Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume XI: Atlanta, Georgia, 1997

237 Pages·1998·18.24 MB·English

by  Elabbas Benmamoun

PERSPECTIVES ON ARABIC LINGUISTICS XI
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E. F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)
Series IV - CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY
Advisory Editorial Board
Henning Andersen (Los Angeles); Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles)
Thomas V. Gamkrelidze (Tbilisi); John E. Joseph (Edinburgh)
Hans-Heinrich Lieb (Berlin); Ernst Pulgram (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, BG.); Danny Steinberg (Tokyo)
Volume 167
Elabbas Benmamoun, Mushira Eid and Niloofar Haeri (eds)
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XI
PERSPECTIVES ON
ARABIC LINGUISTICS XI
PAPERS FROM THE
ELEVENTH ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM
ON ARABIC LINGUISTICS
Edited by
ELABBAS BENMAMOUN
University of Illinois
MUSHIRA EID
The University of Utah
NILOOFAR HAERI
Johns Hopkins University
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Elabbas Benmamoun, Mushira Eid and Niloofar Haeri (eds)
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XI
Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in
linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763 ; v. 167)
ISBN 90 272 3672  (Eur.) / 1 55619 883 3 (US) (alk. paper)
© Copyright 1998 - John Benjamins B.V.
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Table of Contents
Foreword vii
Introduction 1
L Syntactic Perspectives
Layers in the Distribution of Arabic Adverbs and Adjectives 9
and Their Licensing
Abdelkader Fassi Fehri
The Unoptionality of Resumptive Pronouns: The Case
of Moroccan Arabic 47
Abdessalam Elomari
Gapping and VP Deletion in Moroccan Arabic 65
Ibtissam Kortobi
Implicit Reciprocals in Standard Arabic 91
Mark S. LeTourneau
Π. Phonological Perspectives
Gradient Uvularization Spread in Ammani-Jordanian Arabic 117
Bushra Adnan Zawaydeh
Optimized Postvelar Harmony in Palestinian Arabic 143
Kimary N. Shahin
ΠΙ. Perspectives on Variation
Reported Speech in Arabic Journalistic Discourse 167
Ahmed Fakhri
vi
Gender in Linguistic Variation: The Variable (q) in
Damascus Arabic 183
Jamil Daher
Literary Arabic and Early Hijazi: Contrasts in the 209
Marking of Definiteness
David Testen
Index of Subjects 226
FOREWORD
The Eleventh Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics was held
February 28-March 2, 1997, at Emory University, Atlanta. The symposium
was sponsored by the Arabic Linguistics Society, Emory University's
Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Program in Linguistics, Hightower
Lecture Fund, and Center for Language, Literature & Culture, and by
Brigham Young University.
A total of twenty-two papers were presented at the symposium; of these,
nine are published in this volume. The papers presented were selected on the
basis of an anonymous review of abstracts submitted to the Program
Committee. The papers included in the volume were further reviewed by the
editors before their final acceptance for publication.
The transcription of all Arabic materials in the body of the papers, unless
otherwise specified, follows the International Phonetic Alphabet or standard
equivalents. The Arabic emphatics, however, are represented by a dot
underneath the symbol, and long vowels as sequences of two vowels. The
transliteration of Arabic names and titles follows accepted formats, with
some simplification in the use of diacritics. We have used ' and 'for hamza
(glottal stop) and 'ayn (pharyngeal approximant), respectively.
The preparation and printing of the final manuscript was done using
facilities available at the Middle East Center of the University of Utah, Salt
Lake City. We are indebted to Tessa Hauglid, who has served as assistant
editor as well as copy editor for this volume. We also thank Mahmoud al-
Batal for his part in the organization of the symposium.

INTRODUCTION
Elabbas Benmamoun
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Mushira Eid
University of Utah
Niloofar Haeri
Johns Hopkins University
The papers in this volume address core areas in contemporary
Arabic linguistics: syntax, phonology, and variation studies. The four
syntax papers in Section I address different topics from the perspective
of the Minimalist Program of Chomsky (1995) and subsequent work.
The first paper is by Abdelkader Fassi Fehri, the guest speaker to the
symposium. He examines an issue that has not received adequate
attention within generative studies of Arabic. The issue concerns the
syntactic distribution and placement of adverbs and adjectives.
Following Cinque (1993) and subsequent work which treat adverbs and
adjectives as specifiers of functional heads, Fassi Fehri posits three
main classes of adverbs depending on their position in the syntactic
tree. The first class of adverbs usually occurs between the main verb
and its complements. The second class of adverbs occurs higher than
modals. The third class of adverbs is usually restricted to sentence
initial position. The three types of adverbs are located in different
functional projections consistent with their meaning. He then argues
that the hierarchical ordering predicts a linear ordering of these adverbs
with class 3 preceding class 2, and the latter preceding class 1. The