The Roots of Common Semitic Origin Denoting Body Parts

Abstract

The paper presents some results of research related to the analysis of roots of Common Semitic origin, which are united in the lexical-semantic thematic group denoting different body parts.  Of particular interest to us was a thematic subgroup of lexemes (lexical units) denoting boundary parts of the human and animal bodies outline. This sub-division belongs to a hierarchically broader lexical-semantic group of body parts. In general, comparative analysis of semantic fields and lexical groups in different languages is an important problem of contemporary linguistic studies both from the viewpoint of comparative and typological linguistics. Summing up all the facts discussed in the paper, it may be concluded that several roots are revealed and identified as ones, which are characterized by wide distribution and correct regular phonetic correspondences, as a result, it would be possible to reconstruct six of them at the Proto-Semitic level with the following meanings: ‘finger’,  ‘tail’,  ‘horn’,  ‘back’,  ‘breast’ and ‘abdomen, belly’. These meanings are denoted by the following roots of Common Semitic origin:  Common Semitic ṣb‘ –  ‘finger’, Common Semitic qrn – ‘horn’, Common Semitic dnb –‘tail’, Common Semitic tdy -‘breast’, Common Semitic thr – ‘ back’ and Common Semitic krŝ   - ‘abdomen, belly’.