Semitic Linguistics in the New Millennium‪.‬

INTRODUCTION (1) It is always a fitting tribute to a scholarly field when a number of its most distinguished practitioners gather to reflect on its growth and historical development. The work under review contains eighteen state-of-the-art essays by well-known specialists on various aspects of Semitic linguistics. These invited articles were originally presented at an international symposium held at Tel Aviv University in January 1999, sponsored by the University and many external sources. The basic questions on the table were: where had Semitic linguistics been in the course of the twentieth century and before, and where would it or should it be headed in the twenty-first? The tasks for the participants necessarily involved a thorough digestion of the numerous leading publications, and all the papers suggest intimate familiarity with the enormous relevant bibliography in each subfield. It is my purpose here to present commentary on each of the essays intended to benefit this growing and dynamic area by offering an examination of the big picture as well as the microscopic details which science always involves.