Ugaritic

ˀhb - to love (DUL 31)

Cf. ˀahbt ‘love’ (DUL 31).

PC
*ˀhb - to love (Kogan 2015: 280)
The combination of ˀ and h as root consonants, nearly impossible in Semitic verbal roots (Greenberg 1950:168), makes one think of a secondary origin for one of the gutturals. An extension of the biconsonantal element *ˀb ‘to wish, to desire’ is thus possible (with DRS 10). Cf., alternatively, Arb. hbb ‘to groan before copulation (a buck),’ tentatively compared to Hbr. ˀhb in Zaborski 1971:65. The root does not seem to be attested in Aramaic