Journal of Semitic Studies LXII/2 Autumn 2017 doi: 10.1093/jss/fgx026 © The author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester. All rights reserved. 357 THE ARCHAIC FEMININE ENDING -AT IN SHAMMARI ARABIC MARIJN VAN PUTTEN LEIDEN UNIVERSITY Abstract This paper discusses the feminine nominal suffixes -at and plural -āt in the Shammari Arabic dialect. It will show that its pausal allo- morphs are best understood as the result of a pausal rule *t > y. The Shammari dialect must therefore go back to a dialect that had *-at in all environments and not -ah word-finally and -at in construct, as is often taken to be the original situation in all modern Arabic dialects. After this discussion, several other dialects that appear to point to feminine ending systems which deviate from the general modern Arabic trend will be discussed. A tentative suggestion is given that the Dōsiri dialect of Kuwait goes back to a dialect with a Classical Arabic distribution for the feminine singular ending: -a in pause, -at every- where else. Introduction The Shammar tribe is one of the largest Bedouin Arab tribes. The members of this tribe are found in three different countries: first there are the Najd Shammar in Saudi Arabia, around Hail, secondly there is an Iraqi group known as the Shammar Jarba or the Shammar of the Jazira, which occupies an area in the far north of Iraq between the Euphrates and the Tigris (Ingham 1982: 63), finally, there is a group of Shammari in Northeastern Syria, who live around Tall ʽalu (Behnstedt 2000: 472). The Arabic dialects spoken by the different branches of the Sham- mar have ‘more features distinguishing these [Shammari of the Jazira and Najd Shammari] from the various neighbouring dialects than there are distinguishing neighbouring dialects from each other’ (Ing- ham 1982: 63). There is available linguistic material for all the branches of the Shammari dialect. The Najd Shammar dialect has been described in the most detail in a study by Ingham (1982) and earlier by Cantineau (1937), also the text transcribed and translated Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jss/article-abstract/62/2/357/4364809/The-Archaic-Feminine-Ending-at-in-Shammari- by guest on 07 October 2017