أٞأٞب، أٞب
éˀeb, eb
basic morphological information

adj.

1. big (m.); 2. old (m.)
большой
كبير
LS 49; CSOL I 461; Naumkin et al. 2015a:55
text examples

2.

a. mḥámmad eb ˁan áḥmad ‘Muhammed is older than Ahmad’ (Kogan 2015:487)

b. keʰ ḥézɛr ḥéyhe éˀeb yeˁágob ľiẓ̂ˁáb díˀʸheʰ ľíššin boḳ náˁaʰ menáḷ bíŝi ˁeḷhéten ‘When an old person has missing teeth, he likes to bite his own tongue in the place where there are no teeth’ (Bulakh 2024:120-121)

morphological notes

The feminine suppletive form is am. See Kogan 2015:487, Müller 1909:347–351.

root
ˀb
etymology

As recognized long ago (Müller 1909:347–351, Bittner 1918a:54), the Soqotri/Jibbali gender-suppletive adjectives for “big” cannot be separated from the PS designations of “father” (*ˀab-) and “mother” (*ˀimm-), from which, however, they differ in their synchronically attested shapes. The diachronic background of this unusual phenomenon remains enigmatic (Kogan 2015:592).

By regular expression