Афроазия тілдерінің ортақ атасы: реконструкциясы мен ерекшеліктері

Reconstructed ancestor of the Afroasiatic language family

Proto Afroasiatic (PAA), also known as Proto Hamito Semitic, Proto Semito Hamitic, and Proto Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars to have been spoken as a single language around 12,000 to 18,000 years ago (12 to 18 kya), that is, between 16,000 and 10,000 BC. Although no consensus exists as to the location of the Afroasiatic homeland, the putative homeland of Proto Afroasiatic speakers, the majority of scholars agree that it was located within a region of Northeast Africa. The reconstruction of Proto Afroasiatic is problematic and has not progressed to the degree found in Indo European linguistics. The immense amount of time over which the branches have been separated, coupled with the wide gap between the attestations of the original branches (3rd millennium BC for Egyptian and Semitic, 19th and 20th centuries for many Chadic, Cushitic, and Omotic languages) mean that determining sound correspondences has not yet been possible. In addition to more traditional proposed consonant correspondences, there is also a divergent proposal that has become popular among Egyptologists; there is no agreement about PAA's vowels, the existence of tone, or its syllable structure. At the same time, scholars disagree to whether and to what extent the classical Semitic languages are a conservative, faithful representation of PAA morphology. This is particularly important for the question of whether the lexical roots in the language were originally mostly biradical or triradical, that is, whether they originally had two or three consonants. It also plays into the question of the degree to which Proto Afroasiatic had root and pattern morphology, as most fully displayed in the Semitic, Egyptian, and Cushitic branches. There are nonetheless some items of agreement and reconstructed vocabulary. Most scholars agree that Proto Afroasiatic nouns had grammatical gender, at least two and possibly three grammatical numbers (singular, plural, and possibly dual), as well as a case system with at least two cases. Proto Afroasiatic may have had marked nominative or ergative absolutive alignment. A deverbal derivational prefix *mV is also widely reconstructed. While there is disagreement about the forms of the PAA personal pronouns, there is agreement that there were independent and "bound" (unstressed, clitic) forms. There is also agreement that a widespread demonstrative pattern of n = masculine and plural, t= feminine goes back to PAA, as well as about the existence of an interrogative pronoun *mV, which may not have distinguished animacy. There is some agreement that the PAA verb had two or possibly three basic forms, though there is disagreement about what those forms were and what tenses, aspects, or moods they expressed. There is also widespread agreement that there were possibly two sets of conjugational affixes (prefixes and suffixes) used for different purposes. Additionally, the importance of verbal gemination and reduplication and the existence of three derivational affixes, especially of a causative *s , are commonly reconstructed. A numeral system cannot be reconstructed, although numerous PAA numerals and cognate sets from 1 to 9 have been proposed.

There is no consensus as to when Proto Afroasiatic was spoken. The absolute latest date for when Proto Afroasiatic could have been extant is c. 4000 BCE, after which Egyptian and the Semitic languages are firmly attested. However, in all likelihood these languages began to diverge well before this hard boundary. The estimations offered by scholars as to when Proto Afroasiatic was spoken vary widely, ranging from 18,000BCE to 8,000BCE. An estimate at the youngest end of this range still makes Afroasiatic the oldest proven language family. Contrasting proposals of an early emergence, Tom Güldemann has argued that less time may have been required for the divergence than is usually assumed, as it is possible for a language to rapidly restructure due to areal contact, with the evolution of Chadic (and likely also Omotic) serving as pertinent examples.

At present, there is no commonly accepted reconstruction of Afroasiatic morphology, grammar, syntax, or phonology. Because of the great amount of time since Afroasiatic split into branches, there are limits to what scholars can reconstruct. Cognates tend to disappear from related languages over time. There are currently not many widely accepted Afroasiatic cognates, and it is difficult to derive sound correspondence rules from a small number of examples. The most convincing cognates in Afroasiatic often have the same or very similar consonants but very different vowels, a fact which has not yet been explained. Additionally, it is not always clear which words are cognates, as some proposed cognates may be chance resemblances. Moreover, at least some cognates are likely to have been altered irregularly due to analogical change, making them harder to recognize. As words change meaning over time, the question of which words might have originally meant the same thing is often difficult to answer. As a result, Robert Ratcliffe suggests that Proto Afroasiatic may never be reconstructed in the same way that Proto Indo European has been. The current state of reconstruction is also hindered by the fact that the Egyptian and Semitic branches of Afroasiatic are attested as early as 3000 BCE, while the languages of the Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, and Omotic branches are only attested much later, sometimes in the 20th century. The long history of scholarship of the Semitic languages compared to other branches is another obstacle in reconstructing Proto Afroasiatic; typical features of Semitic have often been projected back to the proto language, despite their cross linguistic rarity and lack of correspondences in other branches. Like cognates, shared morphological features tend to disappear over time, as can be demonstrated within Afroasiatic by comparing Old Egyptian (2600–2000 BCE) with Coptic (after 200 CE). Yet it is also possible for forms closer to PAA to be preserved in languages recorded later, while languages recorded earlier may have forms that diverge more from PAA. In order to provide a more accurate reconstruction of Afroasiatic, it will be necessary to first reconstruct the proto forms of the individual branches, a task which has proven difficult. As of 2023, there is only the beginning of a consensus on the reconstruction of Proto Semitic, and no widely accepted reconstruction of any of the other branches' proto forms. Current attempts at reconstructing Afroasiatic often rely on comparing individual words or features in the daughter languages, which leads to results that are not convincing to many scholars.

+ Reconstructed PAA vocabulary items demonstrating different reconstructed vowels, according to Item Diakonoff et al. 1987 Orel and Stolbova 1995 Ehret 1995 'blood' *dṃ *dam *dîm /*dâm 'build' *bVn *ben * bĭn 'fly' *pi̭r *pir * pîr 'hill/heap' *tṷl *tül * tŭul

Attempts to reconstruct the vocalic system of Proto Afroasiatic vary considerably. While there is no consensus, many scholars prefer to reconstruct a simple three vowel system with long and short *a, *i, and *u. Some of the difficulty in reconstruction is likely related to the use of vowel changes known as apophony (or "ablaut") in the "root and pattern" system found in various Afroasiatic languages. In addition to apophony, some modern AA languages display vowel changes referred to as umlaut. Igor Diakonoff, Viktor Porkhomovksy and Olga Stolbova proposed in 1987 that Proto Afroasiatic had a two vowel system of *a and *ə, with the later realized as [i] or [u] depending on its contact with labial or labialized consonants. Christopher Ehret has proposed a five vowel system with long and short *a, *e, *o, *i, and *u, arguing that his reconstruction is supported by the Chadic and Cushitic vowels. Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova instead proposed a six vowel system with *a, *e, *o, *i, *ü ([]), and *u; they further argued that the central vowels *e and *o could not occur together in the same root. Taking a different approach, Ronny Meyer and H. Ekkehard Wolff propose that Proto Afroasiatic may have had no vowels as such, instead employing various syllabic consonants (*l, *m, *n, *r) and semivowels or semivowel like consonants (*w, *y, *ʔ, *ḥ, *ʕ, *h, *ʔʷ, *ḥʷ, *ʕʷ, *hʷ) to form syllables; vowels would have later been inserted into these syllables ("vocalogenesis"), developing first into a two vowel system (*a and *ə), as supported by Berber and Chadic data, and then developing further vowels.

Some scholars postulate that Proto Afroasiatic was a tonal language, with tonality subsequently lost in some branches. Igor Diakonoff argued for the existence of tone based on his reconstruction of many otherwise homophonous words. Christopher Ehret instead takes the fact that three branches of AA have tone as his starting point; he has postulated a tonal system of at least two tonal phonemes, falling tone, rising tone, and possibly a third tone, level tone. Other scholars argue that Proto AA had a pitch accent and some branches subsequently developed tone. Such scholars postulate that tones developed to compensate for lost or reduced syllables, and note that certain tones are often associated with certain syllable final consonants. Zygmunt Frajzyngier and Erin Shay note that in AA tonal languages, tone usually has a grammatical rather than a lexical function, and argue that there is thus no basis to reconstruct it as a lexical feature in PAA, as Diakonoff does; they find Ehret's reasoning more sound.

The degree to which the Proto AA verbal root was originally triradical (having three consonants) or biradical (having two consonants) is debated. Among the modern branches, most Semitic roots are triradical, whereas most Chadic, Omotic, and Cushitic roots are biradical. The "traditional theory" argues for original triradicalism in the family, as is the case in Semitic. In this theory, almost all biradical roots are the result of the loss of a third consonant. As early as the Middle Ages, however, grammarians had noticed that some triradical roots in Arabic differed in only one consonant and had related meanings. According to supporters of original triradicalism such as Gideon Goldenberg, these variations are common in language and inconclusive for the matter. He compares phonetic similarity between words with similar meanings in English such as glow, gleam, glitter, glaze, and glade. Other scholars argue that the PAA root may have originally been mostly biradical, to which a third radical was then added. Christopher Ehret argues that the third consonants were derivational affixes, proposing as many as thirty seven separate verbal extensions that subsequently became fossilized as third consonants. This theory has been criticized by some, such as Andrzej Zaborski and Alan Kaye, as being too many extensions to be realistic, though Zygmont Frajzyngier and Erin Shay note that some Chadic languages have as many as twelve extensions. An alternative model was proposed by Georges Bohas, who argued that the third consonants were added to differentiate roots of similar meaning but without the third consonant having a particular meaning itself. Biradical verbs may also have been made triradical on the model of so called "weak verbs," which have a final radical y or w.

Many scholars do not argue for the original nature of either biradical or triradical roots, instead arguing that there are original triradical roots, original biradical roots, and triradical roots resulting from the addition of a consonant. Not all triradical roots can be convincingly explained as coming from biradicals, and there are cases where triradical roots with similar meanings appear to differ in one consonant due to root internal changes or derivation via rhyme. Andréas Stauder argues that the evidence from Ancient Egyptian shows that both tri and biradical verbs were probably present in Proto Afroasiatic. Igor Diakonoff, in contrast, argued that the PAA root was originally biradical but saw the biradical roots outside of Semitic as largely the result of losing a third consonant.

Afroasiatic languages feature a "root and pattern" (nonconcatenative) system of morphology, in which the root consists of consonants alone and vowels are inserted via apophony according to "templates" to create words. A "template" consists of one or more vowels and sometimes a consonant; consonants included in the pattern often involve gemination. If root and pattern morphology originated in Proto Afroasiatic, then an explanation must be found for why it has mostly disappeared in the Omotic and Chadic branches; if it was not present in PAA, then an explanation must be found for why it developed independently in the Semitic, Egyptian, and Cushitic branches.

Hans Jürgen Sasse proposed that Proto Afroasiatic was a marked nominative language, in which the nominative case is only used to mark the subject of a verb, whereas an absolutive case is the citation form of the noun and also marks the object. Evidence for marked nominative alignment comes primarily from the use of cases in Cushitic and the so called "states" of the noun in Berber languages; additionally, Helmut Satzinger has argued that the forms of the pronouns in the other branches show evidence of marked nominative alignment. Igor Diakonoff instead argued that Proto Afroasiatic was an ergative absolutive language, in which the ergative case marks the subject of transitive verbs and the absolutive case marks both the object of transitive verbs and the subject of intransitive verbs. Satzinger suggests that Proto Afroasiatic may have developed from ergative absolutive to a marked nominative language. However, Abdelaziz Allati notes that, if PAA was originally ergative aligned, it is unclear why both the attested ancient languages and modern AA languages predominantly have nominative accusative alignment.

Proto Afroasiatic word order has not yet been established. Igor Diakonoff proposed that PAA had verb subject object word order (VSO word order), meaning that the verb would come first in most sentences. Carsten Peust likewise supports VSO word order, as this is found in the two oldest attested branches, Egyptian and Semitic. However, Ronny Meyer and H. Ekkehard Wolff argue that this proposal does not concord with Diakonoff's suggestion that PAA was an ergative absolutive language, in which subject and object are not valid categories. Zygmont Frajzyngier and Erin Shay further note that, if Proto Afroasiatic had VSO word order, then an explanation must be found for why two of its branches, Omotic and Cushitic, show subject–object–verb word order (SOV word order). Both sets of scholars argue that this area needs more research.

A system of sex based male and female grammatical gender is widely agreed to have been present in Proto Afroasiatic. However, Russell Schuh argues that there was no gender distinction in the plural, as this feature is found only in Semitic and Berber (see also personal pronouns). Christopher Ehret argues against the consensus that grammatical gender existed in Proto Afroasiatic, arguing that its development is an isogloss separating all other Afroasiatic languages from Omotic, which alone preserves the original, genderless grammar of the proto language. Other scholars such as Lionel Bender argue that Omotic has lost grammatical gender despite originally having had it. A feminine morpheme Vt is found widely in Afroasiatic languages. Lameen Souag argues that this feminine ending t is probably a case of a grammaticalized demonstrative, as this feature has also independently developed in some Chadic and Cushitic languages. Diakonoff argued that the original gender system of Afroasiatic had masculine endings * y/* w (later * Vy/* Vw) and feminine endings * H/* y (later * āʔ/* āy), the later of which was later ousted by feminine * (a)t on nouns. Marijn van Putten has reconstructed a feminine ending * ay/* āy from Semitic and Berber evidence: he argues that this ending comes down from the last common ancestor of Berber and Semitic, which may be Proto Afroasiatic. Despite arguing that Proto Afroasiatic had no grammatical gender, Ehret argues that there is evidence for natural gender in all branches, including Omotic, perhaps marked originally by an opposition of PAA * u (masculine) and * i (feminine), as also found in the second person singular pronouns. In addition to grammatical gender, Igor Diakonoff argues that Afroasiatic languages show traces of a nominal classification system, which was already unproductive in the Proto Afroasiatic stage. In particular, he noted a suffix * Vb used to mark harmful animals. Vladimir Orel also attests less well defined uses for this suffix, while Ehret takes this as a suffix to mark animals and parts of the body.

Afroasiatic languages today clearly distinguish singular and plural. One of the first features of Proto Afroasiatic proposed by Joseph Greenberg was the existence of "internal a plurals" (a type of broken plural): a pluralizing morpheme in which a vowel *a was inserted between the two final consonants of the root, possibly replacing another vowel via apophony. However, Paul Newman has argued that while plurals via vowel alteration are frequent in Chadic, they cannot be reconstructed back to Proto Chadic or Proto Afroasiatic. Andréas Stauder likewise argues that Coptic and Egyptian plurals via vowel change may have developed independently. Lameen Souag argues that while some form of vowel changing plural likely goes back to Proto Afroasiatic, many of the templates found in the branches likely do not. Several Afroasiatic languages of the Semitic, Chadic, and Cushitic branches attest pluralization via reduplication, a feature which has often been assumed to go back to Proto Afroasiatic. Robert Ratcliffe has instead argued that this reduplicating pattern originated after PAA, as a way to allow biradical nouns to insert "internal a," a process which then became generalized to other roots in some languages; as an alternative hypothesis, they may have developed from forms with plural suffixes. Afroasiatic languages also use several pluralizing affixes – few of these, however, are present in more than a few branches, making them difficult to reconstruct. In addition to a singular and plural, Egyptian and Semitic attest a dual, the endings of which can be reconstructed respectively as and Semitic ā (nominative) and ay (oblique). These endings are very similar to each other, and due to the dual's attestation in the two earliest attested branches of Afroasiatic it is also usually reconstructed for the proto language. The loss of the dual in the other branches over time is a well attested feature in languages, including within the Egyptian and Semitic branches themselves.

A prefix mV is the most widely attested affix in AA that is used to derive nouns. For PAA, its shape has variously been reconstructed as *ma , *ma(i) , *mV , and * m In the daughter languages, it is attested with a wide variety of meanings and functions, such as forming deverbal agent nouns, place nouns, instrument nouns, as well as participles. Erin Shay argues that *mV is the only prefix in the AA phylum that clearly goes back to the proto language rather than possibly being an areal feature. The precise meaning and origin of this prefix in PAA are debated. There is a long tradition of comparing the prefix to the interrogative pronoun *mā 'who'. Carsten Peust has suggested a common PAA origin for the prefix in forming nouns of place and instrument, but proposes that the *mV prefix used in agent nouns and participles is actually a post PAA development, derived from the interrogative pronoun *mā 'who'. Christopher Ehret, meanwhile, proposes that the prefix did not exist in PAA at all, but is a later development from the interrogative pronoun. Gábor Takács and Andrzej Zaborski both reject a connection to *mā entirely; Takács instead suggests that a connection to the Egyptian preposition m needs further consideration, while Zaborski argues for a connection to a verb *VmV 'to be'.

The term "nisba" refers to a suffix found in the Semitic ( iy) and Egyptian ( j) branches, with possible relict traces in Berber. A related suffix āwi occurs in Arabic and possibly Egyptian, as suggested by e. g. ḥmww 'craftsman', from ḥmt 'craft'. Carsten Peust argues that this suffix descends from Proto Afroasiatic, as it is found in the two oldest attested branches of the family. In the Semitic languages, the "nisba" is used to form adjectives, derive nouns for people associated with a place or profession, and to form hypercoristic names. In Egyptian, it forms adjectives and nouns from nouns and prepositions. The "nisba" is often assumed to be connected to the genitive case ending in Semitic and possibly Cushitic. Igor Diakonoff argued that the "nisba" was an "expanded" form of the genitive suffix: he reconstructs the "nisba" suffix as * iya or *ī; he also suggests the existence of a variant * uwa. Lipiński suggests that the "nisba" originated as a postposition, which was also used to create the genitive case. Christopher Ehret argues that the original form of the suffix was *iy and also reconstructs a form *ay. This latter form is attested among the Semitic languages and may have been dialectal in origin.

The forms of the personal pronouns are very stable throughout Afroasiatic (excluding Omotic), but there is no consensus on what the reconstructed set of Afroasiatic pronouns might have looked like. Most modern branches have an independent / absolute pronoun, an object pronoun, and a suffix /possessive pronoun. According to Igor Diakonoff, the suffix/possessive pronoun was originally used as the object of verbs and to show a possessive relationship, the "independent" pronoun served to show emphasis, and the "object" pronoun was used to mark the subject of intransitive verbs and the direct object of transitive verbs. All Afroasiatic branches differentiate between masculine and feminine third person singular pronouns, and all except for Cushitic and Omotic also differentiate between second person singular masculine and feminine pronouns. Semitic and Berber also differentiate between masculine and feminine second and third person plural, but there is no evidence for this in Ancient Egyptian, Cushitic, or Chadic, perhaps indicating that there was no gender distinction in the plural in Proto Afroasiatic. Chadic has both an inclusive and exclusive form of "we", which Igor Diakonoff and Václav Blažek reconstruct also for Proto Afroasiatic. Helmut Satzinger has argued that Proto Afroasiatic only distinguished between the "object" and "possessive" pronouns, deriving the independent pronouns via various processes in the branches. He argues that the independent pronouns derive from various strategies combining pronominal elements with different nominal or pronominal bases. Václav Blažek reconstructs an original set of independent pronouns but argues that the ones found in most current Afroasiatic languages arose by a process of suppletion similar to that argued by Satzinger. An example of one such process is the use of the prefix *ʔan /*ʔin , which appears in the Semitic and Old Egyptian first person independent pronouns, the Old Egyptian, Cushitic, and Semitic second person singular and plural pronouns, and the Old Egyptian and Berber third person singular and plural independent pronouns. While Ehret reconstructs this as the original form of the first person singular pronoun, other scholars argue that this element either represents a form of the copula 'to be' or a particle meaning 'self'. + Proto Afroasiatic personal pronouns according to and Number ScholarSingular, boundSingular, independentPlural, bound Plural, independent 1 Ehret*i, *yi*(ʔ)ân /(ʔ)în *(ʔ)ǎnn /(ʔ)ǐnn Blažek *ʔya/*ʔyi/*ʔyu *ʔaku *muni (inclusive), *na/*ni/*nu (exclusive) *muni (inclusive), *ḥina/u (exclusive) 2 m. Ehret *ku, *ka *(ʔ)ânt/(ʔ)înt *kuuna Blažek *ku *ta *kunwa *tunwa 2 f. Ehret*ki *(ʔ)ânt/(ʔ)înt *kuuna Blažek *ki *ti *kinya *tunya 3Ehret *si, *isi *su, *usu Blažek (m) *šu *šuwa *šunwa Blažek (f) *ši *šiya *šinya

Afroasiatic languages attest a variety of determiners, only some of which are likely to derive from Proto Afroasiatic. As first noticed by Joseph Greenberg, Afroasiatic languages in all branches but Omotic attest a series of third person agreement markers in the form n (masculine), t (feminine), and n (plural), which probably derive from Proto Afroasiatic determiners; Omotic attests t (feminine) alone of this set. Additionally, Omotic attests a masculine agreement form k , while Chadic and Cushitic show a gender and number neutral form k : both likely go back to a Proto Afroasiatic determiner *k , reconstructed by Ehret as *kaa 'this'. Diakonoff argues that in Proto Afroasiatic these forms were originally demonstrative pronouns that later developed into third person personal pronouns in some branches and into genitive markers in others. Ehret also reconstructs a demonstrative *h ('this/that') or *ha ('this/that one').

The most common Afroasiatic interrogative pronoun is *mV, which Ehret reconstructs as *ma, *mi 'what?'. Diakonoff argued that *mV ultimately derived from a demonstrative stem *m Only the Semitic reflexes of this root have separate forms for animate ('"who?") and inanimate ("what?") referents. The Old Egyptian and Berber descendants both appear to be used regardless of whether the referent is a person or thing. It is therefore not clear if this pronoun differentiated animacy in Proto Afroasiatic. Lack of differentiation between "who?" and "what?" is also sporadically attested in Semitic and Cushitic, but appears to be absent in Chadic; most modern AA languages use different lexical roots to make the distinction. Ehret also reconstructs a second interrogative *wa /*wi 'what?'. The PAA origin of this form is also accepted by Takács, but he reconstructs it as *ʔaw/*wa 'who?'. Diakonoff also reconstructs an interrogative adjective, *ayyV , which he claims left traces in Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic. Lipiński, on the other hand, holds this term to be Semitic and deriving from a particle ʔay 'where?'. Takács derives this particle from PAA *ʔay/*ya, a variant of *ʔaw/*wa 'who? '.

Most morphological reconstruction for PAA has focused on the verb, with categories found in Semitic languages such as aspect, voice, and person.

There is little agreement about which tenses, aspects, or moods (TAMs) Proto Afroasiatic might have had: it may have had two basic forms (indicative vs. subjunctive, state vs. action, transitive vs. intransitive, or perfective vs. imperfective) or three (unmarked vs. perfective vs. imperfective). There is also debate about whether some of the forms may have been nominal (using verbal nouns), or possibly participial or gerundival, rather than purely verbal. TAMs may have been indicated by both changes in the verb stem and the use of suffixes and prefixes. Some scholars argue that prefixes were used for "eventive" (describing things happening) aspects, as opposed to the "suffix conjugation," which described states. Abdelaziz Allati, however, argues that this is a later development, which he associates primarily with Semitic.

Joseph Greenberg proposed that the perfective ("past") stem of PAA had the form *yV qtVl, based on Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic data. There are a number of different "short" stems attested in Afroasiatic: in Semitic there are aorist, relative, and ventive forms. In those branches with an apophonic imperfective, the perfective stem often has a vowel u. Semitic, however, also attest a perfective form with a (yV CCaC), used with intransitive verbs. Kossmann and Suchard argue for its connection to a similar form in Berber, an aspectual stative form with the same vocalization. Kouwenberg argues for the PAA origin of the u perfective given the parallels between Semitic, Cushitic, and Berber; he suggests that it may have originally been a resultative form that turned into a perfective.

Semitic, Berber, and possibly Cushitic all include an imperfective verb stem that includes an apophonic vowel a and gemination of the second consonant (*yV qattVl). Greenberg argued that this form represented the original stem of imperfective ("present") in Afroasiatic. Maarten Kossmann and Benjamin D. Suchard have reconstructed this verb form as having the role of the imperfective in their hypothetical Proto Berbero Semitic while remaining agnostic on its PAA origins. Ancient Egyptian also attests a geminated stem apparently used to mark incomplete action, though it was apparently formally different from that found in other branches. Other scholars such as N. J. C. Kouwenberg and Frithiof Rundgren have argued that the *yV qattVl form was originally a pluractional verb form that has come to replace an original PAA imperfective form. Rainer Voigt accepts that the *yV qattVl stem is an original form of the imperfective, but argues that it was only used with certain classes of verbs. According to Voigt, the important feature of the imperfective was a apophony. Central Semitic languages attest an imperfective form *yi qVtlu , which Rundgren argued was the original Semitic imperfective form. Kouwenberg argues that this form has parallels in Semitic, Chadic, and Berber, and thus likely represents the PAA imperfective.

The use of a vowel a to mark pluractionality is widespread in Afroasiatic, often accompanied by consonant reduplication or gemination. Reduplication and gemination also frequently encode causative, intensive, iterative, and habitual aspect. The use of full or partial reduplication may derive from contact with other African languages rather than from Proto Afroasiatic. Carsten Peust, on the other hand, argues that the presence of such verbs in Egyptian, the oldest attested language, and in Chadic and Semitic makes them a good candidate for reconstruction in Proto Afroasiatic. It is likewise reconstructed for PAA by Christopher Ehret and Vladimir Orel.