Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ^†ḤRK_4 ʻimpotence’: ^†ḥarak; cf. also ^†ḥarika (a, ḥarak) ʻto be impotent’ (Steingass1884), ^†ḥarīk ʻimpuissant (à la cohabitation)’ (BK1860)
▪ ^†ḤRK_x ʻ…’:…

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘movement, to move, to be agile, to be lively and intelligent; the joint between the head and the neck’

conc

▪ Scarce attestation outside Ar prevents deeper etymological investigation into the possibly primary value(s), nor does it allow for an analysis that would be more than speculative of the relation betw. the extant values.
▪ The widest semantic field covered by ḤRK lexemes today is that of [v1] ‘to move, movement’ (= DRS #ḤRK-1). No obvious relation between this value and the others.
▪ [v2] (= DRS #ḤRK-4): Etymology obscure. No obvious relation to [v1] and [v3], but perh. connected to [v4]. See DISC below.
▪ [v3] : While it might seem natural, from an inner-Ar perspective, to link miḥrāk ʻpoker, fire iron’ to [v1] ‘to move, stir’ (as *‘instrument with which to stir the fire’), a caveat is in place in light of the Ug Hbr Aram cognates, which have ‘fire, to burn, roast’ as their basic idea, not ‘to move, stir’.
▪ [v4] : see [v2], above and section DISC, below.
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cogn

▪ DRS 9 (2010) #ḤRK-1 Ar haruka ‘se mouvoir’, harraka ‘déplacer, mouvoir’, Mhr ḥōrək, Jib oḥōrk, Ḥrs ḥārək ‘déplacer, agiter; faire un signe de tête’, Jib ənḥérək ‘se déplacer’. -2 Ar ḥarika ‘devenir impuissant’, Jib aḥrék ‘boiter’, SMhr ḥərēk, Jib ḥarkún ‘boiteux’. -3 Ug ḥrk ‘mettre au feu’, Hbr ḥārak ‘rôtir’, Aram ḥᵊrak ‘être chaud, brûler’, Ar miḥrāk ‘fourgon pour remuer le feu’. -4 Ar ḥārik ‘garrot du cheval’, muḥrak ‘extrémité supérieure du cou’.
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▪ [v2], [v4] : Morphologically, Ar ḥārik ‘withers (of a horse)’ is a PA I, suggesting a derivation from a vb. I as *ʻthe …-ing one, the …-ing part of the body’; but there is also ClassAr ^†muḥrak ‘extrémité supérieure du cou’ (DRS), a PP IV, suggesting an interpretation based on an original *ʻpart of the body that is made to …’. None of the values attested for ḤRK in Ar or Sem produces plausible etymologies if put in place of the missing ʻ…’ here. The authors of DRS think ḥārik is akin to the 4-rad. ^†ḥarkakaẗ (pl. ḥarākikᵘ, ḥarākīkᵘ) ʻhipbone’ (Steingass1884), showing reduplication of R₃ – an interesting observation, though it does not bring more light into the etymology of the root as such, as also ^†ḥarkakaẗ does not have cognates outside Ar. (To a certain degree, however, it may encourage a treatment of ḥārik / ^†muḥrak as distinct from ḥaruka ‘to move’.) A little bit more helpful is the fact that it seems to be possible to draw a line of semantic development from [v2] ‘withers; (hipbone)’ to ^†[v4] (= DRS #ḤRK-2) ʻimpotence, to be(come) impotent’, a value no longer attested in MSA (as documented in WehrCowan or Mawrid), but earlier dictionaries still have the items given above in the value overview (^†ḥarak ʻimpotence’ and corresp. adj. and vb. I): the link between ‘withers; (hipbone)’ and ʻimpotence’ may be items such as ^†ḥaraka (u, ḥark) ʻto wound a horse on the withers (Hava1899) / atteindre, blesser qn, lui causer une lésion à la partie ḥārik (BK1860), to beat on the back (Steingass1884) / frapper, porter un coup avec un sabre, etc. (BK1860)’, with the corresponding quasi-PP, ^†ḥarīk ʻdégingandé, qui marche comme s’il était brisé par le milieu, disloqué (BK1860)’. Thus, one could imagine a development *‘to beat on the back, to wound on the withers’ > ‘to walk like s.o. who has been beaten\is wounded’ > ‘to be handicapped’ > ‘to be impotent’. – A bold additional hypothesis: *ʻto beat’ < ʻto move, stir’? If such a development could be established, [v2] were dependent on [v1].
▪ If the hypothesis just made at the end of the preceding paragraph should turn out to be tenable, one could imagine a semantic differentiation along three lines: a) *ʻ[v1] to move, stir > [v3] to stir the fire, poker [> Ug Hbr Aram: fire, to roast]’; b) *ʻ[v1] to move, stir > to beat (on the back, on the withers) > [v2] withers’; and c) *ʻ[v1] to move, stir > to beat (on the back, on the withers) > to wound (by beating on the back/withers) > to walk like s.o. who has been beaten\is wounded > to be handicapped > to be impotent’. – Caveat: This hypothesis does not explain the morphology of ḥārik (PA I) or ^†muḥrak (PP IV), nor does it account for the first value given for ^†ḥaraka in BK1860, namely ʻse refuser à faire ou à rendre ce qu’on doit’ (to refuse to do or give back what you should).
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