scholarly journals Labile anticausatives in Jordanian Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-45
Author(s):  
Bassil Mashaqba ◽  
Anas Huneety ◽  
Wael Zuraiq ◽  
Moh’D Al-Omari ◽  
Sabri Al-Shboul
Keyword(s):  
Natural Class ◽  
Jordanian Arabic ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Intransitive Verbs ◽  
Reflexive Analysis ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Spoken Arabic ◽  
Separate Class ◽  
Modern Standard

Abstract This study examines the morpho-syntax of labile anticausative structures in Jordanian Arabic (JA). Although the transitive counterpart of anticausatives is marked via morphological affixes that reflect structural and lexical components in Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic, a number of verbs involving causative alternation exhibit identical forms in JA (e.g., ġala [+T] ‘to CAUSE boil something’ vs ġala [–T] ‘to BECOME boil’). Such variation poses challenges for mapping between verb morphology and its lexical semantics. To handle such variation, which is also observed cross-linguistically, we argue in favour of Schäfer (2008; 2012), Schäfer & Vivanco (2015), and Ramchand’s (2008) “causer-less” analysis over Koontz-Garboden’s (2009) “reflexive” analysis. This work further assumes the existence of a Voice phrase lacking a specifier (external argument) and assumes that Voice projection is headed by an implied Voice head (vcauser) that syntactically assigns the accusative case to its new subject and semantically encodes the internal argument and describes the resultant subevent of the verb. The work also provides an alternative solution for voice projection that lacks an explicit specifier bearing [+agent] or [+causer] feature specification. The work assumes the presence of an inchoative Voice head [vinch] introducing the Spec Voice Phrase, which encodes an inchoative resultant state of an event achieved over its theme. Contrary to Al-Qadi (2015), the present model assumes that such verbs constitute a middle position between transitive and intransitive verbs in JA but do not constitute a separate class of their own. Evidently, the correct characterization of the anticausative subclass distribution is that it surfaces wherever v is transitive as well as in intransitive volitional contexts (a non-natural class). More intriguingly, the presented material suggests that there is an ongoing process of diachronic change in spoken Arabic varieties (including JA) that amounts to the development and expansion of an inchoative class where no external or internal inchoative detransitivizing morphemes are involved. This topic, which incorporates an intriguing diachronic dimension in addition to the syntactic details, is missing from the generative literature on Arabic morpho-syntax and is potentially of sufficient interest to merit investigation.

Educated spoken Arabic in Egypt and the Levant, with special reference to participle and tense

1978 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. F. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
Binding Power ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Spoken Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

Educated spoken Arabic (ESA), like any of the world's innumerable other koineized forms of speech, greatly depends for its maintenance and dissemination on the binding power of writing, on its quasi-permanence and transferability in space and time. It is understandable, too, that koines – and the koineizing tradition is an ancient one in the eastern Mediterranean – should regularly call upon earlier, whence written ancestral forms and, as far as the Arab and Islamic worlds are concerned, the fundamental importance of the immutable Koran cannot be over-estimated. Although a koine needs a spoken base, Classical Arabic, itself probably never the dialect of any single group or region (cf. Ferguson, 1959), substantially contributed through its more or less fixed written norms to an older koine and nowadays, via the so-called Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) of contemporary literature, journalism and ‘spoken prose’, to a more recently emergent pan-Arabic or, conceivably, pan-Arabics. In a not dissimilar way, in the Romance-speaking area, Latin existed for centuries as the language, for example, of clerics, side by side with developing regional koines and subsequent new literary languages which borrowed greatly from it, just as the Classical Latin koine was itself modelled by writers, like Cicero, whose cultural values were determined and carried by Greek. A crucial difference, however, between Latin vis-à-vis the Romance languages and Classical Arabic or the substantially similar MSA vis-à-vis ESA is that the latter qua spoken language may not be any more freely written than the regional vernaculars of Arabic. It is not, for instance, orthographic or orthoepic difficulties that inhibit the ‘transcribing“ of spoken Arabic of whatever kind but rather the almost mystical regard in which Arabs hold their written language to the detriment of spoken counterparts.

Cross-dialectal variation in Arabic: Competing prestigious forms

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hassan R. Abd-El-Jawad
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Standard Variety ◽  
Adequate Description ◽  
Sociolinguistic Variation ◽  
Dialectal Variation ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Arabic Sociolinguistics ◽  
Informal Settings ◽  
Spoken Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

ABSTRACTMost researchers of Arabic sociolinguistics assume the existence of a sociolinguistic continuum with a local vernacular at the bottom and the standard variety at the top. Those researchers seem to equate the terms “prestige” and “standard”; consequently, they tend to consider Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the only prestige variety in all settings. This article presents evidence showing that if an adequate description of sociolinguistic variation of spoken Arabic is to be met, it is necessary to posit not only one standard speech variety, MSA, but also other prestigious local or regional varieties which act as local spoken standards competing with MSA in informal settings. It will be shown in the reported cases that in certain contexts speakers tend to switch from their local forms – though these latter may be identical to MSA – to other local features characteristic of other dominant social groups and that happen to be marked [–MSA], These local prestigious norms act like the standard spoken norms in informal settings. (Diglossic model, prestigious varieties, stereotypes, dominant social groups, competing standards, spoken Arabic).

scholarly journals Agreement in Modern Standard Arabic constructions with cardinal numerals over ten

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-88
Author(s):  
Marcin Michalski
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Modern Standard Arabic ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Number Case ◽  
Modern Standard

Abstract In Modern Standard Arabic constructions with cardinal numerals over ten in which the noun denoting the counted object follows the numeral, e.g. al-ḫamsūna ǧundiyyan ‘the fifty soldiers’ (as opposed to al-ǧunūdu l-ḫamsūna ‘idem’), the noun is indefinite singular. When a property of the object counted is to be expressed by means of an attribute: an adjective, participle, or a relative clause, it agrees with the noun in gender, but agreement in the three remaining categories, i.e. number, case and definiteness, may be distributed between the noun and the numeral. The present study analyzes examples of such constructions found in contemporary journalistic texts. Four agreement configurations are distinguished, out of which three were described by Classical Arabic grammarians, while one is non-classical. In some instances, due to the syncretism of declension forms, agreement in case is indeterminate. The analysis of the examples shows that apart from variation in agreement that can be observed with some types of the qualifier, the choice of a particular agreement configuration depends on phraseology and/or the lexico-syntactic properties of the qualifier: whether it is a proper adjective, a nisba adjective, a participle, or a relative clause.

scholarly journals Grammatical construction of function words between old and modern written Arabic: A corpus-based analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-296
Author(s):  
Sultan Almujaiwel
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Frequency Distributions ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Part Of Speech ◽  
Grammatical Construction ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

AbstractThis paper argues that Arabic function words (FWs) vary in usage between old and modern Arabic, thus prompting an experimental investigation into their changeability. This investigation is carried out by testing classical Arabic (CA) in Arabic heritage language (AHL) texts – those labeled as archistratum – and the modern standard Arabic (MSA) of Arabic newspaper texts (ANT), each group of which contains randomly collected 5 million (M) word texts. The linguistic theory of the grammar of Arabic FWs is explained through the differences between CA and MSA, despite Arabic FW changes and the unlearnability and/or unusability of some FW constructions between in these two eras of Arabic usage. The dispersion/distribution of the construction grammar (CxG) of FWs and the number (n) of word attractions/repulsions between the two distinct eras is explored using the very latest and most sophisticated Arabic corpus processing tools, and Sketch Engine’sSkeEn gramrelsoperators. The analysis of a 5 M word corpus from each era of Arabic serves to prove the non-existence of rigorous Arabic CxG. The approach in this study adopts a technique which, by contrasting AHL with ANT, relies on analyzing the frequency distributions of FWs, the co-occurrences of FWs in a span of 2n-grams collocational patterning, and some cases of FW usage changes in terms of lexical cognition (FW grammatical relationships). The results show that the frequencies of FWs, in addition to the case studies, are not the same, and this implies that FWs and their associations with the main part of speech class in a fusion language like Arabic have grammatically changed in MSA. Their constructional changes are neglected in Arabic grammar.

Basic word order in classical Arabic and Jordanian Arabic

Lingua ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 65 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 107-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Khalid El-Yasin
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Jordanian Arabic ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Classical Arabic

scholarly journals Reflexive derivations in Thulung

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aimée Lahaussois
Keyword(s):  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Limited Distribution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
Intransitive Verbs

Thulung Rai, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Eastern Nepal, presents two derivational suffixes associated with reflexivization: -si and -s. The first, -si, is quite productive, found in complete paradigms, and derives reflexives, reciprocals, antipassives and anticausatives from transitive verbs (and occasionally from intransitive verbs). The second marker, -s, is more difficult to analyze: it has a limited distribution in verb paradigms, only appearing with 1pi and 3sg forms, and appears in a number of different contexts: it is found with the same types of derivations as -si but also — in some cases obligatorily, in others optionally — with verbs that do not have reflexive (or related) functions. It is even found with some transitive verbs. In this presentation, I will propose an analysis of the phenomena above based on elicited and narrative data I have collected in the field. The -s in fact has multiple, albeit related, origins: it is a phonological reduction of -si in certain circumstances, while in others it appears to be an older reflexivizing suffix which has been integrated, to different degrees, into verb morphology. With transitives, it appears to be a trace reflecting the complex derivational history of verbs which are derived from intransitives.

scholarly journals Verb Form and Tense in Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 284
Author(s):  
Yasir Alotaibi
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Imperfective Aspect ◽  
Neutral Context ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
The Past ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
English Verb ◽  
Modern Standard

This paper discusses tense in Arabic based on three varieties of the language: Classical Arabic (CA), Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and the Taif dialect (TD). We argue against previous analyses that suggest that Arabic is a tenseless language, which assume that tense information is derived from the context. We also argue against the suggestion that Arabic is tensed, but that its tense is relative, rather than absolute. We propose here that CA, MSA, and TD have closely related verb forms, and that these are tensed verbs. Tense in Arabic is absolute in a neutral context and verb forms take the perfective and imperfective aspect. Similar to other languages including English, verb forms in Arabic may take reference from the context instead of the present moment. In this case, we argue that this does not mean that tense in Arabic is relative, because this would also imply that tense in many languages, including English, is relative. Further, we argue that the perfective form indicates only the past tense and the imperfective form, only the present; all other interpretations are derived by implicature.

scholarly journals Patterns and Functions of Total Reduplication in Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic:

2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-99
Author(s):  
Mohammed Modhaffer ◽  
Sivaramakrishna Challavenkata
Keyword(s):  
Modern Standard Arabic ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Sql Database ◽  
The Status ◽  
Interesting Variation ◽  
Reliable Quantification ◽  
The One ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

In this paper, we investigate the form, salient patterns and core functions of word-level total reduplication in Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Using a multi-genre corpus of 469 million words, we extract total reduplication (TR) candidates into an SQL database, manually filter them, and perform concordance search to identify the patterns and functions. Data analysis reveals nine patterns and eleven functions of TR and compares their relative frequency in each variety. The functions of TR are mapped into two broad categories: morphological and semantic/pragmatic. Results show an interesting variation in terms of top functions being favored by the two varieties. While TR is favored by CA to express serial ordering, MSA is noticed to favor it to express intensification. The empirical findings of this study provide a reliable quantification of the status of TR in CA and MSA which is rather difficult to obtain by theoretical means: on the one hand, TR in Arabic is not as productive as in other languages such as Indonesian. On the other hand, it is more common in CA than in MSA because the latter usually resorts to using loose phrases to express the same concepts expressed by TR in CA.

scholarly journals Arabic relativization patterns: A unified HPSG analysis

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hahn
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Modern Standard Arabic ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Adjectival Modification ◽  
Uniform Manner ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic have several relativization patterns, including relative clauses with and without relativizers and adjectival modification patterns. Previous generative work has targeted several phenomena, but there is no analysis which covers all relativization patterns in any generative framework. We present an HPSG analysis that covers these phenomena in a uniform manner. Based on Doron and Reintges (2005), we show that the crosslinguistically unusual syntax of adjectival modifiers is a language-internally expected variant of participial modifiers as found in English. We also present the first HPSG analysis of Arabic broad subjects and argue that they are selected as specifiers, accounting for the similarities between broad subjects and ordinary subjects.

Deformation Mechanisms, Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Nanoscale Crystalline and Noncrystalline Materials in Different Temperature Ranges

2011 ◽  
Vol 1297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuly V. Milman
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Properties ◽  
Plastic Deformation ◽  
Hot Deformation ◽  
Deformation Mechanisms ◽  
Structural Elements ◽  
Crystalline Materials ◽  
Nanoscale Structures ◽  
Temperature Ranges ◽  
Separate Class

ABSTRACTA review of the influence of nanoscale structural elements on the mechanical properties of crystals, quasicrystals, and metallic glasses (MG) is presented. Temperature ranges of cold, warm, and hot deformation are distinguished for crystalline materials, but a nanocrystalline (NC) structure may be formed by severe plastic deformation in the temperature ranges of warm and hot deformation. The plasticity characteristic obtained by indentation can be used for the characterization of low-ductile NC materials. The main features of the plastic deformation mechanisms of NC materials, including results obtained by molecular dynamic simulation, are considered.For MG, the following two problems are discussed: the comparison of the yield stresses for NC and MG and the possibility of strengthening of MG by disperse crystalline nanoscale particles.Quasicrystals with nanosize grains, which are also called nanoquasicrystals (NQC), form a separate class of materials. The mechanical properties of NQC and crystalline materials strengthened by NQC particles are analyzed. Dispersion hardening of metals by NC particles was the first application of nanoscale structures for structural materials. New possibilities of such strengthening are considered.

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