Reconstruction:Proto-Semitic/lV-

Compare Egyptian n, Proto-Berber *n (whence Central Atlas Tamazight ⵏ (n) and Kabyle n), Somali -lá (“with, in company with”) and -leh (“with, owning”).

Though it be listed with a wildcard, it does not mean the vowel is undecided. Rather there were both *li- and *la-, in an opposition or distribution of a now inconspicuous kind, reorganized in the descendants to an extent that for portrayal it is most parsimonious to have the whole unified. The same is the case for *bV-.

*lV-

1. for, to

• East Semitic:
  • (fossiziled) ⇒ Akkadian: lapān (“before”)
• West Semitic:
  • Central Semitic:
    • Arabic: لِـ‎ (li-), before pronominal suffixes لَـ‎ (la-), with other distributions in dialects
    • Northwest Semitic:
      • Aramaic:

        Old Aramaic: 𐤋‎

        Imperial Aramaic: 𐡋‎ (l)

        Biblical Aramaic: ל־‎

        Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: ל־‎

        Christian Palestinian Aramaic: ܠ‎

        Jewish Literary Aramaic: ל־‎

        Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: ל־‎

        • Classical Syriac: ܠ-‎
      • Canaanite:
        • Hebrew: לְ־, ל־, לִ־, לַ־, לֶ־, לָ־‎ (lə-, l-, li-, la-, le-, la-), אֶל‎ (ʾel) (wholly or only its second half)
        • Phoenician: 𐤀𐤋‎ (ʾl) (wholly or only its second half)
      • Ugaritic: 𐎍 (l /le/)
      • → Akkadian: la
    • Old South Arabian:
      • Hadrami: -𐩡‎ (-l)
      • Minaean: -𐩡‎ (-l)
      • Qatabanian: -𐩡‎ (-l)
      • Sabaean: -𐩡‎ (-l)
  • Modern South Arabian:
    • Mehri: l-
    • Shehri: l-
    • Soqotri: le (“distributive”)
  • Ethiopian Semitic:
    • North Ethiopian Semitic:
      • Ge'ez: ለ- (lä-)
      • Tigre: እል (ʾəl) and fused in ለዐል (läʿäl, “above”)
      • Tigrinya: ል- (lə-) (dialectal), -ል (-l), fused in ላዕሊ (laʿli, “above”)
    • South Ethiopian Semitic:
      • Amharic: ለ- (lä-)
      • Harari: -ሌ (-le, postposition)

• Bravmann, Meïr Max (1977) , “Expressions based on the noun yawm- ‘day’”, in Studies in Semitic Philology (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics; 6), Leiden: E. J. Brill, →ISBN, page 390