(Alter Orient und Altes Testament 273).

404 Pages·2012·2.01 MB·English

JJJJoooosssseeeeffff TTTTrrrrooooppppppppeeeerrrr. Ugaritische Grammatik. 1056 pp. Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2000. (Alter
Orient und Altes Testament 273).
The disadvantage of a dead language attested by a small corpus of texts is that it leaves
many lacunae in our knowledge of text-dependent aspects of the culture that are revealed by
that language; the advantage for the grammarian is that it permits an exhaustive inclusion of
the data in a grammatical description. This T. has done in the volume under review, which
explains why one of the more poorly attested of the ancient Near-Eastern languages now
boasts one of the thickest grammars. The disadvantageous side for the grammarian wishing
to exploit these data exhaustively is that, for many grammatical categories, they are very
few, all too often a single datum or none at all. The danger is always lurking, therefore, that
any given datum is for one reason or another atypical or misunderstood and that a rule be
proposed that in fact has no basis.
In a relatively brief time, the author has established himself as one of the principal
authorities on the ancient Semitic languages, with forty-nine titles cited under his name in the
bibliography, dated from 1989 to 2000, including three important monographs. Though he is
familiar with the major Semitic languages, indeed has published on several of them, he has
concentrated on the Northwest-Semitic languages and particularly on Ugaritic. His
grammatical work has always been of the highest order and all who will in the future have
reason to investigate any aspect of Ugaritic grammar will do well to start here. I have one
general caveat to state and that has nothing to do with the author's abilities but reflects rather
a choice and one with which I have no dispute: in order to write so exhaustive a grammar,
the author must have taken a decision on the meaning of every text in the corpus and on
every word in every text from which data are cited, something that even someone so
obviously brilliant as T. cannot expect to have done so early in his career with equal
thoroughness everywhere. This human limitation is exacerbated by the current state of
Ugaritic epigraphy, which I have described on various occasions:1 the simple fact that many
1See, for example, my review of the collection of Ugaritic texts by M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J.
Sanmartín, The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (KTU: Second,
Enlarged Edition) (Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palästinas und Mesopotamiens 8; Münster:
Ugarit-Verlag, 1995) in JSS 42 (1997) 132-37, and my critique of some of T.'s epigraphic observations with
regard to this collection of texts in AuOr 16 (1998) 85-102. The 1995 collection will henceforth be
abbreviated CAT; the first edition of this work, which dates to 1976 (Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus
Ugarit, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 24/1, Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener Verlag), will be referred to here as KTU. T. cites Ugaritic texts only by the numbers assigned
to them in KTU and in CAT. New-comers to Ugaritic studies should be aware that new texts were included
in CAT; for example, in section 1, texts 162-176 are new in CAT. Moreover, texts already included in
KTU sometimes, though quite rarely, have been assigned different line numbers in CAT; the most
conspicuous case is perhaps RS 24.251+, of which the recto/verso orientation was reversed in CAT—hence a
reader checking a reference to ""1.107'' will not find the text in the same place in KTU as in CAT. For these
reasons, I prefer to cite texts that appeared in KTU as ""KTU … ,'' those that were added in CAT as
""CAT … ,'' and to use ""KTU/CAT'' when a point is being made with regard to a feature shared by the two
editions. T.'s convention is to cite texts by number only, with the primary reference being to CAT; if he
wishes specifically to make a point regarding one edition or the other, he cites them as ""KTU1'' and
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version
– 2 –
of the Ugaritic texts still await an authoritative publication based on autopsy makes it certain
that any study such as this one will include faulty data. That does not mean, however, as I
said in my first description of the situation, that philological study ""must grind to a halt''2
while the time-consuming work of re-editing the texts goes on. It only means that the author
and his readers must not expect perfection. In all honesty, the epigraphic improvements that
remain to be made will in all likelihood not affect T.'s understanding of any major aspect of
Ugaritic grammar, but will have to do rather with moving pieces of data about and with
filling in the picture. Thus I would have been the last to counsel T. to hold off publication of
his work until the epigraphic picture were clearer. So thorough a status questionis was
needed by all of us who work on Ugaritic, not least the epigraphers, for even the most basic
epigraphic work must at times take into consideration both what is known epigraphically and
the interpretations that these data have received. I would thus not disagree with T.'s
assertion that a grammar such as this one is useful as a ""Grundlage für eine fundierte
Übersetzung der inhaltlich schwierigen Texte'' (p. 6), though users must not forget that this
grammar, like any other original grammar (as opposed to those that simply feed off of their
predecessors—which is certainly not the case here!), is based on the author's own analyses
of the texts.
The counterpoint to this problem of not having been able to analyze every text with
equal thoroughness is that T. has analyzed all the texts from a strictly grammatical
perspective and has built up a reservoir of grammatical data previously unequaled. He thus
will have grammatical insights, even on texts on which he has spent less time than the
epigraphars/philologists, that the latter may not have perceived. This was brought home to
me when T. pointed out to me some time ago that the only prefix attested in all prose texts
and most texts in poetry for 3 m.pl. /YQTL/3 forms is t-; because both y- and t- forms are
attested in poetry, I had assumed that such should be the case in prose as well. But, at least
with the present corpus of prose works, such is not the case.4 Thus my first interpretation of
yrdn g®rm in RS 24.256:18 (KTU 1.112) as a plural on analogy with t≤rbn g®rm in RS 1.005:9
(KTU 1.43) has had to be modified.5
T.'s work is a descriptive grammar that follows the time-honored pattern: script/writing
(""Schriftlehre''), phonetics, morphology (including morpho-syntax), and clause/sentence
""KTU2''; if he wishes to express explicitly that a reading appears in both editions, he cites them as
""KTU1/2.''
2""New Readings in the Letters of ≤zn bn byy,'' in Vorträge, gehalten auf der 28. Rencontre Assyriologique
Internationale in Wien, 6.-10. Juli,1981, AfO Beiheft 19 (1982) 39-53, esp. p. 53 note 22.
3Throughout this review, I will refer to the various verbal forms by use of the root QTL enclosed in slashes,
with the necessary specifications for more narrowly defined forms, e.g., /YQTL/ = "prefix-conjugation',
/QTLa/ = "suffix-conjugation', /YQTLØ/ = "prefix-conjugation with zero vowel at the end', /yaqtul-/ = "prefix-
conjugation with stem vowel /u/ and no specification for mood', etc. Nominal bases will usually be
indicated in lower case with the vowel(s) indicating the pattern, e.g., /qatl/ or /qitªl/.
4T., pp. 432-38 (§73.223.3).
5See my Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (Writings from the Ancient World 10; Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature, 2002) 101 n. 24.
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version
– 3 –
syntax; morphology is presented in five sections, numbered as principal sections, viz., the
pronoun, the noun, number words, verbs, and particles. The body of the work consists of an
introduction, followed by these eight sections, for a total of nine. Then thirteen indices
occupy over 140 pages: general abbreviations, sigla and symbols, literary abbreviations,
bibliography, topical index, Ugaritic roots, non-Ugaritic roots, Ugaritic words in alphabetic
script, words in syllabic (Sumero-Akkadian) script, text references by KTU/CAT numbers,
text references by excavation number (""RS …''—this index is broken down into two
sections, one for alphabetic texts, the other for syllabic texts), references to texts not citable
by either of the two preceding systems, and, finally, references to texts from other sites.
This is, therefore, a reference grammar in the best tradition, with the indices provided to
make it useful (though a caveat is necessary on these—see below).
One aspect of this book that deserves special praise is the extent to which the data from
the administrative texts have been integrated into the grammar. T. is not simply aware of the
existence of these texts, but has studied them in detail, has elsewhere already made
significant contributions to their interpretation,6 and makes them a major part of this
grammar. Gone are the days when a Ugaritic grammar was devoted primarily to the
mythological texts.
Another source of data exploited significantly here are the syllabic writings of Ugaritic
words. The basic work along these lines was done by J. Huehnergard7 and W. H. van
Soldt,8 but T. is at pains to include all such data and to draw conclusions from them for
Ugaritic phonology. I have some reservations about the precision with which these data may
be used, but there is no doubting their importance.
The section that I found to be most innovative was that on the phonetic realization of the
consonants (§32.1, pp. 90-133), where he allows for more irregular correspondences with
cognates in other languages than is usually done. Though not all of his examples are
convincing (see remarks below to pp. 109-10 and 110) and though his (necessary) reliance
on the existing editions means that some forms cited simply do not exist, in general this
escape from neo-grammarian rigidity, supported by the very detailed listing of the data for
his positions, can only be praised.9 On the other hand, one would have wished that a more
thorough classification of the aberrant data according to text and context had been made: a
few Ugaritic texts show peculiar orthographies (as T. notes on occasion) and the data from
6I think particularly of his elucidation of the syntactic function of kbd in these texts (UF 29 [1997] 661-62)
which was of great help to P. Bordreuil and myself in interpreting some of the texts from the 1994
campaign. T.'s treatment of complex number phrases that include kbd (pp. 349-63 [§§62.2-62.86], pp. 388-
414 [§§69.1-2]) is one of the strongest parts of the present work as well as one of the most useful for those
who work with administrative texts.
7Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription (Harvard Semitic Studies 32; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987).
8Studies in the Akkadian of Ugarit: Dating and Grammar (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 40; Kevelaer:
Butzon & Bercker, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag; 1991).
9For a detailed presentation of the data on non-standard phonetic correspondences across the Semitic
languages, see the University of Chicago dissertation by Douglas L. Penney, Towards a Prehistory of
Biblical Hebrew Roots: Phoneme Constraint and Polymorphism (1993).
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version
– 4 –
these texts should have been cited separately from those from other texts and an attempt
should have been made to determine the reason for the usages peculiar to a given text.
Another area that deserves particular mention here is that of vocalization. The Ugaritic
writing system being basically consonantal in character, the phonetic system of the language
may be determined by three types of data: those furnished by (1) the use of the three
≥alif-signs (in addition to sign #1, which corresponds to ≥alif in the other West-Semitic
alphabetic systems, the Ugaritic alphabet has two other ≥alif-signs; all three express, in
various ways, the vowel associated with the consonant ≥alif), (2) the writing of Ugaritic
words in syllabic (Sumero-Akkadian) script, and (3) comparative Semitics. The use of
these three types of data has developed slowly over the history of the study of Ugaritic, and
some still mock attempts to present a vocalized version of a Ugaritic text, apparently
misunderstanding the nature of the exercise as heuristic, pedagogical, and as a form of
shorthand for expressing the vocalizer's understanding of the grammatical structure of a
text.10 We have come a long way just since I began proposing a vocalization for a text
under consideration, some twenty-five years ago,11 and T. has taken the process one step
further by offering proposals for virtually all of the systematic facets of the language (i.e.,
the entire verbal side of the grammar and the systematic part of the nominal side, primarily
the case system) and for most of the less-systematic facets (the stem of individual nouns,
adjectives, adverbs, and particles of non-nominal origin; the stem vowel of the G-stem
/YQTL/ for individual verbs). Segert had already begun the process in a similar way,12 but,
because of the very succinct nature of that work, his presentation was essentially apodictic.
This is not the case with T., who often indicates the basis of each proposal, including
references to hypotheses that he does not accept. The reader not fully versed in Ugaritic
studies must realize, as T. himself intimates, that, by the very nature of the exercise, the
degree to which any given proposal corresponds to Late-Bronze-Age-Ugaritic reality will
vary considerably. For example, it borders on absolutely certain that the Ugaritic common
noun for "king' was pronounced /malku/ because we have a syllabic attestation in a ""polyglot''
vocabulary where the word corresponding to "king' in the other columns is written {ma-al-
ku} in the column representing Ugaritic (for a criticism of T.'s treatment of this particular
example, see below, remark to pp. 253, 254 [§51.41b]). At the other extreme, T. chooses
(pp. 543-46 [§74.41-74.412.15]) to ignore the data provided by the ≥alif in 1 c.s. /YQTL/
verbal forms of the D-stem and the fi-stem, all of which indicate that the vowel of the
preformative was /a/, in favor of those from the participle (D-stem /muqattil/) and from other
Semitic languages (Akkadian and Arabic), in favor of a vocalization /yuqattil/; he explains
the 1 c.s. form as arising from vowel harmony but only when following ≥alif (i.e., the prefix
10See Pardee, JAOS 117 (1997) 377-78.
11I remember Moshe Held, z''b, responding to such a proposal at an American Oriental Society meeting in
the mid-seventies with the observation that ""not even the great H. L. Ginsberg dared to vocalize a Ugaritic
text.'' As G. R. Driver (among others!) was wont to observe, dies diem docet.
12A Basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language (Berkeley: University of California, 1984).
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version
– 5 –
vowel assimilates to the first stem vowel: /≥uqattil/ → /≥aqattil/).13 Some would consider it
more plausible that the participle and the finite forms may have had different preformative
vowels and that the data from the 1 c.s. forms should outweigh those from other languages.
Finally, there are grammatical categories, e.g., the energic ending /-anna/ after the dual
morpheme /-ª-/, for which a vocalization is proposed without any Ugaritic data whatever
(see below, comment on p. 177 [§33.221], p. 499 [§73.611.2]); such is also the case very
often for the vocalization of individual nouns. Whether one agree with the procedure or not,
it must be admitted that T. has valid linguistic reasons for his stance and that he usually
presents his case clearly and fairly; only time will tell—assuming that a vocalized form
appears eventually in syllabic script—whether or not he is correct in any given case. Some
will legitimately doubt, however, that hypotheses for the vocalization of nearly every
Ugaritic form should have been presented, whether or not data from Ugarit inform the
hypothesis, in a grammar of the Ugaritic language. It may also be doubted whether
grammatical rules should have been formulated on the basis of words of which the Ugaritic
vocalization is purely hypothetical (e.g., pp. 190-93 [§33.312]—cf. my comments below to
this section). However that may be, those not well acquainted with the Ugaritic data
(whether philologists with a specialty in another area or comparative Semitists or linguists of
whatever persuasion) must be warned to read carefully every paragraph pertaining to
whatever topic interests them in order to ascertain the basis for any given vocalism. (In this
respect, one would have wished that the indices were more detailed—see fourth general
remark below.) In short, the cause of vocalizing Ugaritic might have been better served by a
more conservative approach to the exercise or by one wherein the basis for the proposed
vocalization is indicated explicitly in every instance—which would have made of an already
long work an even longer one.
Finally, T. must be praised to the high heavens for the care with which this work was
proofread. One finds an occasional material error—nobody is perfect!—but, considering the
number of data treated here, the number is very small. One may or may not agree with the
conclusion drawn, but the data and the secondary references are almost always correctly
cited. Unfortunately, where a text number is cited incorrectly in the grammar, the incorrect
reference is, as is to be expected, indicated in the index (e.g., KTU/CAT 2.31:55 [RS
16.394] is cited as ""2.31:54'' on p. 171 and is so indexed on p. 1027; on the same page of the
grammar, the syllabic text RS 20.123+ i 20" is cited as ""20.123+:I:3' '' and is so indexed on p.
1051).
Having sufficiently expressed my admiration for this work, I will now pass on to some
more critical remarks, most of which will express either disagreements regarding
13T. recognizes (p. 175 [§33.215.21b]) that the explanation provided for the D-stem, viz., that the /a/ in the
1 c.s. form arose from vowel harmony with the first root vowel (/≥uqattil-/ → /≥aqattil-/), and which is
applied also to the fi-stem (pp. 587-88 [§74.622.1]), is not borne out by the form {±ßld} /≥aßôlid-/ (RS
2.002:65 [KTU 1.23]). He considers rather that the {±} in the 1 c.s. form represents vowel coloring in what
in Hebrew or Aramaic would correspond to a reduced vowel with /a/-coloring owing to the /≥/ belonging to
the family of guttural consonants. That the feminine morpheme could occur as /-at-/ or as /-t-/ is clear, but
data for true vowel reduction in Ugaritic are hard to come by (see remark below to p. 146 [§33.115.44.5] on
the difficult case of {ßa-¯an˘-tu4}).
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version
– 6 –
grammatical or other interpretations or else epigraphic matters. There are fewer remarks of
the latter kind than would have been the case if T. had not requested of P. Bordreuil and
myself the transcriptions of the texts that we have collated as well as the manuscript of the
up-coming publication of the Ugaritic texts from the excavations of 1986-1992. (At the time
when T. was completing his work, viz., late 1999, our manuscript of the texts from the 1994
and 1996 excavations was judged too preliminary to be made available to him.) What this
means is that I can remark on cases where T. has judged best not to adopt our reading
(primarily ritual texts and letters), on texts that I have collated since the collection of
readings was put together that was sent to him (primarily administrative texts), but cannot, of
course, say anything about the multitude of texts that I have not yet collated, but which will
surely contain as many surprises as have those that have been examined to date. That being
the case, a certain number of data analyzed by T. will prove in the long run to be non-
existent or to belong to a section of the grammar other than the one where they are presently
located. In this context, the reader should take particular notice of T.'s method of
representation of texts as found in KTU/CAT: he does not consistently indicate the
epigraphic state of the text cited, e.g., on p. 189 (§33.311.3b; cf. p. 259 [§51.42f]) the word
""hrt'' is analyzed and an argument is made for its vocalization, but no indication is provided
for the reader that all three signs were indicated as damaged by the authors of KTU/CAT in
the only putative attestation of the word (RS 2.[004] ii 41' [KTU 1.17]).
— First, a general remark on T.'s manner of expressing the plausibility of a given
interpretation. He commonly rates plausibility on three levels: examples may be (1) simply
listed, (2) listed with a question mark, or (3) relegated to a separate section at the end of the
paragraph entitled ""Anm[erkung(en)]'' where proposals within that category are refuted.
This three-way system is occasionally expanded to four by attaching two questions marks to
an example. Users should be aware that criteria for inclusion of examples under a given
category tend to be maximalist rather than minimalist and that question marks are not used
as frequently as they might be. Indeed, after a long and thorough exposure to the work, I
conclude that T.'s criteria for classification vary considerably. At one extreme is the desire—
explicit or implicit—to include most suggestions that have ever been made for the
interpretation of a given Ugaritic word. At the other is the need to classify everything,
including poorly attested words or those of which the epigraphic basis is uncertain. For this
reason, this grammar is both a review of what has been previously proposed and a reasoned
presentation of the data provided by the Ugaritic texts themselves—but not with equal-
handedness. At the one extreme I have been astounded by the amount of space devoted to
a highly questionable phenomenon. For example, the suggestion that qrwn in RS 24.277:11'
(KTU 1.127) would be phonetic variant of qrbn and mean "offering' is given its own six-line
paragraph on p. 156 (§33.137.1) in spite of the fact that T. himself considers the analysis
unlikely (see remark below on this entry). At the other extreme, many forms are given a
single analysis with no mention of other possibilities. Because I do not have in my head an
exhaustive catalogue of what all scholars have said about every text, most of my remarks
below criticizing these cases of tunnel vision will concern my own published interpretations,
but I have checked sufficient cases in the broader literature to be certain that it is not only my
own interpretations that have been ignored here. Moreover, many of T.'s own classifications
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version
– 7 –
of forms are presented as sound when in fact they are in fact questionable or even
far-fetched—many of my remarks below will touch on such points. A particularly striking
example is provided by the presentation of {y} as a mater lectionis (see my discussion
below, note to pp. 37-38 [§21.322.5], etc.): all possible examples are cited with only the
occasional remark that a given form may in fact be an example of the post-positive particle y
(treated later in the book, pp. 833-35 [§89.3]). Finally, space is far too often devoted to
interpretations that T. himself abjures at some other point in the grammar (a striking example
is found on p. 377 [§65.132]—see remark below) and that should, therefore, have been
entirely omitted or, at most, placed in an Anmerkung. Though there is no doubt that T. is an
insightful grammarian, this grammar was far more maximalist than I had expected, to the
point that a few entire categories, such as the {y} mater lectionis or the double writing of a
geminated consonant (see remark below to p. 32), are given far more space than they merit.
In these two cases, an equally strong—I believe stronger—argument could be made for
reducing the former to the brief mention of some disputed instances and for including the
latter only to refute it. Other apparent cases of over-inclusion are owing to the fact that the
decision was made to write this book without footnotes; thus refutations of positions that T.
himself does not hold must take place in the body of the text, usually in the section entitled
""Anm[erkung(en)].'' Despite the availability of this special section for the treatment of
rejected interpretations, some views that T. himself considers highly questionable are
presented in the main body of the text (e.g., §33.137.1 [p. 156], or §65.132 [p. 377], both
mentioned above and commented on below). One nice thing about the use of footnotes is
that they allow a presentation of primary data and interpretations on one level with a
secondary level of discussion going on in footnotes; this allows the reader to follow the
principal line of argument and to move to the second level only as desired. However that
may be, T.'s inclusiveness makes of this work in some respects more of an encyclopedia of
grammatical interpretations than an ordered descriptive grammar according to the author's
own view of things. All the more astounding, then, as is observed in the following remark,
that reasoned views of seasoned Ugaritologists are so often left entirely out of consideration.
— A second general remark goes in the opposite direction from the preceding: I must point
out the all-too-frequent non-encyclopedic nature of the analyses presented here. Call me
over-sensitive, but I have been astonished at the number of times that an interpretation that I
consider to be the best currently available is not even mentioned (e.g., that of {tmtt} in RS
18.031:16, 22 [KTU 2.38]—see below, remark to p. 250 [§51.3g], etc.). Any grammar is
based on the grammarian's analysis of the texts that are the basis of the grammar and of
course T. has a right to his; but when so many far-fetched interpretations are mentioned,
whether refuted or not, whether preferred or not, the absence of some that are not so
far-fetched must elicit surprise.
— Third, there are multitudinous cases where T. shows indecision, giving a particular
analysis or gloss in one place, another in another place. For example, ±ny- in RS 18.031:10
is two times said to mean ""Schiff'' and it would be the singular of ±nyt (p. 286 [§52.5f], p.
703 [§76.521.3]), whereas elsewhere it is translated ""Schiff(e), Flotte,'' i.e., with possible
interpretations either as a singular or as a collective (p. 192, §33.312.32b, p. 254 [§51.41b],
p. 196 [§33.322.3b], p. 569 [§74.423]; on p. 195 [§33.322.2b], the same word from line 24 of
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version
– 8 –
the same text is translated as ""die Flotte,'' with no indication of another possible meaning).
In the case of RS 18.031, it appears unlikely that the king of Ugarit would have sent a single
ship to Egypt for grain and one may legitimately posit that Ugaritic, like Hebrew, had a
collective noun ±ny, a nomen unitatis ±nyt, and a plural ±nyt (on the form of ±ny, see below,
remark to p. 192). Or, in a single section (p. 237, §43.2d), the term mƒr÷lm is translated
""m.- Leute'' at first citation, ""Schwertträger/Wachleute(?)'' at the second. These presentations
of alternative interpretations—acceptable up to a point, especially in the case of a language
with a corpus that is so small and so poorly understood—are particularly frustrating to the
reader when the multiple entries are not cross-referenced and/or do not bear a question
mark. For example, the case of YR≥ in RS 2.[009]+ vi 30 (KTU 1.6) appears in eight
entries of this grammar, seven times as {yr°}, three times as {yr±}, with the total of ten
coming from the mention of both readings at two of the entries; in the other five entries, only
one or the other of the two forms is mentioned and none of the entries is cross-referenced to
the others by page or paragraph number, not even the one where the new reading {yr±!} is
proposed (p. 66 [§21.362]). For another example, {•dn} in RS 15.007:5 (KTU 2.15) is
confidently translated as ""Erlaubnis'' on p. 101 (§32.142.32), whereas on p. 429 (§73.142) it
is represented by "" …(?)''.14 Fortunately, these alternative interpretations usually reflect
genuine options that arise from one level or another of ambiguity in the text; one does,
however, occasionally encounter mutually exclusive interpretations presented in different
sections of the grammar (see remark below to p. 51 [§21.341.21a], etc., or to p. 500
[§73.611.2d], etc., on GL). This style of presentation requires the reader to go to the text
index to find all mentions of the form(s). Many of my comments below reflect this
indecisiveness which becomes the more frustrating the more one uses the grammar. The
ideal would have been to present in the most logical place all the data for a given feature, to
reach a decision in that paragraph or section as to the most likely conclusion for Ugaritic,
then to base all references to the feature in question, whether they actually precede or follow
the point where the decision was reached, on that decision. It must be stated forthrightly
that, because of the maximalist policy of inclusion, this grammar must be used critically and
intelligently—slapdash use could bring about a revival of uncritical interpretations that would
be nearly as harmful to future progress in Ugaritic grammar as some of the less well-
founded approaches of the past.
—A fourth general remark, on the indices: though the text index is nearly exhaustive, the
others are not and all are time-consuming to exploit. The first use to which I put this
grammar was in preparing a study of RS 1.012 (KTU 4.14)15 and, while following up
various references that were in the indices, I came across three that were not: “mr in RS
1.012:6, 12, 18 is interpreted as a measure on pp. 255 and 411 (though only the occurrence
in line 18 is cited on p. 255), but this “mr is neither in the root-index nor in the word index;
the word n≤r, which I restore in RS 1.012:7 and which is attested as a foodstuff of some kind
14In the first section cited, {•dn} appears without a textual reference but, as {•dn} is to be found only in RS
15.007:5 and as several scholars have proposed the meaning "permission ' for the word in that passage, one
must assume that T. had that passage in mind when citing the word.
15Which has since appeared as ""Un "nouveau' mot ougaritique,'' AuOr 20 (2002) 163-82.
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version
– 9 –
in three other texts, is twice translated ""Rostmehl'' on p. 411 but does not appear in either of
the aforementioned indices; in the text index (i.e., at KTU/CAT 4.14), there is no reference
at all to line 6, though the analysis of “mr on pp. 255 and 411 may eventually be located by
going to the entries for lines 12 and 18. As regards “mr, since an important subsection of the
grammar is devoted to the use of measure-words with cardinal numbers (§69.2, pp. 408-14),
one would have expected at least the word “mr in this sense to have been included in the
index of Ugaritic words (on “mr as a measure, see remarks below to p. 123 [§32.146.23a],
etc., and to p. 137 [§33.112.32], etc.). I have found that, in general, the text indices are
relatively complete, while the index of Ugaritic words is woefully inadequate, e.g., ±”,
"brother' (see below, comment to p. 51 [§21.341.21], etc.), is not to be found at all in the
index of Ugaritic words (only ±”, "marsh'; ≥‡W, the hypothetical root of ±”, "brother', is in the
index of roots, p. 950). In order to find most references to a given Ugaritic word in this
grammar, one must go through the text index, which is usually not an easy thing to do, for the
text index will, of course, list all citations of a given line of text and one must, therefore,
plow through all such citations to find the one or ones that deal with given word in the line of
text. For commonly attested words, resort to the text index is impracticable,16 and there is,
therefore, no easy way of locating where the word may be discussed. A grammar cannot, of
course, be expected to play the role of a dictionary; but one can expect all cited texts to be
included in the text indices and, since the work will be consulted by many who are not
professional Ugaritologists and who might be interested in the Ugaritic form of individual
words, the word index should have been more complete. The problem posed by the
inadequacy of the indices is compounded by T.'s very thoroughness (a given word may be
treated in various sections of the grammar, according to whether its orthography, phonology,
morphology, or syntax is at issue) and compounded again by the indecisiveness described
above (finding one analysis of a word, phrase, or passage is no guarantee that the same
analysis has been indicated elsewhere): it is a source of frustration for the reader to believe
that T.'s interpretation of a given word or passage has been understood, only to find that in
another section of the grammar another interpretation is assumed, often without a cross-
reference to the other interpretation. The interpretations of passages are usually fairly easy
to ascertain by the use of the text index; those of individual words or roots are, however, as
already indicated, more difficult to discover. Finally, it should be noted that the indices send
the user to a page, not to a numbered paragraph; thus the user has to scan a larger body of
text to find a given passage than if the indexing had been by paragraph numbers (relatively
few numbered paragraphs cover more than one page). It would have been to the user's
benefit for the references to be to paragraphs, with page number added if the paragraph
extended beyond a single page.
— Fifth, T. is very conservative in his treatment of the syllabic data: the sign {me}, for
example, is taken as /me/ and not /mi/, i.e., {mì}; variant syllabic writings are taken to
represent actual phonetic variants in Ugaritic. This is not at all my field of expertise, but I
16It is also fraught with the difficulty created by T.'s inconsistent treatment of data; for an example, see
below, remark to p. 256 (§51.41f), etc., where it is pointed out that T. has himself proposed that the
primary passage cited on p. 256 for the word °m, "mother', in fact does not contain that word.
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version
– 10 –
must confess to remaining dubious about some of the reconstructions of Ugaritic that are
based on a single syllabic form as well as about supposed Ugaritic phonetic developments
based on one type of form when variants are attested. I am not yet convinced that the
scribes used the syllabic system with the phonetic precision that T. assumes (see, for
example, remarks below to p. 88 [§31.2], p. 146 [§33.115.44.5], etc., p. 172 [§33.214.1], p.
182 [§33.242a], etc., and p. 185 [§33.243.2]). I am also puzzled by how T. can list syllabic
writings of which the meaning, hence the etymology, hence the phonology are uncertain,
under very precise phonological headings (e.g., on p. 196 [§33.322.41a], RS 16.246:6 [PRU
3, p. 95] {”a-a-PI}, listed as a retention of /ªy/ followed by either a long or a short vowel:
though his presumption that the vowel in the first syllable is /ª/ is certainly plausible, the
syllabic writing does not in fact allow certainty as to whether that /a/ was long or short,
whether the /y/ was geminated or not, whether the word is Ugaritic or not, or even whether
there was a weak consonant between the two /a/-vowels indicated in the syllabic script).
Though T. is correct in not using proper names for deriving Ugaritic grammar, he could have
studied the syllabic writings of at least the Ugaritic proper names and tried to determine
therefrom with what consistency the various signs correspond to Ugaritic phonemes. Had he
done so, he may have begun to wonder whether the syllabic writing of common vocabulary
is any more reliable for determining the fine points of the vocalization of Ugaritic words.
Finally under this heading, T. also assumes that variant Akkadian writings of inflectional
elements must be interpreted as expressing variants in Ugaritic inflection. Though the
Akkadian texts from Ras Shamra do not show the same baroque plethora of variety as one
encounters in the el-Amarna texts, it nevertheless appears plausible to draw the lesson from
those texts that West-Semitic scribes did not write Akkadian without influence from the local
language. Hence, if in a given case the data reflect what may be Akkadian phenomena
alongside Ugaritic phenomena, it appears implausible to attempt to interpret all the data as
reflecting Ugaritic grammar (for a specific example, see remark below to p. 304
[§54.112.2]).
— Sixth, a general remark on the exploitation of data when these are few in number. The
old adage that "One swallow does not make a summer' must be kept in mind when dealing
with a language as poorly attested as Ugaritic. In this grammar there are a lot of hot summer
days established on the basis of a single swallow, for T. has clearly wished to work every
datum from every reasonably well-understood text (and many data from poorly understood
texts) into his presentation. This attempt at exhaustivity is laudable, in that the interested
student will find here T.'s stance on thousands upon thousands of individual points of
interpretation. The downside of the procedure is that individual interpretations are perforce
transformed into grammatical rules and a rule will too often stand or fall with the acceptance
or rejection of a very small number of data, sometimes a single datum. It is important,
therefore, that each user examine carefully the basis for a given rule and decide whether the
data are sufficient and properly understood before accepting the rule as a valid one for
Ugaritic.
— A seventh general remark is in order here on T.'s presentation of "hollow' roots, viz., those
of the historical type /C(W/Y)C/, e.g., {qm}, "he arose'. In the sections on phonology and
morphology, T. reconstructs all verbal and nominal forms on a triconsonantal pattern. For
Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version