Diachronic considerations on the personal marker y- in the Semitic prefix conjugation

Throughout the Semitic area, the morpheme y- denotes the third-person (m.sg.) marker of the prefix conjugation. Differently from the first and the second-person markers, the morpheme y- does not bear any formal similarity with the independent personal pronouns (e.g. š, h). This makes its historical background rather unclear. In some languages, certain themes formally resembling the personal marker y- are attested outside the verbal system; among them, a group of nominal forms starting with y- may represent a conservative environment where old uses have survived. The present contribution will propose a diachronic way of accounting for the above-mentioned scenario. In particular, it will be assumed the theme /y-/ as going back to an ancient ‘determinative-relative’ pronoun, and as further specialising in the third-person (m.) marker within the grammaticalisation process underlying the formation of the Semitic verb.