Diminutive and augmentative formation in northern Najdi/Ḥā’ili Arabic

Alshammari, Wafi Fhaid; Davis, Stuart

doi:10.1075/sal.8.03als

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 12 publications

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“…Diminutive forms are linguistic items used in almost every language, including Arabic (Azieb & Mahadin, 2015;Bauer, 1997;Jurafsky, 1996;Muho, 2019). The phenomenon exists in almost all Arabic dialects, such as Libyan Arabic (Gadoua & Davis, 2019), the Arabic dialect of Tunis (Procházka, 2017), Najdi/Hā'ili Arabic (Alshammari & Davis, 2019), and Qassimi Arabic (Al-Rojaie, 2012), among others. As Ibn 'Usfur (1972) stated, diminutive forms in Arabic are used to mean: (a) minimizing the number of something as in tumajraat (a few dates), (b) minimizing the status of someone or something, as in kuwajtib [a less well-known writer] and kutajib [a short book], (c) to show contempt, as in rudʒail [a little man], (d) an approximation of time, as in qubajl (a little before) and buʕajd [a little after], or (e) an approximation of place, as in fuwajq [a little above].…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exceptional Arabic Diminutive Forms of Nouns with [aa]: An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis

Abalkheel¹

2020

IJEL

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Most diminutive forms in Arabic adhere in their derivation to certain simple phonological and morphological processes without any complications. However, there are exceptions to be found, including diminutive forms of nouns with [aa] in which the segment [w] surfaces. Using Optimality Theory (OT) as a framework and using syllable weight as a base of analysis, this study aims to provide an accurate explanation of such phenomena. This work will show that the root of words with [w] is not simply biconsonantal with an emphatic segment (i.e., [w]) inserted to fill the empty onset. Instead, the root is triconsonantal in which [w] is an essential segment. It also reveals that syllable-weight constraint is inviolable in Arabic dialects.

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Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exceptional Arabic Diminutive Forms of Nouns with [aa]: An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis

Abalkheel¹

2020

IJEL

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The syntax of the diminutive morpheme-aajin Egyptian Arabic, Syrian Arabic, and Jordanian Arabic

Jarrah

Jaradat

2022

Linguistics Vanguard

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This article investigates the morphosyntactic behavior of the diminutive morpheme -aaj in three Arabic dialects (Egyptian Arabic, Syrian Arabic, and Jordanian Arabic). It argues that this morpheme is categorially a head that projects Size Phrase (cf. De Belder, Marijke. 2008. Size matters: Towards a syntactic decomposition of countability. In Natasha Abner & Jason Bishop (eds.), Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 116–122. Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project). In so doing, this analysis obviously challenges (Fassi Fehri, Abdelkader. 2018. Constructing feminine to mean: Gender, number, numeral, and quantifier extensions in Arabic. Lanham: Lexington Books) recent proposal that (non-)concatenative diminutives in Arabic are modifiers that are adjoined to categorized words when they indicate smallness in size. Additionally, this article provides an account of the observation that the diminutive morpheme -aaj can only appear with the feminine ending and a certain group of nouns, including collective aggregates (e.g., fruits and vegetables) and granular aggregates (e.g., grains, nuts, and seeds). We show that words suffixed with the diminutive morpheme -aaj can only give rise to an individuation reading (not a partition or non-count reading). This is syntactically interpreted as indicating that Size Phrase (headed by -aaj) is always dominated in Arabic grammar by Division Phrase (cf. Borer, Hagit. 2005. In name only. Oxford: Oxford University Press), whose presence derives an individuation reading.

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Diminutive and augmentative formation in northern Najdi/Ḥā’ili Arabic

Cited by 2 publications

References 12 publications

Exceptional Arabic Diminutive Forms of Nouns with [aa]: An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis

Exceptional Arabic Diminutive Forms of Nouns with [aa]: An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis

The syntax of the diminutive morpheme-aajin Egyptian Arabic, Syrian Arabic, and Jordanian Arabic

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