<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Dear
colleagues,</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In
my field material on Modern Western Aramaic, a moribund language still spoken
in the Syrian Antilebanon mountains, I often come across clauses like this one:</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Mácana
ḥarb̥aṯ ʕimm. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The
machine broke down on me</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The
verb ḥarb̥aṯ is anti-causative, the ʕimm prepositional phrase ‘on me’ (lit. ‘with
me’) refers to the participant via whose involuntary involvement the action
took place. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Another similar example:</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">‘Hanna
finžōna ičber!?!’ ‘Iskaṭ <span style="background:fuchsia">ʕimm</span>
ana ŭ ʕa-nmažǝlya’.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">‘This
glass is broken!?’ ‘It fell <span style="background:fuchsia">on
me</span> while I was washing it’.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The
preposition ʕimm, here ‘on me’, does not imply that the glass fell onto the
speaker but rather that it fell through some fault of its own.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Nonetheless,
with real passives this ʕimm is purely associative and cannot be used to
introduce the agent, as illustrated by the sentence </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">inəkṭal
Žaržūra <span style="background:fuchsia">ʕimməl</span>‿Ḥasan,</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> which can only be interpreted as </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">‘Žaržūra
was killed (together) <span style="background:fuchsia">with</span>
Ḥasan’ rather than </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">‘Žaržūra
was killed <span style="background:fuchsia">by</span> Ḥasan’.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">How do we describe this participant in an anti-causative verb phrase?</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Thank
you very much!</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Sergey</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p></div>