic languages, of how to remain polite through suppressing explicit mentioning of the negative consequences the addressee will face if he does not comply with the speaker’s suggestions (Lutz Edzard); and an analysis of formulae used in commercial documents at a 13th century Red Sea port (Andreas Kaplony).

In this study, the author challenges the traditional monogenetic „family tree“ model (including wave-theoretical emendations) as an appropriate representation for genetic relationship within language families. As a viable alternative, he proposes a polygenetic model which applies the notions of „convergence“ and „entropy“ to linguistic evolution. A section discussing specific problems in Afro-Asiatic at large is followed by an analogous section dealing with specific problems in Semitic. One major portion of the discussion revolves around a number of longstanding problems in connection with phoneme inventories and sound change in Semitic. This is supplemented by analogous deliberations on morphology and the syntax of complex noun phrases. Special attention is paid to the issue of „bi-radicalism“ vs. „tri-radicalism“ Another focus of the discussion is on the issue of diglossia or polyglossia in Arabic in the light of the proposed theory, and on selected current issues in the history of Arabic linguistics.

This study aims at investigating the important role that language plays as a medium of legal norms and cultural values as surfacing in documents in the United Nations system. The author focuses on diplomatic documents (bi- and multilateral treaties and correspondence) that simultaneously have official status („authenticity“) both in Arabic and in other languages. The investigation of the role of language as a window onto culture and religious background is especially relevant in the case of Arabic due to the interference of religion with law in most Islamic societies. More specifically, problems will be pinpointed in the realms of personal statute law, the legal status of women, the laws of marriage, divorce, inheritance, freedom of opinion and religion, and penal law. At the heart of this study Edzard applies Speech Act Theory to the analysis of the nature and consequences of textual differences between versions of one and the same document in several languages.