The Late Western Aramaic Suffixing of Pronominal Direct Objects via -t- < /yāt/

The article examines the innovation of the -t- suffix used to attach pronominal direct objects to verbs in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic. This phenomenon, prevalent in verbs with long-vowel-final bases in the qṭal and imperative conjugations, is explained as the phonological reduction of the preposition /yāt/. Comparative analysis reveals that while earlier Western Aramaic dialects preferred periphrastic constructions with /yāt/, the -t- suffix emerged as a novel morphosyntactic feature in non-targumic Jewish and Samaritan texts. The study highlights the interplay between older inflectional patterns and the adoption of reduced forms in Late Western Aramaic, illustrating the linguistic transition from earlier Aramaic systems. The loss of certain verbal suffixes and the emergence of new strategies reflect broader shifts in morphosyntactic expression and dialect differentiation within the Aramaic language.