Geers' law

Geers' law is a phonological rule for Akkadian language according to which two different emphatic consonants (ṭ, ṣ, ḳ) cannot occur in one Akkadian word. It is named after Frederick Geers who discovered it in 1945.[1]

The law usually pertains to inherited Proto-Semitic roots whose emphatics were usually dissimilated. Compare:[2]

  • Proto-Semitic *ṣ̂bṭ > Akkadian ṣabātu "to seize"
  • Proto-Semitic *ḳṭn > Akkadian ḳatānu "to be thin"
  • Proto-Semitic *ḳṣr > Akkadian kaṣāru "to bind"
  • Proto-Semitic *ṣ̂yḳ> Akkadian siāḳu "to be narrow"

Such dissimilation is more likely if the emphatics were glottalized.

It also affected loanwords, such as Amorite *qṭl > Akkadian ḳtl. In rare cases it did not apply, such as ḳaṣû instead of kaṣû.[3]

If Proto-Semitic emphatics were ejectives, then the Geers' law is explained as a manifestation of the widespread constraint in languages having ejectives, which forbids cooccurrence of two ejectives in a root.[4]

Notes
  1. Geers (1945)
  2. Cited after Kogan (2011:60)
  3. Streck (2011:367)
  4. Bomhard & Kerns (1994:92)

References
  • Geers, Frederick W. (1945), "The treatment of emphatics in Akkadian", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 4 (2): 65–67, doi:10.1086/370740.
  • Kogan, Leonid (2011), "Proto-Semitic Phonetics and Phonology", in Weninger, Stefan (ed.), The Semitic Languages:An International Handbook, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 54–151
  • Streck, Michael P (2011), "Babylonian and Assyrian", in Weninger, Stefan (ed.), The Semitic Languages:An International Handbook, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 359–396
  • Bomhard, Allan R.; Kerns, John C. (1994), The Nostratic Macrofamily: A Study in Distant Linguistic Relationship, Walter de Gruyter
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