Vowel Quality as a History Maker

Abstract

Semitic languages exhibit variegated stress patterns, and there is no consensus on the accentual system of Proto-Semitic. In the Modern South Arabian (MSA) sub-family, stress is not predictable on the basis of a representation of the word that would pre-exist stress-assignment. It can thus be considered phonemic, and its position is part of the morphological pattern much in the same way as the position and nature of the vowels – since MSA morphology is predominantly of the root-and-pattern type. The MSA languages are consistent as far as the position of stress in cognate patterns is concerned, which allows the reconstruction of stress for Proto-MSA. What is remarkable is that the position of Proto-MSA stress can be accounted for not on the grounds of a hypothetical Proto-Semitic stress, but on the sole basis of the quality and position of the vowels in the corresponding Proto-Semitic etyma. One is therefore led to suppose the operation of quality-sensitive stress at some time in the prehistory of MSA. This chapter investigates how this new accentual system led to a re-shaping of Proto-Semitic morphology, eventually resulting in the modern MSA systems, where stress is no longer quality-sensitive. Particular focus is given to the ways in which such morphological oppositions as had been conveyed by Proto-Semitic vowel alternations have been retrieved in Proto-MSA either in the form of stress alternations or as new vowel alternations originating from progressive and regressive metaphony processes.