This guide is meant to direct the student through an inductive reading of Biblical Aramaic. For most effective use, consult the indicated sections of the textbook whenever they are mentioned, even if it seems repetitive. Repetition is the point.

Biblical Aramaic, as part of the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, is written with the same consonantal signs, vowel points, and cantillation marks as the Hebrew portions (§17), as well as having the same types of scribal annotation and marking (the Ketiv-Qere [§33] and other notes). Although the languages are different, there is no graphic differentiation between Hebrew and Aramaic in the Masoretic text.

Word formation has two components: derivation and inflection. Derivation refers to the formation of the lexical base of nouns and verbs, and inflection refers to the addition of suffixes or prefixes to express gender, person, number and (in verbs) tense, aspect, and mood.

Discourse markers, or half-conjunctions, do not link two sentences together. Rather, they link a sentence to a preceding discourse, logically or temporally. They may be combined with וְ or precede subordinating conjunctions. In other contexts, they may serve as adverbs or as coordinating conjunctions. Unlike “full” coordinating conjunctions, they do not mark the B-clause of coordinated pairs.

Prepositions, by and large, stand outside of the three-consonant root system, although some triliteral nouns have developed into prepositions.

Aramaic is a language of central importance for the study of the ancient world, beginning from the early first millennium BCE up to the Islamic period and beyond. Aramaic stories are found in the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament), and Aramaic influence is felt in the Greek text of the New Testament. It was the language of Eastern Christianity for centuries, as well as a major language of Jewish literature (along with Hebrew) through most of the first millennium CE. It still survives as a spoken language in a few communities (and their diasporas) in parts of the Middle East.

The phonemic inventory of Biblical Aramaic consonants is given in Table 5.

Verbs have different properties that affect number and nature of the complements that it has, namely, valence, voice, and Aktionsart.

Verbs in Aramaic can express different semantic features morphologically and syntactically. The inflectional system (the finite conjugations, and the non-finite forms) signifies the features of tense, aspect, and mood.

Derivational verbal bases, like those of nouns and adjectives, are built by combining the root morpheme (usually of three consonants) with a pattern of vowels and other modifications. The root + pattern base in verbs is organized into a group of verbal stems, which form a syntactic–semantic system. Various default settings of valence (§323), voice (§325), and Aktionsart (§328) are assigned to particular stems, although these settings can be neutralized or set aside in particular cases.

The linking of a main clause to a second, dependent clause which modifies the main clause adverbially is subordination. The linking is usually marked by a subordinating conjunction, although in some cases a coordinating conjunction is used, and the subordination is semantic rather than syntactic.

Nouns and noun phrases are used in clause roles such as subject, object, prepositional complement, nominal predicate, or (sometimes) adverbials.