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ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 3937 



As the texts were read, the grammar began to reveal itself. Con- 

 sonantal prefixes and affixes indicated sometliing of the forms of verbs 

 and nomis, since the fimctions of most of these affixes were loiown 

 from other Semitic dialects. Of particular value were the three aleph 

 signs, which revealed the vowel following the aleph (or the vowel 

 preceding it, if there was none following) ; this served as the chief 

 indication of the vocaUzation. Professor Friedrich soon showed that 



FiGUUB 1. — The Ut'iiiltlc ulphalK-t. 



the word for "chair" was spelled ksu when it was in the nominative, 

 ksa when in the accusative, ksi in the genitive. We must, therefore, 

 assume that it represented [laissa'u, kussa'a, kussa'i]^ in the tliree 

 positions, and that the old Semitic case-endings were still in use; 

 hence, the word for sacrifice, always spelled dbh, must have been 

 pronounced [dibhu, dibha, dibhi] in the three cases. Similarly, from 

 verbs ending in aleph, Friedrich demonstrated the existence of various 

 modes — an indicative ending in [ul, e. g. in t§u "she raised" for [ti§§a'ul, 

 where the jussive is tsa for [ti§§a'], and so on. The alephs also reveal 

 the vocalization of the verb-system; thus the form \\'Titten amid, 



* Forms given as they were probably actually pronounced in Ugaritic speech (as nearly as we can Judge in 

 keeping with Ugaritic spelling) are put in square brackets. 



