The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants (or "transfixes"), which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate way, generally following specific patterns. It is a peculiarity of Semitic linguistics that many of these consonantal roots are triliterals, meaning that they consist of three letters (although there are a number of quadriliterals, and in some languages also biliterals). Such roots are also common in other Afroasiatic languages. While Berber mostly has triconsonantal roots, Chadic, Omotic, and Cushitic have mostly biconsonantal roots; and Egyptian shows a mix of biconsonantal and triconsonantal roots.
Triconsonantal roots
A triliteral or triconsonantal root (Arabic: جذر ثلاثي, jiḏr ṯulāṯī; Hebrew: שורש תלת־עיצורי, šoreš təlat-ʻiṣuri; Syriac: ܫܪܫܐ, šeršā) is a root containing a sequence of three consonants. The following are some of the forms which can be derived from the triconsonantal root k-t-b כ־ת־ב ك-ت-ب (general overall meaning 'to write') in Hebrew and Arabic: The Hebrew fricatives stemming from begadkefat lenition are transcribed here as ḵ, ṯ and ḇ, to retain their connection with the consonantal root כ־ת־ב k-t-b. They are pronounced [x], [θ], [β] in Biblical Hebrew and [χ], [t], [v] in Modern Hebrew respectively. Modern Hebrew has no gemination; where there was historically gemination, they are reduced to single consonants, with consonants in the begadkefat remaining the same.
In Hebrew grammatical terminology, the word binyan (בניין / בִּנְיָן) is used to refer to a verb derived stem or overall verb derivation pattern, while the word mishkal (מִשְׁקָל) is used to refer to a noun derivation pattern, and these words have gained some use in English-language linguistic terminology. The equivalent terms in Arabic grammatical terminology are wazn (وَزْن) for the pattern, and jaḏr (جَذْر) or jiḏr (جِذْر) for the root, but these have not gained the same currency in cross-linguistic Semitic scholarship as the Hebrew equivalents; Western grammarians continue to use the terms "stem", "form" or "pattern" for the former, and "root" for the latter.
Biliteral origin of some triliteral roots Although most roots in Hebrew seem to be triliteral, many of them were originally biliteral; compare the relation between:
The Hebrew root ש־ק־ף – √sh-q-p 'look out; look through; reflect', deriving from ק־ף – √q-p 'bend; arch; lean towards' and similar verbs fit into the shaCCéC verb-pattern.
This verb-pattern sh-C-C is usually causative:
History There is debate about whether both biconsonantal and triconsonantal roots were represented in Proto-Afroasiatic, or whether one or the other of them was the original form of the Afroasiatic verb. According to one study of the Proto-Semitic lexicon, biconsonantal roots are more abundant for words denoting Stone Age materials, whereas materials discovered during the Neolithic are uniquely triconsonantal. This implies a change in Proto-Semitic language structure concomitant with the transition to agriculture. In particular, monosyllabic biconsonantal names are associated with a pre-Natufian cultural background, i.e., older than c. 14500 BCE. As we have no texts from any Semitic language older than c. 3500 BCE, reconstructions of Proto-Semitic are inferred from these more recent Semitic texts.
Quadriliteral roots A quadriliteral is a consonantal root containing a sequence of four consonants (instead of three consonants, as is more often the case). A quadriliteral form is a word derived from such a four-consonant root. For example, the abstract quadriliteral root t-r-g-m / t-r-j-m gives rise to the verb forms תרגם tirgem in Aramaic and Hebrew, ترجم tarjama in Arabic, ተረጐመ täräggwämä in Amharic, all meaning 'he translated'. In some cases, a quadriliteral root is actually a reduplication of a two-consonant sequence. So in Arabic دغدغ daġdaġa and Hebrew דגדג digdeg (borrowed from Arabic) means 'he tickled' from the reduplicated root d-ġ-d-ġ, and in Arabic زلزل zalzala means 'he shook' from the root z-l-z-l. Other Arabic example include بعثر baʕṯara 'he scattered', مرجح marjaḥa 'he swung', and قرفص qarfaṣa 'he squatted'. Generally, only a subset of the verb derivations formed from triliteral roots are allowed with quadriliteral roots. For example, in Hebrew, the Piʿel, Puʿal, and Hiṯpaʿel, and in Arabic, forms similar to the stem II and stem V forms of triliteral roots. Another set of quadriliteral roots in modern Hebrew is the set of secondary roots. A secondary root is a root derived from a word that was derived from another root. For example, the root מ־ס־פ־ר m-s-p-r is secondary to the root ס־פ־ר s-p-r. סָפַר saphar, from the root s-p-r, means 'counted'; מִסְפָּר mispar, from the same root, means 'number'; and מִסְפֵּר misper, from the secondary root מ־ס־פ־ר, means 'numbered'. An irregular quadriliteral verb made from a loanword is:
נַשְׁפְּרִיץ nashprits (/naʃˈpʁit͡s/) – 'we will sprinkle; we will splash', from Yiddish שפּריצן shpritsn (cognate with German spritzen).
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