A system for forming
words, employed in
languages of the
Semitic family.
Semitic languages, like
Arabic or
Hebrew, have many
roots, sequences of three
consonants (sometimes 2 or 4) that have a basic
gloss, like "walk" or "fight". These roots are combined with a pattern of
affixes (usually
vowels, some consonants) that fit in between and around the consonantal root. Each
pattern distinctly changes a root to which it is applied.
Examples in Arabic:
root: K T B ("write")
- kataba "he wrote"
- katabat "she wrote"
- kutiba "it was written"
- kutub "books"
root: D R S ("study")
- darasa "he studied"
- darasat "she studied"
- durisa "it was studied"
- dars "lesson"