Absolute state in the context of "Edomite language"

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⭐ Core Definition: Absolute state

In Afro-Asiatic languages, the first noun in a genitive phrase that consists of a possessed noun followed by a possessor noun often takes on a special morphological form, which is termed the construct state (Latin status constructus). For example, in Arabic and Hebrew, the word for "queen" standing alone is malika ملكة and malka מלכה respectively, but when the word is possessed, as in the phrase "Queen of Sheba" (literally "Sheba's Queen"; or, rather, "Queen-of Sheba"), it becomes malikat sabaʾ ملكة سبأ and malkat šəva מלכת שבא respectively, in which malikat and malkat are the construct state (possessed) form and malika and malka are the absolute (unpossessed) form.

The phenomenon is particularly common in Semitic languages (such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac), in Berber languages, and in the extinct Egyptian language.

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👉 Absolute state in the context of Edomite language

Edomite is a Northwest Semitic Canaanite language, very similar to Biblical Hebrew, Ekronite, Ammonite, Phoenician, Amorite and Sutean, spoken by the Edomites in Idumea (modern-day southwestern Jordan and parts of Israel) in the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. It is extinct and known only from an extremely small corpus, attested in a scant number of impression seals, ostraca, and a single late 7th or early 6th century BC letter, discovered in Horvat Uza.

Like Moabite, but unlike Hebrew, it retained the feminine ending -t in the singular absolute state. In early times, it seems to have been written with a Phoenician alphabet. However, by the 6th century BC, it adopted the Aramaic alphabet. Meanwhile, Aramaic or Arabic features such as whb ("gave") and tgr/tcr ("merchant") entered the language, with whb becoming especially common in proper names. Like many other Canaanite languages, Edomite features a prefixed definite article derived from the presentative particle (for example as in h-ʔkl ‘the food’). The diphthong /aw/ contracted to /o/ between the 7th and 5th century BC, as foreign transcriptions of the divine name "Qos" indicate a transition in pronunciation from Qāws to Qôs.

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