Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume XV: Salt Lake City 2001

236 Pages·2003·2.15 MB·English

by  Dilworth B. Parkinson

PERSPECTIVES ON ARABIC LINGUISTICS XV
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E.F. KONRAD KOERNER
(Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie
und Universalienforschung, Berlin)
Series IV – CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY
Advisory Editorial Board
Lyle Campbell (Christchurch, N.Z.); Sheila Embleton (Toronto);
Brian D. Joseph (Columbus, Ohio); John E. Joseph (Edinburgh)
Manfred Krifka (Berlin); E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.);
Joseph C. Salmons (Madison, Wis.); Hans-Jürgen Sasse (Köln)
Volume 247
Dilworth B. Parkinson and Samira Farwaneh (eds.)
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XV
Papers from the Fifteenth Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics,
Salt Lake City 2001.
PERSPECTIVES ON
ARABIC LINGUISTICS XV
PAPERS FROM THE FIFTEENTH ANNUAL
SYMPOSIUM ON ARABIC LINGUISTICS,
SALT LAKE CITY 2001
Edited by
DILWORTH B. PARKINSON
Brigham Young University
SAMIRA FARWANEH
University of Arizona
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
8 National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Dilworth B. Parkinson and Elabbas Benmamoun (eds.)
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XV
(Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in
linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763 ; v. 247)
ISBN 90 272 4759 5 (Eur.) / 1 58811 487 2 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2003 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other
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John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 36224 • 1020 ME Amsterdam • The Netherlands
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CONTENTS
Editorial Note
Introduction
Dilworth B. Parkinson
I. Sociolinguistics
Discourse Particles Revisited: The Case of Wallahi in 3
Egyptian Arabic
Mustafa A. Mughazy
Theories of Code Switching in the Light of Empirical Data 19
from Egypt
Reem Bassiouney
Translating Arabic Speech Act Expressions 41
Rudolf Reinelt
II. Syntax
Relative Clauses in Syrian Arabic: Two Reconstruction 53
Problems
James Darrow
Interpretability, Feature Strength, and Impoverished 85
Agreement in Arabic
Mark S. LeTourneau
III. Corpus Linguistics
Evolution of MSA, the Case of Some Complementary 135
Particles
Mark Van Mol
CONTENTS
NP Structure Types in Spoken and Written Modern 149
Standard Arabic (MSA) Corpora
Sameh Al-Ansary
Comparing Frequencies of Lexical Productions 181
in Arabic Words
Stephen Taylor
Future Variability: A Corpus Study of Arabic Future Particles 191
Dilworth B. Parkinson
Index of Subjects 213
EDITORIAL NOTE
On March 2-3, 2001, the Fifteenth Annual Symposium on
Arabic Linguistics was held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake
City, Utah. The symposium was sponsored by the Arabic
Linguistics Society and the Univesity of Utah. Samira Farwaneh
was the local organizer of the symposium.
A total of twenty-four papers were presented at the symposium;
of these, nine are published in this volume. The papers presented at
the symposium 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 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.
The preparation and printing of the final manuscript was done
using facilities available at Brigham Young University. I am
indebted to Aaron Schofield, Spencer Penrod, and Tessa Hauglid,
who served as assistant editors for this volume.

INTRODUCTION
Dilworth B. Parkinson
The papers in this volume deal with various topics in Arabic
Linguistics, and focus on three specific areas: sociolinguistics, syntax,
and corpus linguistics. The papers are data-oriented, and focus both on
new theoretic insights and new techniques of data analysis.
Section I includes three papers in the area of sociolinguistics.
Mughazy looks at a (less-typical) non-oath use of the oath phrase
wallaahi in Egyptian Arabic. He demonstrates several differences
between the oath and non-oath usages, and then shows how the non-
oath usage functions as a mitigating politeness or face-saving device.
Perhaps his most interesting result is that some of the usages that are
thus mitigated are surprising from a western, or even a ‘theoretical’
point of view, and can only be understood in a local Egyptian context
of what is and what is not face threatening and what needs to be
mitigated.
Bassiouney’s topic is diglossic code-switching. Using data from
Egypt, she looks at various theories of code-switching, concentrating
on the Matrix language model, and finds that her Egyptian data poses
problems for all current proposals. She wonders if diglossic and
bilingual code-switching are indeed examples of the same
phenomenon, and gives suggestions for modifying the theory to
account for her data.
Reinelt looks at ‘speech act expressions,’ words that refer to
specific speech acts (like ‘to say,’ ‘to declare’), in the Quran, and in
German and English translations of the same to demonstrate some
aspects of translation theory and efficacy. He finds a major difference
between what might be termed ‘academic’ and ‘informative’ translation
styles.
Section II contains two papers on syntax. Darrow looks at
reconstruction problems in Syrian Arabic relative clauses, contrasting