ID … • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√ZFT
▪ ZFT_1 ‘pitch; asphalt’ ↗zift Other values, now obsolete, include: - ZFT_2 ‘to fill (a vessel)’ : †zafata
- ZFT_3 ‘to rouse, incite, drive, prompt’ : †zafata
- ZFT_4 ‘to expel, hinder’ : †zafata
- ZFT_5 ‘to anger’ : †zafata
- ZFT_6 ‘to weary s.o.’ : †zafata
- ZFT_7 ‘to spill (esp. news in s.o.’s ears), whisper’ : †zafata
▪ From among the three main values listed in DRS for the Sem root ZPT (> Ar ZFT), only two are represented in Ar; out of these two, only one has survived into MSA (ZFT_1 ‘pitch’). The latter is believed to be a loan from Aram, which in turn is assumed to go back to a (W?)Sem *zipt‑ ‘pitch, pine-resin’.
▪ The obsolete values in Ar (ZFT_2-7), although displaying a considerable spectrum, are all grouped as one etymological item in DRS (#2), without further explanation. Are all these values really only one unit?
▪ Does perh. also ZFT_1 belong together with ZFT_2?
▪ DRS 8 (1999)#ZPT-1 Akk zibt-, Hbr zépet, JP ziptā, zē(y)pā, Syr zeptā, zebtā, Ar zift ‘résine, poix’, zaffata ‘poisser’, Gz Te Amh zəft ‘goudron’, Amh zäffätä ‘enduire de goudron’; Gz zafata ‘diluer le moût de la bière’, Tña zäfta ‘sédiment, dépôt’. -2 Ar zafata ‘remplir (un vase); se mettre en colère; repousser, écarter; fatiguer, causer de la peine’, ẒofAr zfet ‘arracher’, SudAr zaffāt : chameau excité qui pousse des cris. -3 Mhr zaftét ‘aller spontanément avec qn’, Jib zotfet ‘flâner, papoter’.
ZFT_1
▪ According to DRS, Nişanyan_18Dec2014, and earlier studies, the Akk (lBab) and Ar words both are from Aram zep̄ṯā, and EthSem is dependent on Ar.
▪ With the values ‘diluer le moût de la bière’ (Gz zafata) and ‘sédiment, dépôt’ (Tña zäfta), EthSem shows interesting deviation from the standard value ‘pitch, pine-resin’. Does this point, against DRS, to an independence from Ar and then perh. also a more general meaning in protSem times?
▪ On account of the Hbr and Aram evidence, DRS dares to reconstruct (W?)Sem *zipt- ‘poix, résine de pin ou de sapin’.
▪ For a speculation about a Grk connection cf. ↗zift.
ZFT_2-7
▪ The values are seen together as one etymological unit in DRS, which seems to suggest itself, given the fact that all values are attached to the same verb, ClassAr †zafata. The variety of values, however, is neither explained nor discussed. However, some of these, though not all, may be variants of ZFD, as pointed out by DRS .
▪ The EthSem value ‘sediment, depot’ (Tña zäfta) in ZFT_1 brings lets us think of the production process of ‘pitch, pine-resin’, so that at least the early meaning ‘pine-resin’ could be understood as the *‘liquid/resin that sediments, forms depots (when the trees are tapped)’. From here, at least the meaning ZFT_2 of the obsol. vb. I †zafata, ‘to fill (a vessel)’, could have developed.
▪ ZFT_3&4 share a notion of pushing, expelling, etc., but are difficult to link to both ZFT_1 and ZFT_2.
▪ ZFT_5&6: resultative from ZFT_3 or _4?
▪ ZFT_7: The value ‘to whisper’ is explained by Freytag1830 as a development from an original ‘evacuare’ (to evacuate), whispering s.th. into s.o.’s ears being a kind of ‘evacuating’ o.s. into s.o. else. If the basic meaning really is ‘to evacuate’, then it could be a semantically connected to the tapping of conifers to get the resin (ZFT_1) as well as the filling of a vessel (ZFT_2).
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