In the context of Arabic and Semitic it is only natural to treat case and mood under one
umbrella: Arab grammarians ingenuously devised the same terms for the independent case and the
independent mood on the one hand and for the dependent case and the dependent mood
respectively. Still the main focus of these proceedings lies on case in Semitic and
Afroasiatic wherever relevant. Thereby taking up controversial data issues arguments and
discussion is indispensable.The volume contains contributions covering data mainly from
Akkadian Hebrew Arabic Ethio-Semitic Berber and selected Cushitic and Omotic languages.
One paper investigates the diachronic development of case and the mimation in Akkadian another
discusses a number of accepted as well as a number of controversial residues of case in
Biblical Hebrew and proposes suggestions of reanalysis in this context. A critical reading of
chapter 17 of al-Za a i's dah is offered as well as a summary and further development of recent
discussion on the scenario of case in historical varieties of Arabic. The discussion about The
Case for Proto-Semitic and Proto-Arabic Case is followed up. Furthermore the intricacies of
delimitating the concepts of case and state in Berber are discussed as well as the
meaningfulness of applying the opposition nominative vs. absolutive which is widely
acknowledged to be valid in a broader Afroasiatic perspective to Semitic. The final paper
rounds up the volume with some more general deliberations on the verbal system in Semitic
thereby proposing a four-stage model.
