Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ 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?

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▪ 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’.

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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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