Table Of ContentPerspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXIV–XXV
Studies in Arabic Linguistics
This book series aims to publish original research in all fields of Arabic linguistics,
including – but not limited to – theoretical linguistics, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics,
pragmatics, typology, and language acquisition. Submissions from all current theoretical
frameworks are welcome. Studies may deal with one or more varieties of Arabic, or Arabic
in relation to or compared with other languages. Both monographs and thematic collections
of research papers will be considered.
The series includes monographs and thematically coherent collective volumes, in English.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
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Editors
Elabbas Benmamoun Enam Al-Wer
University of Illinois University of Essex
Editorial Board
Mahasen Hasan Abu-Mansour Mustafa A. Mughazy
Umm Al-Qura University Western Michigan University
Sami Boudelaa Jamal Ouhala
United Arab Emirates University University College Dublin
Stuart Davis Jonathan Owens
Indiana University University of Bayreuth
Mushira Eid Janet C.E. Watson
University of Utah University of Salford
Clive Holes Manfred Woidich
The Oriental Institute, Oxford University of Amsterdam
Jean Lowenstamm
CNRS-Université Paris 7
Volume 1
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXIV–XXV
Edited by Samira Farwaneh and Hamid Ouali
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics
XXIV–XXV
Papers from the annual symposia on Arabic Linguistics
Texas, 2010 and Arizona, 2011
Edited by
Samira Farwaneh
University of Arizona
Hamid Ouali
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (24th : 2010 : University of Texas)
Perspectives on Arabic linguistics XXIV-XXV : papers from the Annual Symposia on
Arabic Linguistics, Texas, 2010 and Arizona, 2011 / Edited by Samira Farwaneh
and Hamid Ouali.
p. cm. (Studies in Arabic Linguistics, issn 2212-8042 ; v. 1)
Summary: The majority of the papers in this volume were presented at the Twenty
Fourth and Twenty Fifth Annual Symposia on Arabic Linguistics held at the
University Texas in April 2010 and at the University of Arizona in March 2011.
One paper is also included from the Twenty Third Annual Symposium.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Arabic language--Congresses. 2. Arabic language--Grammar--Congresses.
I. Farwaneh, Samira, editor of compilation. II. Ouali, Hamid, editor of
compilation. III. Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (25th : 2011 :
University of Arizona) IV. Title.
PJ6303.A56 2010
492.7--dc23 2013046347
isbn 978 90 272 0029 7 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 7066 5 (Eb)
© 2014 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Acknowledgement vii
Introduction i x
part i. Phonology and Morphology
Geminate representation in Arabic 3
Stuart Davis and Marwa Ragheb
Stress assignment in Makkan Arabic: A stratal-ot analysis 21
Rawiah S. Kabrah
Investigating variation in Arabic intonation: The case for a multi-level
corpus approach 6 3
Sam Hellmuth
The Morpheme /-in(n)-/ in central Asian Arabic: A comparative study 91
Kerith Miller
part ii. Syntax
Variations on the same theme: Sentential negation and the negative
copula in Arabic 121
Elabbas Benmamoun, Mahmoud Abunasser, Rania Al-Sabbagh,
Abdelaadim Bidaoui, and Dana Shalash
Negation and heads: Agreement and maximal projections
in Palestinian Arabic 139
Mohammad A. Mohammad
on negative concord in Egyptian and Moroccan Arabic 159
Hamid Ouali and Usama Soltan
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXIV–XXV
on the distribution and licensing of polarity-sensitive items
in Egyptian Arabic: The cases of ʔayy and walaa 181
Usama Soltan
Modes of interrogatives entail modes of sluicing: Evidence
from Emirati Arabic 207
Tommi Leung
Index 229
Acknowledgement
The majority of the papers in this volume were presented at the twenty Fourth and
twenty Fifth Annual Symposia on Arabic Linguistics held at the University texas
in April 2010 and at the University of Arizona in March 2011. one paper is also
included from the twenty Third Annual Symposium. The papers presented at the
symposia were selected on the basis of an anonymous review of abstracts submit-
ted to the program committee. The papers included in the volume were further
peer reviewed before final acceptance for publication. We are grateful to all the
reviewers for their help.
Introduction
Arabic linguistics research has long been partial to Modern Standard Arabic.
Recent years, however, witnessed a surge in research on Arabic dialects especially
in the fields of phonology, morphology, syntax and sociolinguistics. But despite
this surge, we have only scratched the surface and Arabic varieties have yet a wealth
of data waiting to be brought to the forefront of linguistic analysis. It is hoped that
this volume provides contributions to Arabic linguistics and Linguistic research in
general by presenting previously unnoted empirical facts and innovative theoreti-
cal analyses.
The volume consists of two major parts: The first houses five papers on
phonology and morphology, most of which deal with phonology/morphology in-
terface, while the second part includes five papers on syntax.
Data come from a variety of Arabic dialects ranging from the dominant com-
monly taught and studied dialects such as Cairene, Palestinian and Saudi to the
less known and understudied dialects such as San’ani Yemeni and the dialects of
Central Asia. Some papers focus on a single dialect, e.g., Davis and Ragheb, Kabrah,
Mohammad, Soltan, and Leung, while Miller, Hellmuth, Benmamoun et al., and
ouali and Soltan provide a comparative study of several dialects to find similari-
ties and contrasts.
Part I consists of three papers on phonology and one on morphology. Each
paper provides insight into a core question of major empirical and theoretical sig-
nificance with novel contribution at the data or method levels. Davis/Ragheb,
Miller, and Kabrah’s papers introduce novel data from a well-studied dialect to
serve as an evaluation measure of assessing the explanatory adequacy and predic-
tive power of two competing theories or hypotheses. Hellmuth’s paper lays out a
novel corpus-based method of examining a less known aspect of Arabic dialects,
namely, intonational pattern, and lays out an example of best practice in the field
of intonational studies.
The first paper by Stuart Davis and Marwa Ragheb addresses gemination or
consonant length, an understudied phenomenon in Arabic compared to the nu-
merous studies on epenthesis and syncope. Davis and Ragheb consider the distri-
bution and behavior of geminates compared to nonidentical clusters for the goal of
assessing the efficacy of two competing hypotheses on the representation of gemi-
nates, the skeletal or Prosodic length hypothesis (Clements and Keyser 1983) and
Description:This volume provides important contributions to Arabic linguistics and Linguistic research in general by presenting new empirical facts and innovative theoretical analyses. It consists of two major parts: the first contains four papers on phonology and morphology, most of which deal with phonology/m
