The jussive in Chaha

The Semitic imperfect as represented by Arabic has three patterns with respect to the vowel of the 2nd radical: ( ya)ktal, (ya)ktul, (ya)ktil; thus, yašrabu ‘he drinks’, yaktubu ‘he writes’, yanzilu ‘he descends’. In Hebrew, these patterns are ( yi)ktal, (yi)ktol, ( yi ) ktel, with the vowels a, o, e respectively; thus, ‘he will study’, yišmor ‘he will watch’, ‘he will sit’. In the Ethiopian group, Geez (or Old Ethiopie) is known as the only language that had two patterns, namely corresponding to yaktal of Semitic, and going back to Semitic yaktul and yaktil, with the reduction of the short u and i of the 2nd radical to . These forms, however, are those of the jussive, not the imperfect indicative as in the other Semitic languages. The Geez jussive goes back to a perfect kätlä, the jussive to a perfect kätälä; thus, perfect läbsä ‘he put on a dress’, jussive perfect nägärä ‘he said’, jussive .