Ugaritic grammar

Note: vowels in this article are reconstructed via comparative Semitics.

Ugaritic is an extinct Northwest Semitic language. This article describes the grammar of the Ugaritic language. For more information regarding the Ugaritic language in general, see Ugaritic language.

Ugaritic is an inflected language, and as a Semitic language its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian. It possesses two genders (masculine and feminine), three cases for nouns and adjectives (nominative, accusative, and genitive [also, note the possibility of a locative case]) ; three numbers: (singular, dual, and plural); and verb aspects similar to those found in other Northwest Semitic languages. The word order for Ugaritic is verb–subject–object (VSO), possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA). Ugaritic is considered a conservative Semitic language, since it retains most of the Proto-Semitic phonemes, the basic qualities of the vowel, the case system, the word order of the Proto-Semitic ancestor, and the lack of the definite article.

The word order for Ugaritic is Subject Verb Object (SVO), Verb Subject Object (VSO), possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA).

Ugaritic, like all Semitic languages, exhibits a unique pattern of stems consisting typically of "triliteral", or 3-consonant consonantal roots (2- and 4-consonant roots also exist), from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed in various ways: e.g. by inserting vowels, doubling consonants, and/or adding prefixes, suffixes, or infixes.

Verbs in Ugaritic have 2 aspects: perfect for completed action (with pronominal suffixes) and imperfect for uncompleted action (with pronominal prefixes and suffixes). Verb formation in Ugaritic (like all Semitic languages) is based on triconsonantal roots. Affixes inserted into the root form different meanings. Taking the root RGM (which means "to say") for example:

Ugaritic verbs occur in 5 moods:

In Ugaritic, "doubly weak verbs" refer to verbs whose roots contain two weak (or guttural) consonants. These verbs exhibit irregular patterns in their conjugation due to the inherent instability of the weak consonants, often leading to phonetic variations. This phenomenon is akin to that observed in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew.

For instance, the Ugaritic verb ḥwy, similar to Hebrew היה (h-y-h), "to be" or "to live," is an example of a doubly weak verb. Due to its weak consonants, this verb can undergo phonetic changes, such as the assimilation of waw (w) to yod (y), especially in the absence of an intervening vowel, leading to forms like ḥyy. This characteristic impacts the verb's inflection, resulting in variations that are atypical compared to regular (strong) verbs.^[1]

Ugaritic verbs occur in 10 reconstructed patterns or binyanim:

Nouns in Ugaritic can be categorized according to their inflection into: cases (nominative, genitive, and accusative), state (absolute and construct), gender (masculine and feminine), and number (singular, dual, and plural).

Ugaritic has three grammatical cases corresponding to: nominative, genitive, and accusative. Normally, singular nouns take the ending -u in the nominative, -i in the genitive and -a in the accusative. Using the word malk- (king) and malkat- (queen) for example:

As in Arabic, some exceptional nouns (known as diptotes) have the suffix -a in the genitive. There is no Ugaritic equivalent for Classical Arabic nunation or Akkadian mimation.

Nouns in Ugaritic occur in two states: absolute and construct. If a noun is followed by a genitival attribute (noun in the genitive or suffixed pronoun) it becomes a construct (denoting possession). Otherwise, it is in the absolute state. Ugaritic, unlike Arabic and Hebrew, has no definite article.

Nouns which have no gender marker are for the most part masculine, although some feminine nouns do not have a feminine marker. However, these denote feminine beings such as ʼumm- (mother). /-t/ is the feminine marker which is directly attached to the base of the noun.

Ugaritic distinguishes between nouns based on quantity. All nouns are either singular when there is one, dual when there are two, and plural if there are three or more.

The singular has no marker and is inflected according to its case.

The marker for the dual in the absolute state appears as /-m/. However, the vocalization may be reconstructed as /-āmi/ in the nominative (such as malkāmi "two kings") and /-ēmi/ for the genitive and accusative (e.g. malkēmi). For the construct state, it is /-ā/ and /-ē/ respectively.

Ugaritic has only regular plurals (i.e. no broken plurals). Masculine absolute state plurals take the forms /-ūma/ in the nominative and /-īma/ in the genitive and accusative. In the construct state they are /-ū/ and /-ī/ respectively. The female afformative plural is /-āt/ with a case marker probably following the /-t/, giving /-ātu/ for the nominative and /-āti/ for the genitive and accusative in both absolute and construct state.

Adjectives follow the noun and are declined exactly like the preceding noun.

Independent personal pronouns in Ugaritic are as follows (some forms are lacking because they are not in the corpus of the language):

Suffixed (or enclitic) pronouns (mainly denoting the genitive and accusative) are as follows:

The following is a table of Ugaritic numerals:

The following is a table of Ugaritic ordinals:

• Ugarit
• Ugaritic language
• Ugaritic alphabet
• Northwest Semitic languages
• Central Semitic languages
• Semitic Languages
• Proto-Semitic language

• Huehnergard, John (2011). A Grammar of Akkadian, 3rd ed. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-5750-6941-8.
• Moscati, Sabatino (1980). An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages, Phonology and Morphology. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 3-447-00689-7.
• Segert, Stanislav (1997). A Basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03999-8.
• Woodard, Roger D. (2008). The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68498-9.
• Hasselbach-Andee, Rebecca (2020). A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages. Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 978-1119193296.
• Tropper, Josef (2000). Ugaritische Grammatik. Ugarit Verlag. ISBN 978-3927120907.
• Sivan, Daniel (2005). A Grammar Of The Ugaritic Language. Parlux. ISBN 978-1589832855.

• Ugarit and the Bible (An excerpt from an online introductory course on Ugaritic grammar (the Quartz Hill School of Theology's course noted in the links below); includes a cursory discussion on the relationship between Ugaritic and Old Testament/Hebrew Bible literature.)
• Introduction to Ugaritic Grammar (Quartz Hill School of Theology)
• Introduction to Ugaritic Grammar (University of Chicago)
• Unicode Chart