Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions and Varieties

Kaye, Alan S.; Holes, Clive

doi:10.2307/416614

Cited by 99 publications

(36 citation statements)

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“…Moreover, unlike other diglossic languages and dialectal variation, the linguistic disparities between SpA and MSA exist in all language domains -semantics, phonology, morphology, and syntax (e.g. Holes, 2004;Saiegh-Haddad, 2018). These disparities represent two forms of the same language that are distant and fundamentally distinct (Ferguson, 1959;Saiegh-Haddad & Henkin-Roitfarb, 2014).…”

Section: Diglossia In Arabic: Linguistic Distance Between Spoken and ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it can vary widely across languages (Aronoff & Fudeman, 2011;Duncan, 2018;Gonnerman, 2018;Ravid, 2019). For instance, Arabic is based mainly on non-concatenative word-building procedures (Holes, 2004). These contrast sharply with the concatenative (stem + suffix) procedures that dominate word formation in Indo-European languages (Shalhoub-Awwad, 2020).…”

Section: Diglossia In Arabic: Linguistic Distance Between Spoken and ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although morphology is considered the predominant hallmark of Arabic, the linguistic distance in the morphological domain has received little attention in research (e.g. Holes, 2004). Hence, our interest is directed to the morphological distance between SPD and MSA.…”

Section: Diglossia In Arabic: Linguistic Distance Between Spoken and ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Derivational morphology. Derivational morphology in Arabic is primarily a non-concatenated process (non-linear) which is considered the heart of word formation in the uniquely Semitic root-and-pattern system (Hilaal, 1990;Holes, 2004;McCarthy, 1981;Saiegh-Haddad & Henkin-Roitfarb, 2014). Most content words are composed of at least two underlying abstract morphemes: a root and a word-pattern.…”

Section: Arabic Morphological Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Arabic words can also be derived by a concatenated process, in which the morphemes are added linearly. For example, the adjective ّ ‫ِي‬ ‫ْس‬ ‫َم‬ ‫ش‬ /ʃamsi:yy/ 'sunny' is formed by adding the derivational suffix /-i:yy/ to the word ‫ْس‬ ‫َم‬ ‫ش‬ /ʃams/ 'sun' (Holes, 2004;Shalhoub-Awwad & Leikin, 2016).…”

Section: Arabic Morphological Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

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Morphological distance between spoken Palestinian dialect and standard Arabic and its implications for reading acquisition

Joubran-Awadie

Shalhoub‐Awwad

2023

First Language

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When the written language that children learn to read and write is distinct from the oral language they acquired as their mother tongue, they may encounter substantial challenges. The linguistic distance between two varieties of the same language could have an impact on the literacy acquisition journey. The present study focuses on Arabic, a prototypical case of diglossia, where the distance between the spoken and standard varieties has been intensively examined phonologically and lexically. However, a paucity of studies has addressed their morphological distance. This study takes one step in this direction by describing, analyzing, and quantifying the distance of morphemes in content words from spoken Palestinian dialect (SPD) to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It is the first to map this distance by form and function in the three predominant systems: derivation, inflection, and clitics in nouns and verbs. All morphemes were arranged on an axis targeting four main levels that varied in the extent of the morphological distance from SPD to MSA, beginning with ‘identical’ morphemes (same form, same function), followed by ‘strongly overlapping’ morphemes (morpho-phonological difference in form, same function), then ‘partially overlapping’ morphemes (different form, same function), and ending with ‘unique’ morphemes (unique form, same/different function). The mapping showed significant findings indicating that most morphemes are non-identical between SPD and MSA, comprising 81.4% of the total. Most of these non-identical morphemes (64.9%) were assembled to the ‘partially overlapping’ and ‘unique’ levels, appearing mainly in the verb inflection category. Implications for the possible impact of morphological distance on reading acquisition are discussed.

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