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7 - Non-root/pattern morphology and the Arabic lexicon
- Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary
The Arabic lexicon
The Arabic lexicon, the word-stock of the language, consists primarily of words derived through the dominant paronymic root/pattern system of derivational morphology. However, a substantial segment of the lexicon consists of non-root/pattern-based lexemes. These items include solid stems that date back to the earliest forms of Arabic (such as laa ‘no,’ or hum ‘they m.’), borrowed foreign words and expressions, and the results of non-root/pattern processes such as suffixation and compounding for word-creation and lexical expansion. This chapter examines both solid stems and the processes for expansion of the lexicon which supplement the richness of root/pattern Arabic morphology.
Solid stems
Solid stems are words which cannot be reduced morphologically or analyzed in the typical root-and-pattern system. They consist of primarily four sets in Arabic: function words, pronouns, adverbs, and loanwords. Unlike words based on lexical roots, solid-stem words are normally listed according to their orthography in Arabic dictionaries.
Index
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6 - Derivational morphology: the root/pattern system
- Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary
Introduction
Derivational morphology creates word stems, or lexemes. It builds and enlarges the lexicon so that concepts may find expression within a language. Sometimes the process of derivation changes a word’s form class (e.g., creating an adjective from a noun, such as tuunis-iyy ‘Tunisian’ from tuunis ‘Tunisia’); sometimes it changes the subclass of a word (creating a transitive verb from an intransitive base, e.g., ʔadxala ‘to insert’ from daxala ‘to enter’). It affects almost all form classes or syntactic categories except those that are closed, such as function words (prepositions, conjunctions, particles). In Arabic, systematic derivation of words from lexical roots is at the heart of the word-creation system, and remains the distinctive feature of Arabic morphology. The fact that Arabic word stems consist primarily of discontinuous morphemes (interlocked roots and patterns) has been of substantial interest to morphological theory in general.
Derivational morphology can be expressed in terms of Word Formation Rules (WFRs). “A basic assumption … is that WFRs are rules of the lexicon, and as such operate totally within the lexicon. They are totally separate from the other rules of the grammar, though not from the other components of the grammar. A WFR may make reference to syntactic, semantic, and phonological properties of words, but not to syntactic, semantic, or phonological rules” (Aronoff 1976: 46). It is also the case that “derivational markers will be encompassed within inflectional markers” (Aronoff 1976: 2). That is, derivation applies to word-stem formation, creating a lexical unit. Inflectional markers are subsequently added to word stems when words are used in context. Derivation – in other words – is prior to inflection. Or, as Aronoff remarks, “Lexeme formation intrinsically feeds inflection” (1994: 127).
Acknowledgments
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2 - Arabic phonology
- Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary
Phonology is the analysis of the sound system of a language, including the study of the individual sounds themselves and how they are articulated (articulatory phonetics) and how they are perceived (acoustic phonetics). Phonology also includes the analysis of meaningful segments of sound (phonemes): their composition, distribution, and function (phonemics). This chapter will concern itself primarily with the phonemics of Arabic, that is, analysis of distinctive MSA sounds and their variants (allophones). This analysis involves detailed description of the phonemes themselves as well as description of processes that can be “phonemic,” (meaningful) such as vowel lengthening and consonant doubling (gemination).
Phonemics
The study of phonemics is concerned with the sounds of a language that make a difference in meaning; phonemes can be described as the semantically significant sounds of a language. In order to establish a sound’s status as a phoneme, linguists look for environments or contexts in which everything is identical except for one sound or a particular feature of a sound (such as voicing). If that sound or feature of a sound carries a difference in meaning and it contrasts with another sound in the same position, it is established as a phoneme. Phonemes are said for this reason to be in “contrastive” distribution. By contrasting sounds in paired contexts, the identity of a phoneme can be established. This kind of contrastive comparison is called minimal pair analysis. For example, in English the pair of words pet and bet, are exactly the same except for the initial sound, but they are completely different in meaning. This contrast in meaning establishes that the sounds /p/ and /b/ are separate phonemes. Note that phonemes are conventionally written between two forward slashes, e.g., /k/.
3 - Arabic phonotactics and morphophonology
- Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary
The term “phonotactics” refers to the study of sound distribution patterns and distribution restrictions within words (and sometimes across word boundaries). Phonotactic rules influence Arabic word structure in derivational and inflectional morphology, and also in lexical root structure. Most of these rules and restrictions were discovered and described by the Arabic grammarians over a thousand years ago (in particular by Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad, but also Sibawayhi and others). They are organized and described in this book in technical linguistic terms as they apply to MSA, using formalizations whenever possible. There are at least two aspects to Arabic phonotactics: the phonotactics of root morphology and the phonotactics of derivational and inflectional morphology. The study of morphological processes interfacing with phonological structures and rules is termed morphophonemics. In Arabic the study of phonotactics and morphophonology are closely interrelated. Four phonological processes are essential to the Arabic sound system: assimilation (one sound absorbing or affecting another), epenthesis (vowel insertion), deletion (of vowel or semivowel), and vowel shift.
Assimilation (iddighaam/idghaam)
Assimilation can be defined as a change or spread of phonetic feature values (such as voicing or velarization) that makes segments more similar, or even identical. In Arabic it often occurs as a result of phonological rules applying at the intersection of morphological processes, for example, as a result of a pattern (wazn) applying to a particular lexical root (jidhr). Assimilation is normally non-phonemic; i.e., it does not affect the meaning of a segment or word. It may be progressive or regressive.
List of figures
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9 - Syntactic analysis and Arabic
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Summary
The study of syntax
Benmamoun provides a definition of syntax as follows: “Syntax is the study of phrasal and sentential patterns of natural language. It is the engine that combines the sound/gesture and meaning components of language. Syntax deals primarily with how words combine to form phrases and sentences, and the dependencies that obtain between the constituents of the phrase or sentence” (2009: 391). Thus, the study of syntax deals with phrase structure and clause structure – the way that words interrelate to form coherent, meaningful, and grammatically acceptable sentences. “A linguist … will try to characterize the principles that determine the formation of [Arabic] sentences. The goal will be to provide a systematic description of [Arabic] sentence formation, the grammar of [Arabic]” (after Haegeman 1994: 4). In order to undertake the study of syntax, it is necessary to make certain distinctions between form and function of lexical items within sentences for discussing surface structure phenomena.
A first step is to distinguish labels of linguistic “forms” or “form classes” (such as noun, verb, adjective) from the labels of their linguistic functions in context (e.g., terms such as subject, object, predicate). This enables discussion of the nature of individual words (such as their derivation, meaning, or inflection) separately from the syntactic slots or functions that they fill when used in context, as syntactic constituents. At a more abstract level of analysis, constituency may be viewed from a number of angles that involve hierarchical relations, semantic relations, and various theories of dependency.
11 - Arabic syntax II: clause structure
- Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary
Clauses in Arabic
Clauses are centered structurally and systematically around the predicate, and the predicative essence of a clause is what distinguishes it from a phrase. In Arabic syntax, there are verbal sentences and verbless (equational) sentences, and predicates may be of almost any lexical category: verbs (daras-naal-kitaab-a ‘We studied the book’), pronouns (haadhaahuwa ‘This is he’), prepositional phrases (al-kitaab-ufii l-maŧbax-i ‘The book is in the kitchen’), adjectives (al-bayt-ukabiir-un ‘The house is big’), or nouns (haaʔulaaʔiŧullaab-un ‘These are students’). Thus although verbs are at the heart of most predications, because the verb ‘to be’ in Arabic does not surface in the present tense indicative, other syntactic categories may bear the predicate or copular function in equational sentences.
Traditional Arabic grammars often classify sentence-types according to the first word in the sentence (noun or verb – jumla ismiyya/jumla fiʕliyya, ‘noun-sentence’/ ‘verb-sentence’), but the division is also viewed alternatively, according to whether or not the sentence contains an overt verb at all. Verbless sentences are considered a distinct linguistic category and usually referred to in English as “equational” sentences, with a basic predication distinction between the “topic” component (al-mubtadaʔ) and the “comment” component (al-xabar).
1 - Arabic linguistics: overview and history
- Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary
Introduction
In approaching the study of human language in general, if the aim is to categorize, classify, and identify how languages work, then these functions must be based on clearly documented empirical observations. This kind of activity separates linguistics from anecdotal, philosophical, impressionistic, or speculative observations about language that may come from anyone anywhere. Linguistics can be defined as follows.
Linguistics is “the study of language as a system of human communication” (Richards and Schmidt 2010: 343).
Linguistics is “a natural science, on a par with geology, biology, physics, and chemistry.” And “the task of linguistics is to explain the nature of human language, through active involvement in the description of language – each viewed as an integrated system – together with explanation of why each language is the way it is, allied to the further scientific pursuits of prediction and evaluation” (Dixon 2010a: 1).
“For the beginning linguist, saying that linguistics is a science can be interpreted as implying careful observation of the relevant real-world phenomena, classification of those phenomena, and the search for useful patterns in the phenomena observed and classified. For the more advanced linguist, saying that linguistics is a science is a matter of seeking explanations for the phenomena of language and building theories which will help explain why observed phenomena occur while phenomena which are not observed should not occur” (Bauer 2007: 17).
“Linguists believe that their field is a science because they share the goals of scientific inquiry, which is objective (or more properly intersubjectively accessible) understanding” (Aronoff and Rees-Miller 2001: xiv).
“The task of linguistics is to explain the nature of human language, through active involvement in the description of languages – each viewed as an integrated system – together with an explanation of why each language is the way it is, allied to the further scientific pursuits of prediction and evaluation” (Dixon 2010a: 1).
5 - Introduction to Arabic morphology
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Summary
Word structure
Ask most anyone, and they will say that words are at the heart of language. Words are definitely at the center of discourse, and single words are the first language elements that infants normally acquire. But seemingly simple questions such as “what is a word?” have been surprisingly difficult to answer. Distinctions can be made according to various criteria. Three general aspects of “word” can be listed: the phonological word or word as a phonological unit; the lexeme, or content word with a dictionary meaning; and the “grammatical word,” the word stem that serves as a base for grammatical/inflectional markers. One definition of ‘word’ is “a unit of expression which has universal intuitive recognition by native-speakers, in both spoken and written language” (Crystal 1997b: 419). However, the concept of “intuitive recognition” is neither empirical nor rigorous. Another definition is “the smallest of the linguistic units which can occur on its own in speech or writing” (Richards and Schmidt 2010: 636). Here again, the concept of “on its own” is open to discussion. As Richards and Schmidt note, “it is difficult to apply this criterion consistently” (2010: 636). Morphology, the study of word structure, examines systematically the nature of words, their forms, their components, their interactions, and – to some extent – their meanings.
What is linguistic morphology?
Morphology in linguistics deals with the structure of words: how they are formed and the identity and character of their component features. Sometimes words consist of solid stems (such as the Arabic noun yad ‘hand’ or the English word book), but more often (especially in Arabic) words are composed of more than one morpheme (such as the English words books, bookshelf, booked; or the Arabic word maktab ‘office’ consisting of the lexical root morpheme { k-t-b} ‘write’ and the grammatical pattern morpheme specifying “place,” { ma __ __ a __ }). A morpheme, then, can be defined as a minimum unit of form endowed with an independent meaning. Another definition is that a morpheme is “a minimal distinctive unit of grammar, and the central concern of morphology” (Crystal 1997b: 248). Morphemes may be free, meaning that they can stand alone as words, or they may be bound, meaning that they exist only as components of words. In Arabic, most words are morphologically complex, that is, they consist of more than one morpheme.
Preface
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Summary
Preface
Despite widening international interest in Arabic language and culture, few resources exist for a systematic introduction to the linguistics of Arabic and for teaching the basics of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics. This is true despite the fact that distinguished works exist in Arabic, English, and other languages examining and documenting Arabic language history, structure, and processes. Works by Aoun, Badawi, Bateson, Beeston, Bohas, Carter, Eid, Holes, Owens, Parkinson, Stetkevych, Talmon, Versteegh and others have contributed vastly to understanding the linguistics of Arabic. However, there is a place for an organized overview, both as a reference tool and as a foundational textbook for learning about the field.
For teaching courses on Arabic linguistics, I have used books and articles by all the above-mentioned authors. In particular, I have found Bateson’s Arabic Language Handbook, Beeston’s The Arabic Language Today, and Stetkevych’s The Modern Arabic Literary Language useful for concise summaries of key topics. These books originally date from 1967 (Bateson) and 1970 (Beeston and Stetkevych). Holes’ Modern Arabic (2004) is a more modern and comprehensive approach, but I have found that it is less useful as a textbook than as a reference work, and I usually assign only certain parts of it. Versteegh’s The Arabic Language (1997), provides historical background for key developments in the Arabic language but does not analyze the actual linguistic structures and processes of contemporary modern standard Arabic (MSA). Owens’ many excellent works on the history of Arabic and Arabic grammatical theory are focused primarily on premodern developments. Thus none of these books – despite their many merits – forms by itself a framework for a course in contemporary Arabic linguistics, and there is a distinct need for a more pedagogically focused work that includes discussion topics, questions, and suggestions for further readings on specific subjects. This book aims to meet the challenges of teaching elements of Arabic linguistics to students and teachers-in-training who may know little about linguistic theory, and for classes where there are mixed levels of ability in the language and in academic background.
Appendix C - Arabic nominal declensions
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Summary
Modern standard Arabic nouns and adjectives fall into eight declensions. These categories of inflection are not usually treated separately as declensions in textbooks and grammars of Arabic, but I have found that this often leads to confusion for Arabic learners. I have therefore distinguished among all forms of nominal declension, including inflections for the suffix declensions of dual, sound feminine plural and sound masculine plural. Three-way inflection nominals (triptotes) are traditionally considered the base category because they exhibit three distinctive case-markings for nominative, genitive, and accusative. All other categories have fewer case distinctions: some two, some only one. Moreover, sometimes there is a distinction between definite and indefinite inflection, and sometimes not (for example, the declensions for the dual and for the sound masculine plural do not exhibit distinctions in definiteness).
Arabic nominal declensions:
Three-way inflection
(1) three-way inflection (‘triptote’)
Two-way inflection
(2) dual
(3) sound feminine plural
(4) sound masculine plural
(5) diptote
(6) defective
One-way inflection
(7) indeclinable (for case, but marking definiteness), and
(8) invariable
Frontmatter
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Appendix A - Fields of linguistics and Arabic
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Summary
Because the main part of this book focuses on theoretical linguistics, this appendix summarizes core research interests and traditions of three other major fields of linguistics: applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and computational linguistics, as they relate to Arabic.
Applied linguistics and Arabic
The core of applied linguistics is the connection between theory and practice. The field of applied linguistics is concerned with real-world issues that involve language, such as language teaching. It also includes disciplines such as lexicography (dictionary design and compilation), language and the law (forensic linguistics), interpretation and translation, second language acquisition research, language testing, and language planning. As it relates to Arabic at the current time, applied linguistics has been heavily weighted in the direction of language teaching and learning, textbook and curricular design, proficiency testing, and teacher training. The practical needs and professional demands of teaching a greatly expanded number of students have necessitated a critical professional focus on language teaching resources and approaches.
4 - Arabic syllable structure and stress
- Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary
Syllable structure constitutes the component of phonological word division focused on pronounceable segments of words and how they are composed, divided, and distributed. Syllable structure is also a subdivision of the study of phonotactics, or the rules of sound distribution, the specific sequences of sound that occur in a language. And, third, the study of syllables in Arabic involves the analysis of lexical stress. Although syllables themselves are linear and segmental in nature, word stress (the loudness or emphasis placed on a syllable) is suprasegmental; that is, it occurs at the same time as the pronunciation of the segment, adding a dimension of complexity to the syllable itself. MSA has explicit structural restrictions on syllables, as well as predictable rule-based stress based on syllable strength. Although not a spontaneous spoken register of Arabic, MSA is nonetheless spoken on formal occasions (usually scripted) and in broadcast news and information formats, and adheres to established norms of stress placement. Recent published work on the stress system of MSA has largely been done within the theoretical framework of prosodic morphology. The discussion set forth here uses a basic descriptive approach similar to the one used in Ryding 2005 (36–39), Mitchell 1990 (19–21), and McCarus and Rammuny (1974: 7–8, 23).
Syllable structure
In general, the core of a syllable is a vowel; in addition to a vowel, a syllable has “margins” that consist of consonants – either prevocalic or postvocalic or both. The vowel core of a syllable is referred to as the syllable nucleus. In addition to the nucleus, a syllable has an onset or initial consonant, and may have a final consonant or consonants, termed the coda. Therefore in an Arabic word such as min ‘from’, the onset would be /m/, the nucleus /i/, and the coda /n/.
8 - Arabic inflectional morphology
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Summary
Introduction to inflection
Inflectional morphology examines the nature and processes of word-change within syntactic structures. It examines inflectional paradigms (conjugations, declensions) and the types of inflectional change realized on words-in-use. That is, it examines the range of inflectional possibilities available to particular word-stems (their paradigms) and it examines the nature of their roles in context (their syntagmatic relations). Paradigms can be compared to wardrobes of choices for particular words (options for dress), whereas syntagmatic relations can be compared to events which determine the wardrobe selection of particular words (a particular event requires a particular wardrobe choice – black tie, casual, come-as-you-are). Therefore, a word in context which is filling a particular syntactic role bears a paradigm mark determined both by the word’s inherent nature (an Arabic diptote, for example) and also by its contextual relations (object of a preposition, for example). Here are three instances of a prepositional phrase whose noun object inflects for the genitive case in different ways:
fii dimashq-a
in Damascus
fii l-madrasat-i
at the school
fii l-mustashfaa
at the hospital
Every noun falls into a particular inflectional class or declension, which allows or restricts its ability to exhibit the full range of inflectional distinctions. There are eight noun declensions in Arabic. See Appendix C for these declensions.
Arabic inflection
Compared to English, words in Arabic are highly inflected. This was partially illustrated in Chapter 5 where two words, maktab-un and ya-ktub-u were analyzed down to their most basic morphological components, maktab-un showing six morphemes (four of which were inflectional), and ya-ktub-u showing eight (six of which were inflectional). Western linguistics recognizes inflectional grammatical categories such as number, gender, case, person, mood, tense, and voice – all essential elements in marking word-function within syntax. Arabic grammatical theory, however, designates that case and mood belong to a separate category which is determined by or governed by syntactic rules (ʕawaamil).
The difference between categories of number, gender, person and tense, on one hand, and case and mood on the other, are clear and significant. In the case of nouns, for example, number and gender are conceived of as determined directly by real-world information, (i.e., semantically) whereas mood and case are determined by the syntactic function of the item within the clause structure; i.e., they are purely intralinguistic features.
(Ryding 1993: 175)
10 - Arabic syntax I: phrase structure
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Summary
Arabic phrase structure
Arabic syntactic study can be undertaken from several perspectives, as noted in the previous chapter. Phrases and clauses are the two key sites of syntactic analysis; phrases are organized groups of words that fill particular functions within sentences, but which also have a certain integrity and rule-structure of their own. Phrases have no predication (for example, haadhihi l-şuurat-u ‘this picture’ or al-bayt-u l-ʔabyađ-u ‘the white house’). Clauses (or sentences) involve a predication of some kind (for example, haadhihi hiya l-şuurat-u ‘This is the picture,’ or al-bayt-u ʔabyađ-u ‘The house is white’). This chapter focuses on Arabic phrase structure; the following chapter will focus on clause structure.
As noted earlier in the discussion of Arabic morphosyntax, the dominant principles of Arabic syntactic structure are agreement and government. These prevail in both phrase structure and clause structure, but in different ways. In this chapter I will first discuss agreement-based phrase structure and then government-based phrase structure.
Contents
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References
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