On Performatives in Aramaic Documents

This article argues for the presence of performative sentences in early Aramaic documents, giving two examples—one from the Wadi Murabbaʿat divorce document and the other from an Elephantine letter. It is suggested that the use of a compound, consisting of a preposition and a demonstrative pronoun, to reinforce the performative function of the participle, parallels the use of “hereby” in English.