-ሌ

Harari edit

Etymology edit

From Proto-Semitic *lV-. Some semantics borrowed are from Somali -leh (“with, owning”). The postpositional instead of prepositional use is also a Cushitic loan; it occurs in Ethiopian Semitic in general the more southern the isolect is, with Harari being the outer extreme of them all, having utterly abated the prepositional use of Proto-Semitic *lV-, left to the historical chronolect called “Old Harari”.

Pronunciation edit

IPA^(key): [le]

Postposition edit

-ሌ (-le)

to, towards
for the sake of, with … in mind
- 1922, “Harari-Studien”, in Enno Littmann, editor, Zeitschrift für Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete‎^[1], volume 1, page 64 Nr. 228:
  ጋር፡ሓረ፡አንሌ፡ባይቲ፡ከሎትዬው፡የዲጅሌ፡ጋር፡ሓረ።
  gar ḥarä ʾänle bayti kälotyew yädiǧle gar ḥarä.
  He went home for my sake; to get my cap he went home.
used to express circumstances adverbially

Usage notes edit

Used after nouns, adjectives, verbal nouns, jussives.

References edit

Gensler, Orin D. (1997) “Mari Akkadian iš “to, for” and Preposition-Hopping in the light of comparative Semitic syntax”, in Orientalia‎^[2], volume 66, number 2, pages 138–141
Enno Littmann, editor (1922), “Harari-Studien”, in Zeitschrift für Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete‎^[3] (in Tigre), volume 1, page 83 line 15
Enno Littmann, editor (1922), “Harari-Studien”, in Zeitschrift für Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete‎^[4] (in Tigre), volume 1, page 64 line 29