Durative Aspect Markers in Modern Arabic Dialects: Cross

Home , Algerian Arabic, Anatolian Arabic, Andalusian Arabic, Baghdadi Arabic, Damascus Arabic, Juba Arabic

The Dissertation Committee for Mona Abdullah AlShihry certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:

Durative Aspect Markers in Modern Arabic Dialects: Cross-

dialectal Functions and Historical Development

Committee:

______Kristen Brustad, Supervisor

______John Huehnergard

______Mahmoud Al-Batal

______Barbara Bullock

Durative Aspect Markers in Modern Arabic Dialects: Cross-

dialectal Functions and Historical Development

Mona Abdullah AlShihry, B.A.; M.A.

Dissertation

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School

of the University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University Of Texas at Austin

May 2017

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I came to this department loaded with misconceptions about my own language, believing that I speak a form of distorted language that was damaged by the subsequent weakening of the "mother language". For my entire life, this belief was a reason for me to be ashamed of my own tongue and claim whenever possible that I actually speak Standard Arabic. At the same time, and like everyone else in my society, I would make fun of anyone who preferred to stick to Standard Arabic. This contradictory reality is the reality of many Arabic speakers and I never thought I would come across a convincing explanation for this contradiction. My advisor, Kristen Brustad guided and supported me in my search for answers to all of the questions that I have always had about my language and inspired me to always question "common facts" when they do not make sense to me. Now, I feel confident to explain to my fellow Arabs the views that I adhere to about how our language developed, how our language is not distorted and is not in danger. So thank you, doktoorah Kristen!

I would also like to express my very great appreciation to the other members of my dissertation committee: John Huehnergard, Mahmoud Al-Batal and Barbara Bullock for providing me with suggestions on how I could improve my dissertation and for the stimulating discussions in the different courses that I took with them in the last four years. It was truly an honor to have them in my dissertation committee.

A very special gratitude goes out to all my friends in the department and in the Center for Arabic Dialect Research (CADR) for their support and help in many different ways.

The unconditional love and support of my family is the cornerstone for my success st throughout the pursuit of my education since 1 grade. My father's persistent interest in my progress and my mother's prayers inspired me to push myself beyond my limits. My siblings' limitless and unwavering support enabled me to make it through the long days and nights of studying. My fiancé and my sister-in-law: thank you for everything. Allah

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la y7rimny minkom jamee3an.

Durative Aspect Markers in Modern Arabic Dialects: Cross- dialectal Functions and Historical Development

Mona Abdullah AlShihry, PhD

The University of Texas at Austin, 2017

SUPERVISOR: Kristen Brustad

This study explores the durative aspectual forms in modern spoken Arabic dialects. It analyzes and compares the synchronic functions and proposes possible paths of diachronic development for the majority of attested durative forms. For the synchronic analysis, the study promotes the role of context in understanding the functions of aspectual forms. It is only through context that we can interpret meanings that forms alone do not express. Observing this principle, the study examines the use of durative markers in a database that is composed of various contextualized texts. Diachronically, the study proposes a refinement of the theory of the locative source for the grammaticalization of durative marking that has become standard cross-linguistically. The approach presented here corresponds semantically with the functions expressed by the durative markers and allows for multiple membership of source lexemes. The major sources that are proposed are stative-continuous, temporal prepositions and emphatic forms. Then, an outline of diachronic development is synthesized from the findings of the synchronic analysis and historical reports of constant population contact to speculate on the possible paths of development for each durative marker from the proposed sources. These paths are considered according to the principles of functional grammar development; i.e., grammaticalization, borrowing and contact-induced grammaticalization. The study examines these different proposals and provides justifications for supporting the most likely cases of development while ruling out the

less possible paths. This study concludes with a summary of the most probable paths of development for durative markers in modern spoken Arabic.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract...... v List of Tables...... xi List of Figures...... xii List of Maps...... xiii Introduction...... 1 0.1 Aim and methodology of the present study...... 3 0.2 Linguistic diversity in the Arab world...... 6 0.3 Outline and organization ...... 7 0.4 Data sources ...... 8 0.5 Conventions...... 8

1 Chapter One: Theoretical framework...... 10 1.1 Introduction...... 10 1.2 Basic terminology...... 11 1.2.1 Aspect...... 11 1.2.2 Imperfective...... 13 1.2.3 Progressive...... 13 1.2.4 Habitual...... 14 1.3 Models of the development of durative markers in Arabic: Sources of development ...... 16 1.3.1 Locative sources...... 16 1.3.1.1 Locative source reconsidered ...... 18 1.3.1.2 Arabic durative markers from temporal locative sources...... 21 1.3.1.2.1 Preposition bi-...... 21 1.3.2 Stative-continuous sources ...... 25 1.3.2.1 Stative-continuous verbs as lexical sources of progressive marking in Arabic ...... 29 1.3.2.1.1 gʻd, jls, nwm, qwm...... 29 1.3.2.1.2 kwn...... 30

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1.3.3 Emphatic sources...... 31 1.3.3.1 Emphatic sources in Arabic...... 33 1.3.3.1.1 Emphatic b-...... 33 1.3.3.1.2 Emphatic ʻml...... 36 1.3.3.1.2.1 The circularity of ʻammāl ...... 37 1.4 Theories of structural change...... 40 1.4.1 Language internal changes: Theories of grammaticalization of aspectual markers...... 40 1.4.1.1 Critical views of grammaticalization...... 43 1.4.1.2 Motivations for grammaticlaization...... 46 1.4.2 Language external changes: Theories of the diffusion of aspectual markers as an effect of contact (borrowing)...... 47 1.4.2.1 Borrowability of aspect markers...... 49 1.4.3 Contact-induced grammaticalization...... 53 1.5 Research methodology: analyzing synchronic aspect markers and identifying the type of diachronic change ...... 57 1.5.1 The synchronic analysis...... 61 1.5.2 The diachronic analysis...... 63

2 Chapter Two: Cross-dialectal analysis of durative markers in modern spoken Arabic...69 2.1 Introduction...... 69 2.2 gʻd in dialects with no habitual marking...... 72 2.2.1 Discussion...... 78 2.3 jls ...... 79 2.4 nwm/qwm...... 80 2.5 kwn...... 80 2.5.1 Maghrebi kv-...... 81 2.5.2 kū- ...... 81 2.6 ʻml and its shortened forms...... 87 2.7 Other mv- durative forms outside the Levantine-Egyptian area...... 91 2.7.1 Shihry ma- ...... 91

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2.7.2 Bukhara Uzbekistani m(ī)-...... 92 2.8 b- ...... 93 2.8.1 Egyptian Arabic...... 93 2.8.1.1 Functions and usages of b- in modern Egyptian...... 94 2.8.1.2 Functions and usages of b- in 17th and 19th C. Cairene Arabic....95 2.8.2 Syrian Arabic...... 98 2.8.3 Yemen and Oman...... 101 2.8.4 Najdi b-...... 101 2.8.5 Cypriot Arabic...... 104 2.8.6 Sudanese Arabic...... 105 2.8.7 Nigerian Arabic...... 106 2.8.8 Juba Arabic...... 108 2.9 Discussion...... 108 3 Chapter Three: The history of the examined Arabic dialects: A brief overview of periods and places of sustained contact...... 111 3.1 The Ancient World...... 115 3.2 Epigraphic evidence ...... 116 3.3 Movements of Arabic Speakers...... 119 3.3.1 Mesopotamia...... 122 3.3.1.1 The Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia...... 123 3.3.2 The Levant...... 128 3.3.3 Egypt...... 131 3.3.4 North Africa...... 134 3.3.5 Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) ...... 138 3.3.6 Arabic in Periphery...... 141 3.3.6.1 Central Asia...... 142 3.3.6.2 Cyprus...... 143 3.3.6.3 Malta...... 144 3.3.6.4 Sub-Saharan Arabic in the rest of Africa (Sudan, Chad, Nigeria)...... 146

3.3.7 Movements of Religious minorities...... 149 3.3.7.1 Jewish movements...... 150 3.3.7.1.1 Jews in Mesopotamia...... 151 3.3.7.1.2 Jews in Spain (Sephardim) and North Africa...... 154 3.3.7.2 Christian movements...... 155 3.3.8 Discussion...... 157 4 Chapter Four: Diachronic analysis of the aspectual markers...... 160 4.1 Introduction...... 160 4.2 Models of the development of durative markers in Arabic: paths of development proposals ...... 162 4.2.1 b--...... 164 4.2.2 gʻd...... 177 4.2.3 ʻml ...... 187 4.2.4 kwn...... 192 4.2.5 jls...... 198 4.2.6 Shihry ma--...... 199 4.2.7 Bukhara Uzbek nāyim/qōyem...... 200 4.3 Discussion...... 201 5 Conclusion ...... 205 6 References...... 210

LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Meanings of Syrian b- ...... 99 Table 2: imperfective forms in Yemeni Arabic...... 168

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Arabic dialects that represent circularity of ʻammāl...... 38 Figure 2: Tosco’s continuum...... 97

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LIST OF MAPS Map 1: The distribution of gʻd reflexes in spoken Arabic dialects...... 71

Map 2: durative prefixes in Upper Egypt...... 90 Map 3: Yemeni indicative markers ...... 102

Map 4: Geographical distribution of durative markers in the Arabic-speaking world...... 110

Map 5: Durative isoglosses in the Arabic speaking area...... 164

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Introduction

There is a gap in the linguistic study of Arabic related to the overlapping categories of modality, mood and aspect in spoken Arabic. Clive Holes attributes the scarceness of research in these topics to a lack of interest in the Arabic field (cited in Mitchell and Al-Hassan, 1994: vii):

One reason for this apparent lack of interest may be that these categories as such are not recognized in the Classical Arabic grammatical tradition [and] another, empirical, reason is that if the subject is to be treated in more than a merely taxonomic fashion and be based in a geographically representative sample, it requires far more manpower and familiarity with the dialects of many different regions than is ever normally available to the individual researcher, be he Arab or Arabist.

The challenges explained in Holes’ quote reflect the intimidating nature of Arabic comparative research, let alone comparative research on Arabic tense-aspect-mood (henceforth TAM). This has resulted in limiting the discussions of TAM in grammar accounts. Especially for aspect, the majority of grammar books dedicate a very small section in the syntax chapter where, in most cases, only the aspect markers and a couple of examples are given without analyzing the usage or development of these markers. What makes any analysis based on these descriptive works challenging is that the authors rarely provide the context of the examples, which leaves no room for further analyses.

Holes also points to a viable reason why research on Arabic TAM is lacking, especially for aspect: Traditional grammars of Classical Arabic (henceforth CA) overlook treatments of aspect. It is possible that this neglect of aspect is due to the fact that the feature is not overtly marked via morphology in CA. Aspectual meanings that are studied here for Arabic dialects are expressed by other means in CA, such as using adverbs to indicate the habitual or progressive, or more commonly, by relying on the context to convey the proper aspectual meaning. Another way that aspect can be conveyed is through some verbs of kāna’s sisters--known in Arabic as 'incomplete vrbs'; namely kāna ‘to be’ dāma ‘to continue’ and ẓalla ‘to be by day/to continue’. It is

possible that the fact that these verbs highlight the mood of their predicates more than the aspectual nature of the action/state led to neglecting these aspectual meanings in these traditional treatments. Unfortunately, this neglect extends to current research of Arabic, and it seems that the majority of Arabic research is still conducted in light of the traditional grammarians’ interests and perspectives.

In the same vein, many studies on aspect in Arabic dialects tend to assume that these dialects have descended from the CA. This is apparent in drawing the paths of development to be originated from the CA forms. Although it is clear that the CA lacks overt morphological forms of durative aspect, the syntactic structures as well as the semantic meanings associated with verbs in CA have led many researchers to compare the usage of current forms with historical ones. An example of this kind of comparison can be found in a study on the prospective aspect in Syrian Arabic (Jarad, 2014). This study examines the grammaticalization of the prospective particle rāḥ ‘will’ in Syrian Arabic. In explaining the mechanism of semantic bleaching that is part of the grammaticalization process, the prospective form is said to have lost one argument structure--namely the -- that is attested in CA but not Syrian Arabic (Jarad, 2014: 110). The study does not suggest that the claimed lost structure is attested historically in Syrian Arabic and does not give any historical evidence for the claimed semantic bleaching. The only proof given toward this argument is the direct comparison with the CA structure. This comparison demonstrates how previous studies of the development of Arabic forms consider the CA forms as the diachronic origin for all modern forms.

It is possible that researchers who consider CA forms to be the older forms do not necessarily believe that the modern dialects developed from the CA. This has been the last resort for many researchers who are interested in analyzing the development of the modern forms but are constrained by a lack of historical documentation. Unfortunately, we have few texts that represent the historical use of any Arabic dialect other than Andalusian. Most texts that have been published from areas where other dialects were spoken were either written in CA, or “corrected” upon publication to agree with it, or they are not accessible to a general Arabist audience (i.e. one needs to learn Hebrew 2

script, Safaitic inscriptions or go through Papyri), though the situation is improving, especially with Al-Jallad’s discovery and publication of inscriptions from modern-day Jordan (see e.g., Arabian Epigraphic Notes, http://www.arabianepigraphicnotes.org/). The ideology of the diglossic nature of Arabic has led to a marginalization of interest in Arabic dialectology for a long time in favor of a focus on the variety that represent the higher register; i.e. Standard Arabic, whether CA or Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Arabic dialectology is a recent field of research that only emerged in the 19th C; only since then have researchers begun to document the spoken varieties. The fact that we have documented texts that represent CA is what makes many researchers resort to these texts to explain current linguistic usages.

Drawing the line between tense and aspect is another problem of language research, and Arabic is no exception. Semitic languages are known for shifting from aspectual to tense system (Diakonoff, 1965). The aspectual structures developed a temporal function that became more prominent; thus, the perfective began to be used as a past tense and the imperfective as a present/future tense. However, this shift was not complete, and it created an intertwined system of tense and aspect. For Arabic, the fuzzy boundary between these intertwined categories has resulted in confusion between them in many studies. One example of this confusion is represented in many studies that consider imperfective and perfective as tenses of Arabic (Watson, 1993: 63). The morphological markers that indicate aspect in the spoken varieties also mark mood and tense; for instance, the Moroccan morpheme ka- that is attached to imperfectives is described in the literature as a durative, indicative, or present marker. Aspectual meanings are fused in markers that carry modal and tense meanings, and this has contributed to complicating the analysis of these markers. These factors, along with the negligence of aspect as a system and the prominence of tense in traditional grammars, have led to a general disregard of aspect systems in Arabic linguistic studies.

0.1 Aim and methodology of the present study

This study attempts to fill the gap in the discussion of Arabic aspect systems by analyzing the markers of ‘progressive’ and ‘habitual’ aspects that are attested in the 3

majority of spoken Arabic dialects. Focus is given to these two aspects due to the presence of durative marking in most known dialects of Arabic and concomitant shortage of works detailing their usage and development in Arabic dialects. Moreover, understanding the development of these aspects in Arabic from a cross-linguistic perspective contributes to the discussions of universal trends of developing aspect markers.

The dialects that are examined here are grouped according to the interaction of many factors; these include forms and functions of durative markers in context, geographical location, historical movements and contact, and in some cases the social makeup.

The inter-dialectal distribution of the habitual and progressive markers reveals interesting insights about the systems of these aspects and their development. The study provides synchronic and diachronic analyses for the aspectual markers; these analyses are interrelated and justify the findings from each other. The synchronic analysis attempts to pinpoint the functions of each form in every dialect where we have attestations. The systems of aspect marking in all the dialects that share the same form are compared in order to examine if certain forms behave in a way that is distinct from other forms attested in other dialects. The multiplicity of functions that every form fulfills in every dialect suggests that these forms have a substantial role in expressing speakers' subjective choice, and these choices are best interpreted in context. What this study offers that is lacking in many aspect studies is that it provides the analysis of the aspectual forms on the basis of their contextual usage. Therefore, the actual functions of the forms are elicited by interpreting their role in the context.

The diachronic analysis that this study provides is a contribution to the field of Arabic research and the general field of linguistics. This study analyzes the proposed sources of the aspectual forms in Arabic dialects within the typological framework of aspect (Chung and Timberlake, 1985). Typologically, it is claimed that the majority of world languages develop their aspect forms from a predetermined set of words. It has been assumed that progressive markers develop through the process of

grammaticalization from locative structures that are usually represented by postural verbs (to sit, to stand, to lie, etc.). These forms develop further and generalize their meanings to include the habitual aspect, which is believed to develop from progressive markers. One goal of this study is to test if this claim applies to the case of Arabic. In order to accomplish this goal, the locativity notion is tested against the surmised functions of the synchronic analysis. Since this study is based on contextualized functions of aspectual forms, it provides a more accurate analysis of how languages develop their aspectual markers and the sources of this development. By linking the synchronic distribution and functions with historical events that took place in the Arabic speaking world, the diachronic analysis puts forward several proposals for development of every aspectual form in every dialect. The proposed developments are the results of contact-induced borrowing, grammaticalization or contact-induced grammaticalization. The determination of which method led to the development of the aspectual forms is based on the results of the synchronic discussion and the historical evidence of contact.

The approach of this study involves putting forward all the tentative hypotheses about the development of each durative marker in every Arabic dialect it is attested in. The act of including tentative hypotheses about this development is one way to deal with the lack of historical documentation of Arabic dialects. The scarceness of data led many Arabists to avoid dealing with certain topics or topics that require consulting historical data. In fact, this scarceness is limited not only to historical accounts, but can also extend to include some current dialects. The lack of descriptive works for many Arabic dialects makes embarking any type of research that requires some level of comparison a challenging task. Moreover, any attempts to find definitive answers about the development of many features require extensive research that could lead to empty circles. Therefore, and instead of lamenting the poor state of Arabic research, this study tentatively provides some proposals that suggest the development of a single aspect marker in all the dialects that we have data from. This include the proposals that are already mentioned in the literature by other researchers or the proposals that are mentioned here for the first time and are the result from mapping the synchronic distribution and functions with the historical events. Although the hypotheses that were

proven wrong or lack strong evidence in their favor are ruled out from the final conclusions about the development path for each durative marker, it is important for this study to include them in the analysis of the diachronic development. Besides their role in confirming opposing hypotheses, they are still put forth for future reconsideration when we have better idea about many Arabic dialects that are still unknown to us.

This study offers a new perspective in analyzing aspect. The discussion of aspect functions within their contextual environments provides a more realistic analysis of how speakers manipulate their speech by means of these forms. The multiple functions for the aspectual forms would not be realized if context was not considered. Also, the inter- dialectal analysis of the aspectual forms provides new insights about how dialects of the same language interact on the synchronic and diachronic levels. This includes discussions about how we can propose the mechanisms by which dialects borrow from each other, or grammaticalize aspectual forms either independently or on the model of other dialects. The study also provides a new perspective in defining stativity. Although the discussion here is especially related to the case of Arabic, it is hoped that this research will contribute to the general field of linguistics. It is also hoped that future studies interested in aspect morphological forms will adopt the approach and rationale of this study.

0.2 Linguistic diversity in the Arab world

For a long time, Arabic was understood to be nearly synonymous with CA and this variety was considered as the source for modern varieties. Many studies reconstruct forms found in modern varieties based on their existence in CA. Fortunately, this view has been challenged in recent scholarship related to Arabic dialectology and it is more accepted now that CA represents a variety that serves literary functions and is not the ancestor of modern dialects. The current study adopts this recent perspective and it does not-- by any means-- consider CA to be the source for the modern spoken dialects. It is, therefore, a convention in this study that the existence of any form in CA does not require its existence in the ancestors of modern spoken dialects. This means that structures that are attested in CA are not considered for the diachronic development 6

discussed in this study.

The modern dialects that are spoken in the Arab world today show a wide range of diversity. This diversity is reflected in a number of features, among them are the aspectual systems used in the dialects.

0.3 Outline and organization

This study is divided into four chapters. The first chapter provides the general theoretical framework of the research. This includes the terminologies and definitions of all the notions that are discussed in the study. It also provides information on relevant theories of contact-induced borrowing, grammaticalization and contact-induced grammaticalization. This chapter discusses in detail the methodology that is adopted in this study. Based on the discussion of the theories of the development of functional elements, Chapter One discusses the design of the approach that maps the development of each form in every dialect.

Chapter Two provides the synchronic forms and their functions in all the dialects that we have data from. This chapter provides analysis for these functions and how they are interpreted in context. All the forms are aligned in a map that shows their current distribution in all the dialects.

Chapter Three provides the historical framework for the diachronic analysis. This includes the relevant historical events in the areas where the aspectual forms are attested in modern dialects. Only the major events that led to the spread of Arabs outside the Peninsula as well as cases of constant contact are included in this chapter. In addition to the historical data from the places of contact between Arabs and others, the historical events that led to the movements of religious minorities are discussed in this chapter. These are included here because communal variation is attested in several Arabic dialects. It is possible that the historical movements of these minorities could explain the current linguistic variation.

Chapter Four provides the diachronic analysis of the aspectual forms. The analysis in this chapter is built on the synchronic functions in the dialects as well as the historical 7

events that are related to these dialects. The chapter presents an overview of the relevant research that deals with the universal trends of the development of aspect markers. After reviewing the prominent proposals from the literature, this chapter provides alternative proposals based on the findings from the current research.

A final conclusion is provided with summaries for every chapter. Also, some future research recommendations are provided in the conclusion.

0.4 Data sources

The database of this study is composed from several sources, and these constitute linguistic sources and historical sources. For the linguistic elements, the main sources are dialect grammars. Some of these grammars provide long texts in their appendices, and these texts are considered a valuable source for the discussion of contextualized structures. Dialect atlases are also another source that is rich in data, except these do not provide the context needed for the thorough analysis that this study conducts. Other studies that discuss the use of the Arabic aspectual morphemes—whether it be functions or development-- are also considered as they provide interesting insights that contribute to the arguments that are put forth in this study. Video and audio clips are consulted for dialects that are reported to have aspectual structures but for which we do not have textual examples in the literature. In very few cases, we have access to information from manuscripts that reflect the language of their time. In addition to the valuable linguistic elements they provide, they give us an idea about how far in history we have evidence for the existence of these elements.

For the historical sources, the database is composed from different sources for different regions and eras. Data about the history of ancient Arabia, the Islamic conquests and subsequent contact within the Arabic speaking communities is collected from historical monographs written by medieval Muslim and modern western scholars.

0.5 Conventions

This study is concerned with analyzing aspectual categories expressed through

imperfective markings. For convenience, these markers will be referred to as ‘aspectual markers’, ‘indicative markers’, ‘preverbal marker’ or ‘durative markers’ throughout this dissertation. This does not suggest that these markers are exclusively aspectual; rather, they serve multiple roles, and one of these roles is aspectual, and this specific role is the focus of this study. Another term that will be used occasionally when citing other works is ‘imperfective marker’. This suggests that the marker does not distinguish between progressive and habitual aspects.

Another core term in this study is context, which is a broad term that has different meanings for different research purposes. Here, context refers to “a schematic construct. It is not ‘out there’, so to speak, but in the mind. So the achievement of pragmatic meaning is a matter of matching up the linguistic elements of the code with the schematic elements of the context” (Widdowson, 1996: 63). This means that the function associated with verbs and markers can only understood by attaining the general meaning of the context and the pragmatic discourse. This entails taking into account the whole linguistic environment in which the statement takes place.

Another expression that is used throughout the study is ‘contemporary Arabic’ or ‘modern Arabic’ and these expressions describe the Arabic varieties of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The majority of the examples that are cited throughout the study are taken from works by other linguists. Most of these studies provide transliteration and translation— in English or German-- for these examples. Sometimes the translations are provided for the general idea and actually represent retellings in the manner for the whole Arabic text instead of a word-by-word translation. In this case, it would be useless to use these translations if they do not point to the aspectual functions. Therefore, the majority of translations are mine unless indicated.

Finally, when proper morpho-syntactic glossing is not given the structure of interest is bolded both in the Arabic transliteration and the English translation.

Chapter One

Theoretical framework

1.1 Introduction

The semantic properties of aspect, mood and tense all overlap and interact with each other as well as with other sentential and contextual elements. Another layer of interaction operates with time points, which are frequently confused with tense in many linguistic studies (Eisele, 1999). This complex interaction yields conflicting arguments about the nature of tense-aspect-mood systems in Arabic studies (TAM henceforth). Among the most frequently debated points is the nature of imperfective verb forms and whether they represent aspectual or temporal natures. The supporters of the aspectual nature of this verb form claim that the form is solely representative of aspect, ignoring the temporal function of this form in the spoken dialects (Eisele 1988, cited in Brustad, 2000:15; Eisele, 1999). The other view supports the combined role of aspect and tense in imperfective verb forms, and notes that imperfective has undertaken the role to express present or future. Brustad (2000:16) explains that these previous accounts of verbal forms in Arabic are concerned with the theoretical meanings at the sentence levels. However, larger contextual discourse taken from natural speech could reveal a clearer picture of the actual functions of these verbal forms.

It is clear from the above argument that the treatment of TAM in Arabic is mired in dispute, and this is caused in part by the employed terminology in the literature. To avoid confusion, it is crucial at this stage to list the terminology used here. This research represents the semantic roles of the different aspects, as represented by overt marking on the imperfective, based on the expressive functions that they perform cross-dialectically. In the literature of Arabic research, the analyses that are provided for the semantic properties of aspectual categories are limited. Research on Arabic aspectual categories is more concerned with their syntactic distribution, reconstruction of their morphological structures, and how they fit within the general cross-linguistic schema of aspect. Very few studies analyze the meanings associated with these markers while taking into 10

consideration a bundle of factors that act together to produce their aspectual functions. A number of these factors are the general context, the syntactic distribution with its constraints, how the aspectual markers fit within the pan-Arabic aspectual functions, and the cross-linguistic patterns of aspect that may shed some light on Arabic. One of the studies that address some of these issues in a cross-dialectal comparative manner is Brustad’s book on the syntax of spoken Arabic dialects (2000). The current study is inspired by this approach of comparative syntactic analysis of the expressive functions of aspectual markers in order to investigate the patterns of aspect in Arabic. It also engages the diachronic dimension, namely, the development of aspectual markers in Arabic varieties.

The next section provides the main definitions and concepts used in this research based on their definitions in cross-linguistic studies concerned about aspect.

1.2 Basic terminology

1.2.1 Aspect

Aspect is one of the most complex categories of grammatical systems. Part of this complexity can be viewed in the variation of terminologies and classifications of this category. Comrie explains that these differences are not always terminological; sometimes, they extend to the conceptual realm as well (1976:11). He coins what later became one of the most-cited definitions of aspect, in which he connects aspect with “the internal temporal consistency of a situation” (ibid: 3). Comrie goes further to explain the relation between time and aspect, a relation usually confused in grammar studies, by stating that aspect concerns situation-internal time whereas tense is related to situation-external time (ibid: 5). This interpretation of aspect is supported by many cross-linguistic studies wherein aspect is analyzed based on Comrie’s theoretical definition. In this definition of aspect, the temporal condition of an action is viewed in terms of the semantic categories of repetition, duration, punctuality, etc. (Freed, 1979). Besides the temporal quality of the action, three aspectual cross-linguistic categories are highlighted in Comries’s discussion of aspect that should be considered in accordance to the semantic categories mentioned above; these are perfective, imperfective and perfect. 11

Thus, Comrie’s scheme of aspect has two dimensions: temporal and perceptual.

Another view of aspect insists on the dismissal of the temporal dimension. This view denotes aspect as the speaker’s point of view--or perspective—according to which the situation is represented (Bache, 1997). This representation considers the situation as either completed, ongoing, continuing, ending, or repeating, and these points are seen as situation-internal (Brinton, 1988). It is possible that this view of aspect suggests that there is no absolute temporality in aspect; i.e. temporal dimensions are implied but they cannot be determined or fixed---they are mere perceptions.

Another aspectual distinction that is widespread, and equally debated, in the literature is that of lexical aspect (Aktionsart) and formal aspect. This distinction also poses another dispute over the terminology of aspect. Some linguists consider lexical aspect and Aktionsart to be the same notion, whereas others consider aspect and Aktionsart as different notions. Among the first group are Comrie (1976) and Eisele (1999), who present a detailed description of each of the two types. Formal aspect refers to the way the action is represented by specifying the aspectual nature of verbal morphology, which makes this type of aspect associated with morphological forms. The realization of the action in question can be one of three types: as complete or punctual event, or process, or as a resultant state. On the other hand, lexical aspect is recognized by Comrie (1976) and Eisele (1999) as the semantic features inherent in individual verbs, which makes this type of aspect associated with the lexical entry of the verbal root. The semantic features associated with lexical aspect are specified by the punctuality, duration, telicity and stativity of the action (Brustad, 2000). Eisele explains that the interaction between formal and lexical aspect is an essential one in building the meaning of the verb (1999).

The last statement of the previous paragraph about the interaction between lexical and formal aspect is at the core of the present study. It is possible to detect lexical aspect in Arabic verbs but this type of aspect alone cannot convey aspect. Likewise, imperfective markers that are used in the language to express aspect cannot explain fine- grained meanings of aspect that can only be elicited by understanding the semantics of

the lexical verb within context. It is, thus, the goal of this dissertation to examine the interaction between lexical and morphological aspect in Arabic dialects. The study tackles the use and, where possible, the development of the durative morphological forms of aspect in numerous Arabic spoken dialects. Since these forms are attached to imperfectives only--as opposed to perfectives--the next section is dedicated to the terminologies associated with the use of this verbal form.

1.2.2 Imperfective

Comrie (1976: 24) and Dahl and Bybee (1989) define imperfective as the opposition of perfective in that it views the situation from within, and not as a bounded whole, while employing explicit reference to the internal structure. Therefore, the perfective aspect describes the action as a completed whole, whereas the imperfective presents the action internally as a non-complete process. The aspectual category of imperfective is used to express the relationship of a state, action or situation with a reference time given in the context as being ongoing. The interpretation of continuity is related to the intervals required to express the action/state/situation. Comrie cites habitual and progressive as two of the most typical terms to describe the temporal characteristics of the imperfective (1976).

1.2.3 Progressive

Progressive is best defined as an ongoing action at a reference time (Comrie, 1976; Dahl and Bybee, 1989). Bybee et al. (1994) specify this aspect to be applicable to dynamic predicates only. Compare the use of the English progressive be-ing in sentences with dynamic and stative verbs respectively.

John is walking *John is knowing the answer.

However, specifying dynamic predicates does not apply to Arabic wherein stative predicates also accept progressive aspect. Compare the previous examples from English with the following examples from Saudi Arabic. 13

in-nūnū gāʻid yākul the baby is eating in-nūnū gāʻid yistawʻib šwayy šwayy inn hāṯy mū liʻbatah the baby is coming to understand little by little that this is not his toy.

The Arabic examples show that defining progressivity by means of stativity is not an accurate measure. The stative predicate yistawʻib ‘to understand’ is preceded by the progressive particle gāʻid, which is claimed to be ungrammatical for the case of English. Examples from Saudi Arabic for other types of stative verbs also show that progressive in Arabic is not limited to dynamic predicates.

ʼugʻud ʼūgaf hina l-ḥadd mā ʼajy stand here until I come [lit. sit stand here until I come]

The use of the imperative ʼugʻud here means ‘keep on’ which functions as the progressive for the stative verb ʼūgaf ‘stand’. Thus, it is clear from these examples that the grammatical constraint of stativity claimed for English progressive does not apply to Arabic progressive. Therefore, the definition of progressive in this study is measured by the ongoingness of action at reference time without limitations of the predicate stativity type.

Progressive is sometimes referred to as durative in the literature (Bybee, et al, 1994), while in some cases durative is given as a general term to describe habitual and stative actions (Brustad, 2000: 253). Here, the term durative is not used as a distinctive aspect; rather it is given as an umbrella term for the habitual and progressive, which are the aspects that require duration of time. By employing this general term for the two aspects we highlight the temporal dimension in their assignment. This is a more specific defining point compared to the term ‘indicative’ that is usually used in the literature, which highlights the mood of the structure more than the aspects.

1.2.4 Habitual

When situations are repeated over an extended period of time until they become

characteristic features of the whole period they are described as habitual (Comrie, 1976). In some grammars the habitual is referred to as iterative. Although the iterative shares the durativity and repetition properties of the action with the habitual, the former is characterized by having a well-defined end point that is marked by the repetition of the action on one single occasion unlike the habitual that is characterized by repetition in more than one occasion (Bybee et al., 1994). It is this endpoint that makes the iterative aspect distinct from progressive. As stated above, the progressive aspect is characterized by the ongoingness of the action without referring to an end-point. The following examples illustrates the difference between the three aspects in English (a) and Arabic (Saudi Arabic) (b) respectively:

Habitual

a. John goes to bed at 9 p.m. every day b. ʻali ynām is-sā3ah tisʻah kul yōm Ali goes to bed at 9 p.m. every day Iterative

a. He hit the man with a bat until he killed him b. ḥāwil tiḫabbaṭ ʻa-l-bāb try to knock the door

It is almost impossible to extract the difference between habitual and iterative from context when no morphological distinction is maintained. Thus, the interpretation of these aspects relies on the context they occur in.

The following list presents an overview of the Arabic durative structures that this disserttion analyzes. • gāʻid (reflexes are: qāʻid, qiyed, kiyed, gieyed, qa(d), da, ʾed, ʾiyed, and ked) + imperfective • b + imperfective • ʻammāl (reflexes are: ʻamma, amma, ʻa, imm, um, ʻama, ʻam, maʻ, mma and ma) + imperfective

• kv (reflexes are: ka,k, ki and kū) + imperfective • imperfective + nāyim/qōyem

The variation in these structures reflects the historical factors that led to the current distribution. It is important at this point to investigate how these structures develop in languages in general and in Arabic in specific. The following section discusses the theories of sources of development for the majority of durative forms. This section presents the relevant research to these sources and how the present study perceives the cross-linguistic trends of developing durative markers. It also puts forth alternative solutions for the problematic discussion of sources of development.

1.3 Models of the development of durative markers in Arabic: Sources of development

1.3.1 Locative sources

This section first reviews some of the main arguments in favor of the locative sources of durative markers. Then, an alternative view is given that incorporates other central properties of durative aspect. The section concludes with explaining the durative markers in Arabic that are assumed to develop from the proposed class of sources.

One of the first attempts to explain the development of aspect in languages was made by Comrie (1976). He referred to various examples from different languages to explain that the default for imperfective aspect is to develop from locative expressions, a notion that became standard in studies of grammaticalization (Traugott, 1978; Heine and Reh, 1984). Comrie bases his argument on the Localist Theory of Aspect, which highlights similarities in many languages between locative formal structures that express where something is placed and imperfective structures, more precisely progressive structures (1976: 129). With English being his model language to explain this theory, Comrie justified that the Old English progressive used to be overtly marked by placing a locative preposition (at, in, on or a’) before a verbal noun. This usage can still be seen in some dialects in forms such as “Fred’s been a-singing” (ibid: 99). The attested locative expression for progressive is also found in other Germanic languages. Comrie cites the 16

following example from Dutch (99):

hij is aan het tuinieren he is at/on the gardening he is gardening

Indeed, Comrie explains that other forms that indicate progressive and contain the noun process in a locative expression explain the logic behind the transition form locative to progressive (102-103):

Some attention must be given to possible reasons for this relation between locative and progressive. The clue to the relation is perhaps in English expressions like to be in the process of doing something or to be in progress, in which we see that we can refer to some instance of a process by viewing the whole of the situation as if it were spatial, when it is quite natural to refer to some specific point of the situation as being ‘in’ that situation. Thus really, the only requirement is that we should be able to transpose from space to time, and languages do this quite readily already in the use of originally locative prepositions, etc., as temporal, e.g. on the table, on Friday.

According to the view of the locative source, habitual meaning is also expressed in many languages using locative expressions. Therefore, Comrie explains this phenomenon as extending the progressive form to include habitual forms. He conditions this extension by not having other imperfective forms besides the extended progressive one.

Bybee et al.’s (1994) is one of the most prominent studies in the field that proposed grammaticalization as the only process that yields to the development of aspectual markers. In this research, a survey of aspectual markers in seventy-six languages was conducted to trace back the different sources of many grams (grammatical morphemes), aspectual markers being one of them, and, therefore, reaching a conclusion about regularities of these sources. The main finding in their study is that the more specific meaning of progressive develops early in languages before it becomes more general to indicate imperfective (progressive > habitual). As for the source of the chain, the researchers found that most of the languages in their survey have 17

progressive forms that evolved from locative elements that can be expressed by using verbal auxiliaries or location propositions. According to this theory, the verbal auxiliaries derive from posture verbs such as ‘sit’, ‘stand’ or ‘lie’ that are used in the different languages to indicate locative meanings as well. Progressive meaning in few languages derive from other types of auxiliaries, such as stative auxiliaries. Bybee et al. explained that these auxiliaries only occur in constructions that denote locative meaning.

As for the habitual meaning, Bybee et al. believe that, unlike progressive, this meaning is included in a more general gram such as imperfective, and it does not need to be marked separately. Therefore, many languages tend to mark the habitual for past, and the present is usually left unmarked. Related to this, they found that progressive markers extend to include habitual meanings in the past, but not necessarily in the present. The explanation they provided for this asymmetry between past and present marking is due to the fact that the default reading for the present includes habitual. However, this is not the case with the past where progressive comes to fulfill the gap in meaning here. In general, they found that habitual markers tend to develop from lexical items that mean ‘to live’, ‘to know’ or ‘to be accustomed to’ (1994: 160).

Of note here, the previous review shows that researchers’ universal considerations of historical development of aspect markers lean towards grammaticalization. That is why studies on development of aspect in Arabic dialects are restricted to grammaticalization in accordance with the main hypotheses in the field of historical linguistics.

The next section presents the discussion of locative sources in Arabic and explains the problems of this argument and the proposals of this study to solve these problems.

1.3.1.1 Locative source reconsidered

In order to explain the locative source hypothesis, we need to understand how supporters of this claim view the link between durative aspect and locativity. It is not clear in any of these studies how languages extend the locative meaning to become aspectual. In other words, none of these studies explain the semantic connection between

locativity and progress and duration. One of the few attempts to explain this connection is seen in the quote given by Comrie in the previous section, which claims that the structure in the process shows how speakers perceive situations as spatial and they locate a specific point in the big space of the situation. It seems that this claim- and most of the claims about the locative source in the literature- attempts to provide a semantic link that could accord with the form of the preposition in the structure rather than explaining the actual semantic meaning of the source words. This is why many durative constructions that contain a preposition are compared to the lexical locative meaning of the same preposition in order to prove the locative notion of the progressive (cf. Comrie’s discussion in the previous section).

This relation between locativity and durativity that is claimed for be in the process is also generalized to include other structures; for instance, the claim of the locativity of the be on hunting structure, given that the preposition here is locative, has been generalized to structures that clearly lack the locative preposition; i.e. beon + V-ende which later developed to be + V-ing. This link is possibly drawn by the shared structure auxiliary + participle (Killie, 2008). Another rationale that I speculate for the locative interpretation derives from the historical development of prepositions, a relation that can be surmised from Comrie’s quote above. Spatial prepositions are the first to develop in language as they relate to the direct environment of the speakers. Later, these prepositions develop to cover the more abstract meanings associated with time. Thus, many languages have the same prepositions for location and time, e.g. English in, on, at and Arabic bi and fi. In other words, having locative prepositions as the historical source of temporal prepositions gave the former the priority to be regarded the source of the grammaticalized aspect markers.

In the same vein, the explanation for the spatial interpretation of aspect markers considers the interaction of space and time not only in aspect alone, but also in other categories. Traugott (1978: 373) provides the following analysis for this relationship:

Tense relates or locates situations and events with respect to the time of utterance, sequencing orders them with respect to each other, and aspect is a way of viewing situations and events as wholes, or as journeys, in other words, as objects with 19

spatial characteristics.

It is possible that this claim that aspect has ‘spatial characteristics’ is what connects the durative functions with locativity. In order to understand the rationale of developing the notion of durativity we need to understand the whole process of creating this notion. The aspect markers of progressive and habitual are indicated by means of duration, so they are part of the temporal space of context. The locative notion of aspect means locating the action/state within this temporal dimension of the whole context. Thus, it is by locating the action within the temporal dimension that we decide if an action/state is in progress, repeated or lasts for a long period of time that we call it a habit.

However, this process of locating the action within the whole context is fulfilled by tense, and aspect is different from tense. It is proposed here that the key to understanding the whole notion of durative aspects and the one that distinguishes aspect from tense is stativity. This notion creates a time loop within the temporal space of the activity, a dynamic space if we might say. Stativity traps the activity in this time loop that is not separate from the whole space, but annexed to it and understood to be part of it. Thus, the activity is perceived to be in this time loop, and this is the locative part. But what is important for the reference and comprehension of this activity is not only where it is in the temporal space, but how it is moving within this space; and this is when stativity comes to explain the manner of movement. It traps the movement of the activity in this annexed time loop. The stativity of the action should not be understood as a zero- energy activity; rather, it explains the state of an activity that is not moving forward along the temporal dimension of context but is still ongoing/moving in the same manner since it was trapped in this time loop. To sum, this explanation of the durativity notion takes into account the temporal space, locating the act in this space and the state of the act in the specified location. Thus, I will call the idea of locating actions within the temporal dimension ‘temporal locative’1. This term suggests that it is not only the

1 I suggest the term ‘temporal locative ’ instead of mere ‘temporal’ to maintain the idea of locating actions within the temporal dimension. This term, temporal locative, asserts my position that spatial locative is not semantically related to the notion of duration and that it is the temporal dimension that creates the link 20

location of the act that expresses the durativity, but also the interaction of location and time that is defined by the stativity of the action.

From the previous discussion, we can say that one of the major problems of the locative hypothesis is that it attempts to limit itself to the idea of spatial perception to explain the semantic link between duration and location without fully explaining how this definition of aspect is different from tense; the latter is also concerned with locating actions along the timeline of the context. The traditional locative notion assumes a cognitive process that requires transposing from time to space to durative aspect when it is does not exactly address the interaction between time and space. In terms of developing durative markers, a source word that expresses these processes has to be temporal in nature and/or stative. It is, thus, more interesting to see how languages develop forms that have a temporal or stative sense to them into durative aspectual forms.

Presumably the locative hypothesis is one of the consequences of considering forms over meanings in interpreting structures. This dilemma takes us back to tracing the resemblance of locative and durative structures in many languages. Even if we assume that it is true that many languages share the same structures for lexical locative and progressive and these exact languages have different means to express lexical temporal, Arabic does not seem to follow this trend. This chapter will argue that it is not only the locativity of the source words that triggers the development of the durative marker, but a combination of temporal locativity and stativity. Staivity is a central idea that contributes to the development of the temporal locative meaning and governs how we perceive the temporal-locative interaction of the acts.

1.3.1.2 Arabic durative markers from temporal locative sources

1.3.1.2.1 Preposition bi-

Prepositions are among the most attested sources for durative markers (Comrie, 1976; Bybee et al., 1994). The majority of grammaticalization studies that discuss the

between the source words and the grammaticalized forms. 21

prepositional source of progressive consider this preposition to be locative in order to accord with the standard hypothesis mentioned in section (1.3.1). Although semantically distant, the link between locative prepositions and durative markers is typologically attested. Bybee et al. list locative prepositions as one of the main grams that lead to the development of durative markers in world languages (1994). They explain that the notion of locativity governs the grammaticalization of prepositions and other verbal auxiliaries into progressive markers. Comrie explains the semantic connection between progressive and locative prepositions by referring to examples from English (1976: 99). He mentions that in earlier stages of English one of the progressive expressions contained a locative preposition – at, in, on or aʼ. This structure is still used in some Germanic languages as the marked progressive form. The Dutch expression hij is aan het tuinieren ‘he is gardening [lit. he is at/on the gardening]’ exhibits this relic progressive structure. Also, we saw in the previous section that Comrie considers progressive expressions that include the noun process to be locative on the basis of containing what he refers to as a locative preposition; thus, he is in the process of writing his book is a locative expression that denotes progressivity. The locative explanation of this structure is supported by the use of the preposition ‘in’.

This explanation for the development of progressive markers from locative prepositions is adopted in a wide-scale. The majority of studies on Germanic and Romance languages that have the preposition in the progressive structure interpret this preposition as being locative. Even in Semitic studies, this preposition is explained with confidence to be locative. Among the Semitic languages that have progressive markers that evolved from propositions are Aramaic which has a progressive structure b- + Infinitive + Copula (Rubin, 2005: 230).

holi b-ktawa I am writing

A structure related to the Aramaic progressive form is found in Biblical Hebrew and it expresses the idea of simultaneity. Rubin explains that the Biblical Hebrew subordinate form of simultaneity is expressed by a temporal construction consisting of 22

the preposition b- ‘in, at’ + infinitive (Rubin, 2005: 216).

wa-yəhî bə-nosʻām miq-qedem way-yimṣəʼû biqʻā and as they migrated east, they came across a valley [lit. in their migration]

Rubin dismisses the identical function found in the two languages despite his acknowledgment of the identical constructions and the possible connection of the two structures. Without explaining further, he suggests that the Aramaic construction is more related in function to the alleged locative construction found in Germanic and Romance languages (2005: 217). This analysis of the Biblical Hebrew sentence shows the tendency in the field of labeling any preposition in progressive structures as a locative one. The simultaneity construction that is found in Hebrew could also be interpreted as a focalized progressive form. Thus, an alternative and more elaborated translation would be ‘While in the process of migration, they came across a valley’. If this translation and expression were correct, then we would expect the Hebrew construction and the Aramaic construction to be identical in form and function.

Another example of the domination of the locative hypothesis in the field comes from Arabic. Chapter Two demonstrates that the progressive in Tunisian Arabic is expressed by the structure qāʿid..fi ‘sitting..in’ (Saddour, 2011). We saw in Chapter Two that in this dialect, the preverbal marker is optional whereas the retention of fi is obligatory to express progressivity. This preposition is interpreted to be locative and its retention in the structure is given by Saddour as an evidence of the centrality of the locative notion in the progressive structure.

In fact, the use of the preposition fi in Tunisian conveys a meaning expressed by the same preposition in many Arabic varieties. The function of this preposition is not locative; rather, this form conveys a persistence/continuous meaning. Consider the following elicited example from Saudi Arabic that shows the use of this emphatic/continuous fi with the progressive gʻd:

gāʻdīn nʻallim fīk min iṣ -ṣubḥ w-la int rāḏ̣y tifham We’ve been teaching you since the morning and you don’t seem to understand 23

The same preposition can also be used to convey the same meanings of emphasis and continuity without using the progressive gʻd. The analysis of the following Arabic proverb and the next sentence explains the difference between the persistence/continuous and locative fi.

Proverb (persistence/continuous): iḍ-ḍarb fi l-mayyit ḥarām beating a dead horse [lit. the hitting in the dead is a sin] Locative meaning iḍrub fi-il-hadaf hit in the target

The proverb is known to be said when no benefit or change of outcome is expected to happen if the action continues. The proverb is not concerned with the location of the beating. In Arabic, the action of ḍrb ‘to beat, to shoot, to ring in Egyptian and Sudanese and to eat a lot in Saudi’ does not usually take a locative preposition unless it specifies exactly where the beating should be physically targeted.

Another example is iḍrab il-garas ‘ring the bill’. This sentence is considered grammatical, but adding the preposition fi requires a continuous meaning that should be specified somewhere in the context. This means that *iḍrab fi-l-garas is ungrammatical but ḫallīk ḍārib fi-l-garas l-ḥadd ma-yiṣḥu ‘keep ringing the bell until they wake up’.

The same verb with the same preposition is used in the Saudi dialect to express the idea of eating a lot. The idea of overeating corresponds with the idea of continuity if we consider that eating a lot requires eating for a period longer than usual. Consider the following elicited example.

ḍarabt fi-l-ġada lēn duḫt I kept eating in the lunch until I passed out

This discussion shows that the Tunisian durative fi is not locative, but it is part of the progressive periphrasis and it has an emphatic function.

Finally, it is attested typologically that the progressive prepositional form is usually followed by infinitive or any nominal form, such as the Hebrew example above and other languages including Germanic and Romance. Likewise, Arabic prepositions normally precedes nominal forms when they occur in their locative or temporal meanings, e.g. fi/bi-llēl ‘at night’, fi/bi-bēt ‘in house’2. However, the durative construction in Arabic dialects that have the indicative b- form is usually followed by a finite imperfective verb, and this is attributed in the literature to the lack of infinitive in Arabic, which has verbal nouns ‘maṣdar’ instead and this Arabic verbal noun lacks temporal reference3. My proposal for the durative b-is that it is not a locative preposition, but temporal locative in accordance with the terminology suggested in the previous section. Thus, the study claims that one of the proposals for the existence of the durative b- in some dialects is the result of the development of temporal locative preposition into a durative marker. The combination of a preposition with an imperfective verb is ungrammatical in any extant variety of Arabic that it is unconvincing without further explanation. This explanation comes through the combination of temporal locativity and stativity. Of course, other related sources are also proposed in this study, and these will be explained in detail later in this chapter.

We will now look at some other sources that this study proposes for durative forms in general and in Arabic in specific.

1.3.2 Stative-continuous sources

The previous section reveals that the locative source of durative markers is commonly accepted in the field. Also, this view suggests that many languages have posture verbs that indicate locativity, such as to sit, to stand, to lie, etc. and these verbs develop through grammaticalization to fulfil the functional role of durative aspect. The

2 Wright asserts that the two prepositions have the same temporal/locative function. It seems that the only difference between them in spoken Arabic is regional. Some dialects take the bi-, such as the Najdi Arabic, while others take fi- such as Southern Saudi. It is possible that this regional difference is old and may give us a hint of where the durative bi- vs. gʻd forms first developed. 3We do not know if other Semitic languages used their infinitives because they were stative, but that the Arabic verbal noun never had stativity and that is why it was not used. 25

previous section attempts to account for the semantic connection between the notions of locativity and duration. Yet, the temporal locative proposal cannot be generalized for all durative markers that are claimed to be of locative origin. Therefore, as part of this study’s goal to propose a new perspective on the development of durative markers, this section presents one of these sources; namely stative verbs.

First, we need to understand the traditional definition of ‘state’. Comrie views states as “static, i.e. continue as before unless changed” and then compares states with ‘events’ and ‘processes’ that are “dynamic, i.e. require a continual input of energy if they are not to come to an end” (1976: 12-13). This means that energy and movement is what strikes a difference between states and events/processes; i.e. dynamic situations requires the constant input of energy, and the lack of this constant energy is what characterizes stative situations. Based on this definition, the posture verbs listed in the previous section belongs to the stative category.

The discussion of stativity is relevant here to our discussion of durative markers because it seems that progressiveness marks a crucial meaning in understanding stativity and the two notions are explained by means of each other. Comrie (1976: 35) claims that the semantic property of progressive hints to its dynamic nature in a sense that the idea of progression marks a non-stative situation and being in progress at reference time. Therefore, progressive is the equal of non-stative according to Comrie’s claim and the two notions have an inverse relation, i.e. progressive equals non-stative and stative equals non-progressive. This theory became standard in the field of linguistics to the extent that it is now considered a diagnosis method to test verbs’ stativity and progressiveness. Many researchers base their analysis of the semantic properties of the progressive aspect with reference to its incompatibility with stativity and vise versa (Beedham, 2005: 21). The simple justification for this incompatibility stems from arguing that whilst an action can readily be described as extended in time or ongoing, a state cannot (Beedham, 2005). The most cited example for the incompatibility test is the stative verb to know, which cannot be used in the progressive * He is knowing the truth. Although Comrie (1976: 35) acknowledges the hardship in generalizing this theory to all languages, simply because languages have different means to assign verbs as stative or 26

not, many studies on progressive aspect adopt this diagnosis test.

According to the conventional definition of stativity provided above, the verb to sit is semantically stative because it does not require a constant input of energy to be performed. However, putting the verb to sit to the stativity test, measured by incompatibility with the progressive as in He is sitting on the floor, shows that it is not ungrammatical to use this stative verb in the progressive aspect and this structure is perfectly valid. This contradicts with the two parts of Comrie’s theory. First, not all semantically stative verbs should solely be defined by input of energy, and, second, progressive verbs are not always dynamic in nature and can sometimes be stative. It is not just the verb to sit that shows the contradiction of this notion, but also other verbs such as to sleep, to lie, to rest and many others.

Furthermore, there are some cases in contemporary English where the use of the progressive with stative verbs is considered grammatical. Leech et al. (2009: 129) specify three cases as the following:

a) Temporary states: Mary’s living in a flat in London

b) States changing by degree: the baby’s resembling his father more and more every day

c) Cases of agentive verb BE: John’s being silly.

According to Beedham (2005: 209), the case of having some verbs being identified as stative without passing the progressive incompatibility test is due to relying on the semantic approach in identifying the lexical aspect. He suggests that a formal syntactic approach be adopted in order to avoid assigning inaccurate semantic meanings to verbs. Yet, Beedham does not specify the details of such an approach. Another approach to avoid the progressive incompatibility contradiction of Comrie’s method suggests subcategorizing stative verbs into different classes according to their statvity and occurrence (Huddleston, 2002: 170-1). For instance, the stative verbs of stance stand, lie, sit can express both states and activities, and the occurrence of the progressive aspect depends on this distinction. When these verbs denote states they usually express permanent positions and thus favor the non-progressive. On the other hand, when these 27

verbs are construed to express temporary positions they denote activities and accept the progressive aspect. Consider the following examples to show the difference between stative and activity stance verbs:

a) The city hall stands on the hill

b) She is standing in front of the door

However, Huddleston explains that the occurrence of progressiveness in narratives does not necessarily correspond to these rules. It is perfectly valid to use the progressive for permanent position and the non-progressive for temporary situations. Consider the following example provided by Huddleston for permanent and temporary situations respectively (2002: 171).

a) We reached the knoll and the peak was standing majestically above the glacier.

b) They lay on the beach, sunning themselves.

It is thus obvious that- at least in English--relying on the progressive to indicate the stativity of verbs is a matter of dealing with several exceptions, which makes it impossible to apply this rule without precautions. Here, I want to propose a new method for defining conventional stative verbs, and I will adopt this method in this study. This method is based on referring to the multiple meanings associated to verbs without relying on the progressiveness of the verbs. It is only by means of assigning membership in multiple categories that we can have an accurate explanation of the semantic properties of verbs. This “multiple membership” method highlights the possibility to have a great deal of overlap among the various categories. Thus, we do not expect verbs that belong to one meaning category to act as a set and all these verbs should have identical meanings. For example, if a set of verbs I and II is assigned to meaning category A, it is possible to have verb I categorized under meaning B whilst verb II belongs to meaning C. Thus, we can say that verb I has meanings A and B and verb II has meanings A and C.

Based on this explanation, the verb to sit belongs to multiple meanings. The state

associated with this verb is characterized by lack of constant movement –or energy in Comrie’s definition- and continuous nature since it usually cannot be performed abruptly. Thus, we can say that the verb to sit is stative-continues, meaning that it represents a state and not an action with movement, and it requires a continuance interval to be performed. Of course the continuity cannot be measured quantitatively, but it is understood to last for a while. This method allows for making a distinction between this type of verbs, the stative-continuous, and another set of stative verbs such as to know that could be categorized as stative-cognitive.

By adopting this definition, we can understand the semantic connections that led to the grammaticalization of stative-continuous verbs into progressive markers. It is possible that the continuity associated with these verbs is what introduced their functional role as durative aspect markers- a function cannot be claimed for other set of stative verbs that do not belong to the continuity class.

1.3.2.1 Stative-continuous verbs as lexical sources of progressive marking in Arabic

1.3.2.1.1 gʻd, jls, nwm, qwm

In his extensive research on Semitic languages, Rubin (2005) conducted a comparative study in order to analyze the historical sources of aspectual markers. He frames his argument within the global theory of grammaticalization as the cause of aspectual markers. Moreover, Rubin attempts to prove that the progressive marker gʻd attested in several Arabic dialects has developed from locative verbs, and he utilizes a comparison drawn from Indo-European languages to show that this is a universal entity of human languages.

The present study does not consider the durative gʻd to have a locative source, but rather a marker that develops from stative-continuous verbs.

The previous section explains how cross-linguistic research supports the claim about what is called here stative-continuous verbs as being one of the sources of durative markers. What these studies lack in the explanation of this process is how the semantics of the grammaticalized verbs are extended and how speakers come to use these verb to 29

express abstract aspectual meanings. In many Arabic dialects, the lexical verb gʻd is used to express the meaning of remaining in one place or one situation for a certain period of time. Some of the dialects that have this verb as an aspectual marker express the ideas of ‘remain’ ‘stay’ and ‘sit’ by a single verb, which is gʻd or jls. It could be suggested that the intermediate stage of semantic bleaching that led to the grammaticalization of the verbs of sitting in Arabic is when speakers started to use them for ‘remain’ and ‘stay’ meanings besides using them to refer to the actual sitting verb. It is this meaning of remain that is grammaticalized to the durative marker probably when its frequency increased in new contexts. In all the attested dialects of Arabic that use this durative form, the lexical verb is still in use. The last stage that any form progressed to is the stage of phonetic reduction. The direction of phonetic reduction of grammaticalized gʻd words is not predicted for all the dialects. Some dialects reduce the initial two radicals of the root gʻd such as Muslim Iraqi da- and the Baḥārna rural d-, some reduce the final radical such as Kuwaiti gāʻ, and some reduce the middle radical such as Jewish and Christian Baghdadi and Maltese variant qed. Other verbs that belong to the stative- continuous source class are also grammaticalized to durative markers, and these are jls and nāyim/qōyem.

1.3.2.1.2 kwn

The form kwn ‘to be’ is attested as the source of one of the Arabic durative markers kv- used in qəltu and Maghrebi dialects (Vanhove et al., 2009; Jastrow, 2013; Rubin, 2005). The use of the copula kwn as the source of derivation supports the hypothesis of the development of durative kv- through grammaticalization. The development of the copula to be to a progressive marker is attested cross-linguistically (Bybee et al., 1994: 131). However, the hypotheses that are put forth in the literature about grammaticalized copulas specify that the copulas are all followed by a non-finite verb and these copulas have a locative function. This locative meaning is explained by comparing the functions of the same form in locative expressions vs. durative expressions. An example for this comparison comes from the Spanish copula estar that is used with present participle to indicate the meaning of progressive. This copula is

derived from the Latin stare, which means ‘to stand’. The grammaticalization of the progressive structure resulted in losing the stative meaning that used to be linked to the verb stare. This structure of the copula + present participle is explained by Bybee et al. to mean ‘be in the place of verbing’, and this is how the progressive is claimed to develop from locative. Bybee et al confirm the locative source despite the fact that it is not reported to be locative in any of the grammars of the languages surveyed (ibid: 131).

In the discussion of locativity in section (1.3.1) we saw that the locative notion of durative markers is problematic if applied in the case of Arabic markers. kwn cannot be used to indicate the location where the action/state took place. For instance, the sentence ʼummī kānat tkalləmnī kull yōm ‘my mom used to call me every day’ expresses a habit and does not indicate the location of the action at all. kwn here can be linked to stativity as one of the essential components of progressivity. Even if it is proven that the extension of aspect markers from being verbs that indicate location is proven cross- linguistically, Arabic does not follow this universal trend in developing the durative kv- or any other aspectual marker.

The placement of the source kwn in this section stems from one of its functions in Arabic. Ryding points that kwn creates a compound tense form when it is combined with another verb. Depending on the form of the following verb, kwn can have different meanings. When kwn precedes an imperfective it conveys habitual actions (2005). It is, thus, understood that kān carries the tense meaning and the imperfective carries the grammatical aspect meaning. When the form kān ‘past’ is used in this structure the meaning of past habitual is conveyed. Wright supports this explanation of the structure kān + imperfective by comparing it to the Greek and Latin imperfective (he calls it imperfect) which is parallel to the English past durative. It is therefore this durative meaning that the kwn conveys that introduced its grammaticalization to be an aspect marker.

1.3.3 Emphatic sources.

Section (1.3.1) presents claims in support of the locative origin of the English progressive structure. It also explains in the same section that this view became 31

commonly accepted in many cross-linguistic studies of the development of durative markers, such as Rubin’s (2005). In addition to the locative source theory, several interpretations have been provided in the literature for the Old English (OE henceforth) periphrasis, and among these interpretations is the claim that this construction had a progressive function to start with. Another claim comes from analyzing the OE contexts in which the source structure beon + V-ende occurs and suggests that the locative function cannot be traced for this structure in OE and that it is more likely that the structure had an emphatic function (Killie, 2008; Killie, 2014. Mustanoja, 1960; Braaten, 1976 and Wischer, 2006 cited in Killie, 2014).

One of the studies that support the emphatic claim is based on a quantitative analysis that examines the frequency of increased progressivity of the English periphrasis (Killie, 2014). This study traces the grammaticalization of the English BE +V-ing from the OE source form beon + V-ende that appeared first in translations of Latin texts. The earliest texts provide the calqued translations of the many Latin periphrastic verb structures. The study tests the different interpretations that are claimed in the literature and can be discerned from contextual examples; among these meanings are the progressive, stative, perfective and other meanings, but not the locative meaning. The study attempts to provide quantitative data that compares the frequency in usage of the different meanings in the different stages of English language: OE, Middle English and Early Modern English. Frequency in usage is chosen here as a measurement tool since grammaticalized forms are characterized by gradual increase in frequency as they go through the grammaticalization chain (Hopper and Traugott, 2003). The proportion of examples in the data that represents the progressive is too small to claim for original progressive meaning in OE, which has resulted in a lack of general acceptance of this origin. However, this meaning gradually increased in frequency during the Early Modern English period, whereas the frequency of other meanings dropped.

By comparing the different examples where the structure is used in OE, Killie’s study suggests an emphatic function of the construction that can be reinterpreted as an alternative emphatic device of simple tenses. In OE, the structure had multiple functions but it clearly had a prevalent association with durativity, a meaning that is related to the 32

present participle structured with -ende. The emphatic function of this construction appeared with adverbs such as very, greatly, strongly, long and others. Gradually through the period of Middle English, the durative function started to become more pronounced and the emphatic function started to weaken. It is not until the Early Modern English period that a progressive marker started to appear to emphasize progressivity. This resulted from the grammaticalization of the emphatic periphrasis which was reinforced by the merger of the participle suffixes -ende and –ing where the latter is the result of the “functional blending” of the beon + V-ende and the progressive construction be on hunting, which was later reduced to be a-hunting. This merger- along with the increase in frequency and contact with languages such Celtic and French that had progressive structures- has resulted in restricting the meaning of the construction to “the expression of an action in progress” (ibid: 380).

1.3.3.1 Emphatic sources in Arabic

1.3.3.1.1 Emphatic b-

In section (1.3.1.2.1), the presposition bi- was given as the source of durative b- that is attested in many modern Arabic dialects. This preposition is explained as a temporal locative source that developed as a marker to locate the situation within the temporal dimension. The use of the preposition b- as a progressive marker is attested in other Semitic languages, i.e. Hebrew and Aramaic. The construction of progressive in these two languages is expressed by the preposition b- + Infinitive. Other Semitic language that exhibit the use of b- in a relatively similar meaning to the Hebrew meaning explained above are Qatabanic, and to a lesser degree, Manaic, Ancient South Arabian languages (ASA henceforth). However, the Qatabanic construction is b- + imperfective. Consider the following Qatabanic example (Nebes and Stein, 2008: 163).

kl mngw b-yktrbwn All things that they will request

This form of the construction is identical to the Arabic durative construction b- +

imperfective. However, the function of this construction in Qatabanic is debated.

One argument speculates that the function of the prefix b- attached to imperfective in Qatabanic is to distinguish between indicative and subjunctive/jussive moods, with the former being overtly marked with b- (Beeston, 1962; Nebes and Stein, 2008). This suggests that the Qatabanic b-yfʻl corresponds with the Sabaic yfʻln that is used for the present and future indicative statements. Based on these comparisons, Beeston links the form and function of the Qatabanaic structure to the Syro-Palestinian and Egyptian b-.

Avanzini finds Beeston’s argument problematic (2009). She suggests that the opposition that Beeston draws between what he describes as indicative b-yfʻl and subjunctive/jussive yfʻl has no basis. What she deduced from a corpus study of this language is that there is an apparent opposition between the b-yfʻl and b-yfʻlwn (pl.) forms. The former specifies the preterite, whereas the latter form is used for the present- future in relative clauses only (213).

Preterite: w-yhrgw w-s1lqḥ Ḥḍrmwt and then they scattered death and destruction in Ḥaḍramawt Imperfective: w-l-yḫrṯ ḫms1y wrqm l-mlk Qtbn w-ʻhr S2mr ys1mẓ’wn must pay 50 pieces of gold to the king of Qataban and the magistrate of S2mr whose task this is (whose task it was and will be to receive payment of the fine).

Avanzini explains that the b- is a morphologized prefix that appears in the yfʻlwn plural form to specify the present-future. This indicates that the unprefixed form with b- specifies the narrative-imperfective. To further support her argument, she suggests that the modal opposition of Sabaic that Beeston suggested is not proved by examples in the corpus.

From the previous overview, we understand that the corpus study that Avanzini conducted reveals that the form b- in Qatabanic actually marks non-main clause verbs. This marker appears to have a tense function when attached to imperfective forms. It is not clear from Avanzini’s analysis why this form developed in relative clauses and yet 34

has a tense function. To answer this question, we can think of the plural imperfective yfʻlwn regardless of the prefix b-, and the Sabaic yfʻln. These forms both mark the present, and the Sabaic one has an energetic function. It is the final -n attached to the imperfective that is missing in the Preterite plural w-yfʻlw and it gives the verb the emphatic function needed occasionally for uncertain actions that did not take place yet. This final –n seems to be parallel to the energetic –n of Classical Arabic, which has the function of asserting and emphasizing the occurrence of actions. The Arabic energetic – n is added to the jussive mode in sentences like the following:

la-yaktubanna al-kitāb he must writes the letter [lit. the book].

The analysis provided by Wright for the CA energetic shows that it is treated as an independent mood, although he lists it under the jussive (1986: 61). The semantic function of this suffix is more related to the future, and Zewi explains how we should understand its function in Arabic (EALL, “Energicus”: 23).

Semantically, the Arabic energicus might be more related to the indicative sphere, since it mostly expresses modal nuances related to the future, and its modal marking is usually stronger than the one expressed by jussive modal forms. Yet, it might appear in parallel to both jussive and indicative.

If we can think of the Qatabanic –n as a cognate to the Arabic energetic n-, the non-preterite verb form b-imperf-n has an emphatic function as a whole. The reference that this b- is added to the already emphasized form yfʻlwn could be interpreted as an emphasized present-future structure. The emphasis that is attributed to Qatabanic b- -- regardless of the structure as a whole- can be seen in many modern Arabic dialects that have the prefix b- as an indicative marker, but is also found in another b- attested in dialects that do not have the indicative b-, such as Najdi and Kuwaiti Arabic (Ingham, 1994).

This b- marks categorical negation, which means that it asserts the negation of the act categorically and absolutely. The assertion that is expressed by this b- refers to the

possibility of having a b- in Arabic that has the role of emphasizing the negation. Thus, the claim here suggests that this b- is the similar to the one found in Qatabanic; they both share function and form, but not the syntactic distribution. It is possible that the syntactic restriction on each form is an independent development in the language. If this it is true that the Qatabanic b- is related to the Najdi b-, then we can claim that the Qatabanic’s b- is indeed an emphatic marker.

1.3.3.1.2 Emphatic ʻml

Unlike the sources mentioned in the previous sections, emphatic markers as sources of durative markers have not been claimed for any Arabic durative markers. The present study adopts the emphatic function as one of the meanings of durative sources. The discussion in Chapter Two shows that this function is still preserved today in one marker, namely ʻammāl in Egyptian and possibly in Palestinian. This section explains how this study proposes the development of the form to the durative function.

This study proposes that the form ʻammāl attested in Syro-Egyptian dialects has developed from a form that has an emphatic and durative meanings through the grammaticalization of a lexical word from the root ʻml. The pattern CaCCāC of ʻammāl is described by Wright as follows (1896: 137):

From verbal adjectives of the form fāʻil, as well as from some others, is derived an adjective faʻʻāl … since it adds to the signification of its primitive the idea of intensiveness of habit. Hence, it is called ism al-mubālaġah, the noun of intensiveness.

Wright’s explanation of this pattern in Arabic points out to the claim that the intensifier adjective CaCCāC is derived from the participle pattern CāCiC. Thus, we can speculate that the grammaticalization path for ʻammāl started with the form ʻāmil- a participle that carries a stative meaning. Yet, this perspective has since been refuted by Semitists on the basis that CaCCāC is a proto-Semitic form that is not derived from CāCiC, which is another distinct proto-Semitic pattern (Huehnergard, personal communication). No matter what is CaCCāC derivation, it is clear that this is an

intensive form, and it is this insensitivity that is important for our discussion here. The root ʻml is highly generalized in Arabic and it has several meanings in the Levantine dialects, among these meanings ‘to do’ and ‘to make’ are the most common. Consider the following example.

šū ʻam təʻməly? What PROG imperf.do.2nd.f? What are you doing?

The lexical source for ʻml ‘to do/make’ is not typologically common as a grammaticalized progressive. However, it has an emphatic meaning that makes the development process into a progressive marker semantically possible. Indeed, the notion of emphasis is semantically built into the notion of progression, since the continuity of action or state emphasizes its occurrence. This overlap in meaning blurs the line that distinguishes the notions of progression and emphasis, and assigning actions or states to either of these meanings is challenging. This suggests the possibility that the form ʻammāl developed with double functions, namely the durative and the emphatic, and as in the case of the English progressive in Killie’s study (2014), the emphatic meaning got bleached in a group of dialects whereas the durative meaning got bleached in the other group. Section two in this chapter will explain the details of the development paths of this form in the different dialects that use it today.

1.3.3.1.2.1 The circularity of ʻammāl

The myriad forms that appear to be related to the progressive marker ʻammāl in Egypt and the Levant suggest that it has undergone various diachronic developments. In addition, the co-existence of this marker with habitual b- bears further consideration. This section presents a possible scenario for this variation in the form of a circuit of grammaticalization where it developed to become the habitual b-. This hypothesis is only applicable for the Levantine and Egyptian dialects that have the form ʻammāl. Figure 1 illustrates this development.

Figure 1: Arabic dialects that represent circularity of ʻammāl

The circular system illustrated in Figure 1 is based on the theory that progressive forms develop first in languages and later the more general habitual meaning develops from the progressive structure (Bybee et al., 1994). The grammaticalization of the habitual b- starts with the form ʻammāl, which is considered here the source of the grammticalization path, and this is stage I in this development path. In stage II, the progressive form is phonetically eroded. If this form develops further in the chain, it can show the phonemic change m > b. When the form reaches stage III, the dialect develops the general habitual meaning, which can be expressed by the progressive marker. Thus, the two meanings share the same form. In stage IV the structure becomes more generalized to the point that the progressive meaning is lost. It is at this point where the spot of the progressive becomes empty, and the form ʻammāl comes to fulfill this function again. At this point, the dialect has a progressive ʻammāl and a habitual b-.

The fact that each stage of this proposed circular chain is represented in a modern dialect gives this proposal credence to stand on top of the other proposals. This proposal

suggests that the development of the durative b- follows the principles of grammaticalization, except that it does not follow the unidirectionality condition of grammaticalization. This exception does not refute the possibility of this hypothesis for two reasons. First, the principle of unidirectionality is a tendency but not a law, as examples of degrammaticalization are documented cross-linguistically. Second, we will see later in this chapter that Givón explains this process as being cyclical when a form develops until it reaches the end point, i.e. zero (1979). Once a form reaches this end point, the process could start again with another form. It is possible that the progression can stop at any stage of development or the grammatical form can keep progressing until it is replaced by new forms. Deo (2015) explains the cross-linguistic cyclic diachronic pattern mentioned here in details while explaining the systematic patterns that characterize each stage of this cycle. The application of her extensive analysis here requires tracing each stage diachronically, which is almost impossible in the case of Arabic due to lack of historical texts. The only way around this hindrance is to propose a diachronic development based on the current cross-dialectal distribution. We have enough evidence to put forward the theory of circularity for ʻammāl > b-, and it is possible in Arabic to see the proposed circularity since there is crisscrossing between varieties.

The discussion presented here and in section (1.3.1.2.1) suggests that the indicative b- has different sources, and it is even possible that these different sources themselves came into direct contact.

Now that we have reviewed the relevant terminology and the theories of sources development, the following section is allocated to an overview of the different theories that explain structural change and, more specifically, how aspect develops in natural languages. The discussion provided in the literature of these theories has played a key role in designing the methodology of this research. It is by means of studying the different views in the field of historical linguistics and sociolinguistics that this research is inspired to achieve its goals.

1.4 Theories of structural change

1.4.1 Language internal changes: Theories of grammaticalization of aspectual markers

The universal process of grammaticalization involves the gradual development of lexical forms to grammatical forms, also known as grams (Heine et al, 1991:222; Heine, 1992), and this stage is referred to as “primary grammaticalization” (Givón, 1991, 305; Traugott, 2002). Secondary grammaticalization refers to the further development of grammatical forms by increasing formal correlates such as morphological fusion (Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca, 1994). The study of grammaticalization tracks the genesis of the grammatical forms and their developmental pathways. Besides its focus on the transition of morphemes from the lexical domain to the functional one, this theory is also concerned with the grammatical constructions of forms and their deployment in larger discourse.

Grammaticalization theory is characterized by a number of semantic, morphosyntactic and phonetic mechanisms. These mechanisms are4:

a) semantic bleaching (or desemanticization): loss in content meaning;

b) context extension: use in new contexts;

c) decategorialization: loss of characteristic morpho-syntactic properties; and

d) erosion (or phonetic reduction): loss in phonetic substance. (Heine & Narrog, 2015).

These mechanisms interact in what appears to be a single predictable continuum that is referred to as the grammaticalization chain (or path). However, there are debates about the directionality and the order of the changes along this chain. One of the widely accepted arguments suggests that semantic change occurs before structural change (Givón, 1991 cited in Nicolle, 2007); an alternative view suggests that the two changes

4 Different sources give different terms for these mechanisms. See Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994: 6) for a detailed list of the mechanisms’ terms. 40

occur simultaneously (Bybee et al., 1994). This grammaticalization chain is represented in the following model:

pragmatic change semantic change formal change

(use) (meaning) (morpho-syntactic + phonological)

This model explains the series of processes entailed in the production of grammaticalized forms and their direction. In general, grammaticalization has been described as a context-induced process, which means that the interpretation of the structures is context dependent (Hopper & Traugott, 2003:75; Heine & Kuteva, 2004). Within a specific context, grammaticalization chain starts when a certain lexical construction undergoes a pragmatic change when it brings about an “invited inference” besides the original conventionalized inference (Traugott, 2002, cited in Nicolle, 2012; Traugott and Dasher, 2001:148). The meaning associated with the invited inference is also context-dependent, and with frequent occurrence of the invited inference it becomes conventionalized as well. Therefore, the construction will have two different inferences that coexist at the same time. It is at this stage where the construction undergoes a semantic change, whereby the former meaning falls out of common use in the specified context, which allows the invited inference and the new meaning associated with it to develop (Heine et al. 1991). Although this process is usually characterized by the loss of the original form’s anatomy, there are also other counteracting gains in properties that occur throughout the process (Heine and Kuteva, 2004, Hopper and Traugott, 1993:87- 88). Some of the gains include that the form becomes free from some of the constraints of the linguistic system; it gains a wide range of contexts and higher frequency, and joins a new grammatical paradigm (EALL, II “Grammaticalization”).

Theoretically, the path that grammaticalized items develop along is described as unidirectional as shown in the following figure (Hopper & Traugott, 1993:7).

content word > grammatical word > clitic > inflectional affix

The unidirectionality of this chain suggests that once a form progresses further to a stage it does not, under normal circumstances, regress to a preceding stage. Ultimately, the process can be described as being cyclical when a form develops until it reaches the 41

end point, i.e. zero (Givón 1979). Once a form reaches this end point, the process could start again with another form. It is possible that the progression can stop at any stage of development or the grammatical form can keep progressing until it is replaced by new forms. This does not dismiss the possibility of the coexistence of any form with a more grammaticalized one, which is a phenomenon referred to as ‘divergence’ (Hopper, 1991: 24). Two examples from Arabic are ʻād ‘still, anymore’ and baʼa ‘start, begin’, which are both conjugated verbs and a frozen particle. The following examples are elicited from Saudi Arabic for ʻād. The first example shows the use of the conjugated verb, while the second shows the use of the frozen particle ‘then’.

mā ʻidt agdar ashar zayy awwal I can’t stay up late like before anymore. ʻād madry eš b-tsawwy Then I don’t know what you are going to do.

A well-known example of the process of grammaticalization is represented in the prospective marker rāḥ in several Arabic dialects, which is predicted to grammaticalize from the lexical verb raḥ ‘to go’. The first mechanism that is expected to take place is the context extension. This verb mainly indicates movement away from the speaker or a reference spatial point.

raḥ yijyb il-ʼawlād he went to pick up the kids

The frequent use of this verb before imperfectives led to highlighting the intention to engage in the action/state that the following imperfective implies, which is the result of extending the context of the verb rāḥ. This frequent use of the intention idea led to minimizing the meaning of moving away from the reference point in this context. Thus, raḥ + imperfective indicates intentionality instead of movement, which represents the mechanism of semantic bleaching. However, there are some dialects that still preserve the meaning of movement in such a context.

The decategorization of raḥ can be seen in examples where the use of this form has lost conjugation and now it is generalized for all persons/genders. Consider the following example from Saudi Arabic where the use of the prospective marker raḥ is indeclinable for number and person.

w-raḥ nitkallam ʻan ʼašyāʼ kiṯīrah and we will talk about many things *w-rayḥīn nitkallam ʻan ʼašyāʼ kiṯīrah

With the following imperfective marked for 1st. pl, the use of the 1st pl. conjugation in the prospective marker is considered ungrammatical.

The form raḥ has gone further in the grammaticalization path to the point where it is now phonetically eroded: ḥa-. In some dialects, such as Syrian, the full form raḥ and the eroded ḥa- are used interchangeably. Similarly, the English structures going to and gonna coexist in modern English. This shows that two forms that have progressed to different stages along the grammaticalization chain can coexist.

1.4.1.1 Critical views of grammaticalization

The notion of grammaticalization comprises one of the most challenged topics in the field of linguistics. The main, and most established challenge is the fact that this theory comprises a set of phenomena that are observed in other cases of linguistic change and; therefore, some deny that they comprise a theory per se. Several opponents of the theorization of grammaticalization suggest that this notion is basically “just specific instances or consequences of” reanalysis, extension (including analogy), borrowing, or a combination of all of them (Harris and Campbell, 1995: 50). Therefore, it is argued that cases of so-called grammaticalization can be explained by means of other mechanisms. One of the most widespread arguments claims that grammaticalization is mostly “one type of macro-change, consisting minimally of one process of reanalysis, but frequently involving more than one reanalysis” (Harris and Campbell, 1995: 92; Lindström, 2004). Before proceeding to the responses to this challenge, I pause to explain the processes of reanalysis and analogy and how they are 43

related to grammaticalization.

Reanalysis and analogy are construed as substantial processes for language change, especially morphosyntactic change (Hopper and Traugott, 2003: 39). Reanalysis is defined as the process through which the surface construction of a syntactic pattern allows different interpretations, which yields ambiguity, and the syntactic pattern changes to include interpretations that were not included (Harris and Campbell, 1995: 30, 50). Changes of the syntactic pattern do not affect the surface structure, which is represented in the structure’s word order and morphological marking. However, these changes affect the underlying structure, which is represented by the structure’s consistency, hierarchical structure, category labels and grammatical relations; i.e., this change is covert. The process of semantic bleaching that is considered to be one of the basic mechanisms of grammaticalization is the “essence of reanalysis itself” (“Harris and Campbell, 1995” ibid: 50). Cases attested in the literature as cases of grammaticalization in which the underlying structure changed whereas the surface manifestation is not affected are basically cases of reanalysis. For instance, the widely cited example of English will was first semantically bleached from the lexical entry “want” and grammaticalized as a future marker. The process involved in this example is typically labeled as grammaticalization, when it is actually a case of reanalysis; the surface manifestation did not change whereas the underlying structure was altered (“Harris and Campbell, 1995” ibid: 92). On the contrary, analogy alters the surface manifestation without changing the underlying structure, i.e. it is overt. Reanalysis is the mechanism that licenses grammaticalization “because it is a prerequisite for the implementation of the change through analogy” (Hopper and Traugott, 2003: 39).

Hopper and Traugott (2003: 58) attribute the dispute of whether grammaticalization is part of reanalysis to Meillet’s identification of the two processes as connected to each other. However, they claim that the two processes are not always connected and it is possible to find examples of reanalysis without grammaticalization. Yet, they acknowledge that grammaticalization cannot occur without reanalysis. Thus, they suggest that it is best to categorize grammaticalization as a subset of change that is included within the many processes that reanalysis could lead to. However, Kiparsky 44

(2012: 31) goes further to explain that placing grammaticalization as a subset of reanalysis does not explain the properties of grammaticalization. This is because “the discontinuous transmission of language” that is featured in reanalysis is found in all language change, and, therefore, reanalysis does not hold any status as “the umbrella category” of grammaticalization.

Although supporters of grammaticalization acknowledge that the four mechanisms that characterize grammaticalization, besides analysis and analogy, are to be found in other linguistic changes, they collectively were found to be in action in the majority of the grammaticalization cases (Hein, 2003). Hence, grammaticalization can be determined as a distinct process that leads to the development of grammatical elements. Whether this distinct process constitutes a theory or not is not an issue for grammaticalization supporters since the main concern of their research is to describe the rise and development of grammatical elements (Hein, 2003).

Central to the theory of grammaticalization, and one of its well-established principles is the notion of unidirectionality mentioned above. Yet, a claim that challenges this cornerstone of grammaticalization theory notes that the process of grammaticalization is not unidirectional and can sometimes be reversed. Although many cross-linguistic cases exhibited that the direction of the developmental chain is unidirectional and irreversible, a few cross-linguistic studies were able to contradict this hypothesis. Degrammaticalization is identified as the reverse process of grammaticalization (Lehmann, 2005; Norde, 2009). This process entails that a form that was categorized as functional becomes lexical. The process starts when the form becomes free from the system constraints that it used to have. Lehmann (2005: 15) cites a case for this process that clarifies how the form can gradually leave the grammatical category to another non-grammatical one, which eventually could lead to lexicalization of this form. This case starts when an infix becomes a peripheral affix. At this stage, the form loses its bond with verbs and becomes a free form. Along the process, the changing form gains more concrete semantic properties and could also build more phonological segments to its structure. Later, similar forms build up a paradigm of heterogeneous forms that went through the same process and; therefore, create a larger class of forms. 45

At this point, the form has already lost its grammatical value, and it could progress further in the process until it joins a lexical class of the paradigm that it belongs to, such when an adposition changes to a relational noun.

Grammaticalization theorists’ response to the challenge of unidirectionality is based on analyzing the counterexamples of the grammaticalization reversal. Heine (2003) summarizes all the responses to the doubts concerning unidirectionality in few points: Firstly, supporters argue that the few cross-linguistic cases that challenge the unidirectionality principle cannot outnumber the many cases that support unidirectionality (Traugott and Dasher, 2001). More importantly, none of the counterexamples represent “complete reversal of grammaticalization”. Traugott and Dasher (2001:87) adds that many of the counterexamples do not show semantic shift, and even if a violation of structural unidirectionality is attested, semantic unidirectionality is not violated. Also, most of the counterexamples are “idiosyncratic”, which means that these cases cannot be generalized on the developmental directionality of grammatical categories5.

1.4.1.2 Motivations for grammaticlaization

The fact that grammaticalization occurs in a predictable and systematic way cross- linguistically has pushed scholars to investigate the motivations for this process. Different factors have been posed as explanations for grammaticalization. One opinion proposes semantic and pragmatic factors as the main motivators for grammaticalization. Extralinguistic mechanisms like metaphor and metonymy could motivate the change to occur. The main trigger for these factors to generate change is the role of context and communication (Hien et al. 1991). Another opinion also suggests consideration of semantic and pragmatic factors, but this view attributes to increased expressivity and “strengthening of informativeness”, which could later yield to semantic bleaching of the grammaticalized forms (Hopper and Traugott, 1993: 68). Each of the previous views considers the suggested factors as the only explanations for grammaticalization. A new

5 Detailed examples for every point are provided in Hein (2003). 46

approach suggests that the factors presented in these different views could actually complement each other (Traugott and König 1991).

This section has presented in some depth one important theory of internal language change. Theories of language drift and reanalysis are also given in the literature as major processes that lead to the invention of grammatical forms. These will not be discussed here at length as was grammaticalization. However, when cases of drift or reanalysis emerge in the analysis of diachronic paths, they will be explained thoroughly.

1.4.2 Language external changes: Theories of the diffusion of aspectual markers as an effect of contact (borrowing)

Scholars mentioned accounts for external factors to language change as early as the 9th and 11th C. (Harris and Campbell, 1995: 33). Arab grammarians of the 9th C. complain about how the ʻajam ‘Persians or non-Arabs’ ruined Arabic. Reports about the status of Arabic in Africa in the 11th C. mention how the “Blacks” ruined the tongue of Arabs. Since, external factors for language change have been assigned significant weight in explaining accounts of linguistic change. These factors range from social, political, historical and economical; the majority of these factors share one feature, which is contact. Contact is defined as the situation where speakers of two languages come in contact and (at least) speakers of one language become familiar with the other. Contact in this case acts as the mechanism that leads to change in language, and one of the changes that result from the contact situation is borrowing. In these terms, borrowing is not a process or mechanism per se, but a result of contact besides a set of historical events (Harris and Campbell, 1995, Winford, 2005).

While syntactic change due to language contact was for a long time a matter of dispute in the field of linguistics, linguists have started to acknowledge the effect of contact on syntactic change. It was taken as a given that the more stable domains of language, like morphology, are very resistant to change in contact situations, and when change happens it is subject to strong constraints (Winford, 2005). This view was, and still is, a matter of disagreement in the field, and several scholars embraced a proposal that generalizes the possibility of transference of any linguistic feature to any language 47

(Heine and Kuteva 2008). The constraints that condition the transfer are also challenged in many studies that show that “all the specific constraints on contact-induced change that have been proposed have been counterexemplified” (Thomason, 2001: 85). These views were also subject to criticism, and it was the task for many researchers to prove or refute these opposing proposals. What is of interest in this research is structural borrowing, and more precisely morphosyntactic transfer, especial aspect transfer. Before we ensue the specific constraints of borrowing aspect forms in contact situations, we need to review the methodologies proposed in the literature for identifying contact- induced change.

Several factors stimulate contact, and differences of emphasis given to the importance of individual factors has led to the emergence of different approaches to studying contact (Ravindranath, 2015). These factors could be linguistic, social, and/or historical. An example of an approach that supports one factor is represented in the claim that “the social relation between the two speech communities, not the structure of their languages, determine the direction and the extent of influence” (ibid: 244).

Advents in the field of language change have led the majority of scholars to agree that contact is motivated by a collection of factors (Sankoff, 2002). In fact, recent approaches question the field’s norms in which change is considered as “inevitable” in most cases of language contact (Poplack and Levey, 2010; Ravindranath, 2015). This has led to the introduction of several methodologies that are designed to establish the existence of contact-induced change.

As for structural borrowing, Winford (2005) suggests that contact-induced borrowing, at least in its early stages, is characterized by areal convergence, relative bilingualism and imitation and then adaptation of the source language (henceforth SL) forms to fit the structures of recipient language (henceforth RL). Poplack and Levey (2010: 398) have designed comprehensive criteria for identifying contact-induced change:

in the same way as in the source, and 3) can also be shown to parallel in some non- trivial way the behavior of a counterpart feature in the source.

1.4.2.1 Borrowability of aspect markers

Matras claims that, although reports on the borrowing of TAM forms are rare, the borrowing of this domain of syntax is possible (2007a). He also designed a hierarchy of the likelihood of borrowing in contact situations based on implicational relationships and frequency (ibid: 46):

Modality > aspect/Aktionsart > future tense > (other tenses)

With this hierarchy, Matras argues that “the speaker’s epistemic authority” controls the borrowability of TAM markers. This means that the more aware the speaker is of the category and, therefore, is able to control it, the less the chance of borrowing within this category. The hierarchy suggests that modality is “the most contact- sensitive” since it is the least category in the TAM domain that speakers have control over, whereas tense is placed on the right end of the hierarchy where speakers awareness of the category – especially future tense- is the highest and, therefore, the borrowability of this category is the least frequent (44, 47). As for the middle category of aspect and aktionsart, it is characterized by being “beyond the immediate control of the speaker” and; therefore, the borrowability of this category lies in the middle between modality and tense.

In the same vein, Matras explains the borrowability of TAM markers in terms of matter and pattern borrowing. These terms are designed to explain patterns of borrowing in contact situations (Sakel, 2007, Matras and Sakel, 2007). Matter borrowing refers to the case when the morphological form along with its phonological representation is borrowed, whereas pattern borrowing denotes the case where only the structural pattern of the form is borrowed without its phonological shape. Before examining the types of loans in all cases of contact-induced change, it is crucial to assign which language is the source or donor language (SL) and which is the recipient language (RL).

Matras (2007b) explains the borrowability of aspect markers by reviewing a 49

number of cases that are not typologically related. In these cases, he shows that there were matter and pattern replication. One of the cases of the matter and pattern replication is found in Domari, a language that is in constant contact with Palestinian Arabic. Domari derives the Arabic forms used for “habitual, inceptive, and iterative” aspects. (155). Matras claims that the only difference in structure between the two languages lies in the use of indicative verbs after the markers in Domari (substrate effect) whereas Arabic uses the subjunctive marking of the verb. The following example is cited by Matras to support his claim (155).

kunt aw-ami was come-1sg.IND I used to come

Therefore, the Domari borrowed the Arabic copula along with its function as a habitual aspect periphrastic expression. And this expression coexists in Domari with its native enclitic copula (46).

As aforementioned, the example of Domari is cited in Matras as a case of borrowing aspect from Arabic. Although the form kunt ‘I was’ in Arabic is mainly a temporal verb indicating that the action took place in the past, it also has another layer of durative meaning indicating that the action happened for unspecified duration of time in the past. In Palestinian Arabic, which is in Matras’s study the variety of Arabic that the Domari speakers are in contact with, b- is used as the overt indicative aspect marker. It is not clear from Matras’s example if Domari speakers would still use the claimed aspect form kān borrowed from Arabic with tenses other than the past. The following example from Palestinian Arabic shows kān followed by a perfective stem.

iṯ-ṯalj law jāy ʻa buskelēt kān ʼija min zamān6 if the snow had been arriving on a bicycle it would have come long time ago

Therefore, the claim that the Domari aspect represents a case of matter and pattern

6 https://goo.gl/Lxy3S8 50

replication is questionable until we find out how Domari speakers mark aspect in tenses other than the past where the auxiliary kān is not in use.

Another problem comes from the difference that Matras presents as the main reason why he considers this example as a case of both matter- and pattern-borrowing: Domari’s aspect marker is indisputably a matter-borrowing case only if we agree that kān per se is the aspect marker, but the comparison between the claimed subjunctive covert marking of the imperfective in Arabic and the indicative marking in Domari is based on an incorrect categorization of both the copula and the verb. In some varieties of Arabic--but not Palestinian--the aspect marking of the imperfective after the temporal verb kān is omitted, but that does not mean that the verb is subjunctive. Compare the following elicited example from Palestinian Arabic with the previous example from Domari (ibid: 155):

Arabic: kunt b-ijy Domari: kunt aw-ami was.1sg IND.come-1sg was come-1sg.IND I used to come I used to come

It is clear that in these two examples the imperfective is marked for indicative with b- and–i in Arabic and Domari respectively. Therefore, we cannot claim that this is a clear case of matter-borrowing. It seems that this confusion of the subjunctive and indicative of Palestinian Arabic stems from not realizing that there are different functions for the copula kān; one of them is the hypothetical function that introduces irrealis statements whereas another one is the temporal verb7. Although in the two cases of kān the following imperfective is unmarked, we cannot claim that the two verbs are subjunctive. Rather, hypothetical kān is followed by a subjunctive while the temporal kān is followed by unmarked indicative. Even for pattern-borrowing, it is also not clear if the function of the indicative marker –i is inherited in Domari or if it is pattern- borrowed but is not affected by the constraint of the temporal verb before the imperfective (meaning that pattern-borrowing might have happened before the

7 For more details about the different types of kān in Arabic see Brustad (2000). 51

constraint developed in the donor language).

So far, this section has suggested that borrowing aspect is attested cross- linguistically, and it is conditioned by many factors. The methodologies presented here will serve as techniques for eliciting cases of aspect borrowing in the diachronic analysis in Chapter 4.

A great deal of the cross-linguistic research of contact-induced change has been conducted on languages that are not genetically related. Less common are the reports of this type of change in genetically related languages (See Epps, Huehnergar and Pat-El (2013) for a review of contact among related languages). Unfortunately, the more complex cases of contact-induced change in dialects of the same language are quite rare. This is partially due to the difficulty of distinguishing between what is inherited, shared innovation, or borrowing in the case of dialects in contact. These challenges are best explained by Christopher Lucas (2014: 533):

The main difficulty … of dialect contact … is that it is by no means clear what we mean by the term ‘dialect’. On the one hand there is the notorious difficulty of distinguishing between dialects and languages (recall the famous statement, usually attributed to Max Weinreich, that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy). Even if we ignore socio-political factors, the criterion of mutual intelligibility is not unproblematic: many related language varieties will be neither wholly intelligible nor wholly unintelligible to native speakers of each. On the other hand, from an I-language perspective, two grammars are either identical or not, meaning it is hard to see how a distinction can be made on this basis between dialect contact and variation within a single speech community.

Generally speaking, the factors affecting dialects in contact are not very different from languages in contact; hence, this study will extend the principles of language in contact to dialectal research.

So far, this section has suggested that borrowing aspect is attested cross- linguistically, and it is conditioned by many factors. At the same time, Matras has argued that aspect is not easily borrowed. In order to look for borrowing in Arabic, we will look for cases in which a durative marker occurs with a lexical item not found in the borrowing dialect. We will also examine cases where we have history of contact with

dialects that have the durative form and this form is lacking in surrounding dialects. Chapter Four will discuss the borrowing possibilities in all the dialects.

1.4.3 Contact-induced grammaticalization

The previous accounts of language change, both internal and external, were for a long time regarded as mutually exclusive processes. The literature is rich in cases of structural change due to external factors such as contact, and very few of these studies accept that, occasionally, internal factors are also involved in this change. The recognition of the dynamic nature of factors that cause language change has pushed the field to start thinking about the possibilities of studying language change in a multidimensional fashion. Therefore, the principle that external and internal processes are mutually exclusive was later reconsidered and revised; structural change is a complex and dynamic change that consists of multiple correlated processes. New models have emerged to explain this complex relationship between internal and external elements, and the different models are based on the interplay of specific properties that scholars believe to be the key factors in creating language change. One of these multi- factorial approaches is contact-induced grammaticalization.

An important development was the realization that “contact reinforces language- internal tendencies” (Poplack and Levey, 2010: 393), and this represents the essence of the contact-induced grammaticalization approach. Also, grammaticalization was found to cluster genetically and areally (Dahl, 2000: 317). Researchers noticed that, cross- linguistically, the overlap between borrowing and grammaticalization occurs in the development of grammatical categories. This interaction creates a far more complex way of explaining the development of grammatical categories than simply resorting to the one-dimensional models of either borrowing or grammaticalization. The process of contact-induced grammaticalization emerged, and since then it has taken a major lead in the field of linguistics and many scholars devoted their research endeavor to study this process of language change. Heine and Kuteva (2005) devoted a chapter to review all the challenges of this process and their responses to them.

In order to understand the process of contact-induced grammaticalization, Heine 53

and Kuteva (2003) explain the distinction between two types of processes: replica and ordinary grammaticalization. The process of contact-induced grammaticalization is basically replica grammaticalization. This refers to a process in which speakers copy what they assume is the grammaticalization process that created the category in the model language, as opposed to ordinary grammaticalization that it occurs independently by means of universal strategies.

Heine and Kuteva (2003) explain that there is an overlap between contact and grammaticalization in the development of grammatical categories that is far more complex than simply referring to the development of structures by means of borrowing vs. grammaticalization. They define the different processes that lead to the development of structures by referring to examples from different world languages. They first make a clear distinction between two types of contact-induced grammaticalization: replica and ordinary (contact-induced) grammaticalization. The only difference lies in speakers’ conceptualization of the patterns that lead to the category they see in the model language. This means that in replica grammaticalization speakers copy what they assume is the grammaticalization process that created the category in the model language and then create a new structure on the model of the donor language; therefore, this process involves the borrowing of the grammaticalization process. On the other hand, ordinary grammaticalization refers to the development of a category that speakers observe in the model language independently; meaning that the grammaticalization occurs by using universal strategies without copying the form or the pattern of the model language.

Details of the mechanisms involved in the two types are illustrated as follows (Heine and Kuteva, 2005: 81, 92). Notice that the only difference is in number (c), M= Model language and R= Replica language:

Ordinary contact-induced grammaticalization: a. Speakers of language R notice a grammatical category Mx in language M. b. They develop an equivalent category Rx based on the use patterns in R. c. They develop Rx using construction Ry by drawing on universal strategies of 54

grammaticalization. d. They grammaticalize Ry to Rx.

Replica contact-induced grammaticalization: a. Speakers of language R notice a grammatical category Mx in language M. b. They develop an equivalent category Rx based on the use patterns in R. c. They replicate a grammaticalization process they assume to have taken place in language M, using an analogical formula of the kind [My > Mx]: [Ry > Rx]. d. They grammaticalize Ry to Rx.

An example of ordinary grammaticalization comes from Bislama, an English- based pidgin spoken in Vanuatu (=R). This language developed a durative aspect marker (=Rx) based on the model of Vembao (=M), an Eastern oceanic language that has a durative aspect indicating progressive (=Mx).

naji ng-u-xoel dram he he-DUR-dig yam He’s in the process of digging yams Vetmbao (Keesing, 1991: 328).

Bislama developed the aspect marker (=Rx) from the verb stap ‘stay, be present, exist’ (=Ry). Thus, the durative aspect marker (=Rx) is in the same syntactic position as the durative marker (=Mx) in the model language.

em i stap pik-im yam him he DUR dig-TRS yam He’s in the process of digging yams Bislama (Keesing, 1991: 328).

Bislama speakers draw on universal strategies of grammaticalization (STAY > imperfective aspect) to develop a marker that is equivalent to the one used in the model language (Keesing, 1991: 328).

Replica grammaticalization is exemplified in the Polish dialect spoken in Silesia

(=R), an area of contact between German and Polish speakers. German (=M) has undergone a process of grammaticalization through which the third-person plural pronoun sie ‘they’ (=My) was grammaticalized to the polite/formal second-person singular pronoun Sie ‘you’ (=Mx). Polish speakers in Silesia, through their contact with German speakers, replicated what they assume is the grammaticalization process that took place in German and extended the use of their Polish third-person plural pronoun (Ry) to a polite/formal second-person singular pronoun (Rx). This process of grammaticalization is considered replica because the Polish speakers relied on the sociolinguistic, pragmatic and grammatical cues that they have access to about the German language to replicate the grammaticalization process of the model My > Mx.

For the sake of this research, it is noteworthy at this point to highlight a couple of points about the mechanisms of contact-induced grammaticalization, whether ordinary or replica. One of the basic established principles of replica grammaticalization is that speakers of the replica language rely on their conceptual perspective to reconstruct a path of development presumed to have taken place in the model language. However, there is no virtual explanation of the conceptual clues that these speakers rely on to reconstruct this process. Moreover, the line can sometimes be fuzzy between ordinary and replica grammaticalization on one hand and between contact-induced grammaticalization and polysemy copying on the other hand. This makes it a hard task for any linguist to distinguish between the different types. Despite this pitfall, Heine and Kuteva (2005: 93) suggest that there are some clues to discriminate between the different types. In the case of replica grammaticalization, it is easy to claim that it is replica and not ordinary if the replicated process is not cross-linguistically common and it is similar to the one found in the model language. A very common example for this case is the “hot-news” perfect (=Mx) in Irish (=M) that was replicated in Irish English (=R). This structure involves the grammaticalization of the preposition ‘after’ (=My) to express the idea of temporal or spatial representation that explains the perfect structure. This development of perfect marker form the preposition ‘after’ is very rare, and the fact that it is found in both Irish and Irish English supports the replica grammaticalization claims (Heine and Kuteva, 2005).

Related to this research is the observation in Heine and Kuteva’s study about how contact-induced grammaticalization is more common and that the many documented cases of reconstructing can still be explained and analyzed in terms of contact-induced grammaticalization (2003). Their treatment of this process does not suggest that the different types of contact-induced grammaticalization are specific to contact between different languages; rather they include few cases of the effect of contact-induced grammaticalization on dialects. The following excerpt from their book explains their view of dialects in contact (Heine and Kuteva, 2005: 5).

The reason is that research on transfer of the kind studied here has focused on contact between distinct languages and, accordingly, corresponding data on inter- dialectal contact are hard to come by. On the basis of the evidence that is available, it would seem, however, that what we have to say about languages applies in much the same way also to dialects in contact.

Based on these claims, this study will analyze the processes of contact-induced grammaticalization according to the mechanisms suggested above for distinct languages.

1.5 Research methodology: analyzing synchronic aspect markers and identifying the type of diachronic change

It has been claimed that many of the works that argue for cases of contact-induced change fail to show that change has actually occurred. Moreover, in the few cases where change was proved, no discretion was taken to prove that change is due to external factors and is not due to internal development (Poplack & Levey, 2010). Therefore, the empirical establishment of change should be scrutinized carefully before embarking any analysis about language change. This cautionary practice is most vital in cases where historical records are limited or – in the worst-case scenario--are not available. In this section, I will propose criteria for establishing the existence of change in Arabic aspect markers empirically. The method that this research is based on is assembled from different fields of linguistics, mainly the apparatus used in historical linguistics and variation sociolinguistics (Poplack & Levey, 2010).

Before presenting the details of this research method, it is important to list some of 57

the considerations that should be taken into account in establishing empirical methods of language change. Poplack and Levey (2010: 394-7) list some of these considerations as follows:

1. Variability is required for change, but it is not change per se.

2. Systematic comparison over time is important. The comparison should include two equivalent varieties; one as the historical baseline, or reference variety, and the other as the variety hosting the change. If it is impossible to track a historical baseline, only speculations should be proposed rather than conclusive indications.

3. Diffusion of change has to be observable in natural settings.

4. Innovation can be understood only by “studying the sustained discourse of speakers in context”.

5. Structure of variability should be established by analyzing the conditioning constraints of variation.

6. Inherent variability can be detected by recognizing change in frequency of the competing forms and change in linguistic structure.

7. Deciding the type of change as internally- or externally-induced should only be made after determining that a change has definitely taken place.

This study examines the use of aspect markers in Arabic dialects based on reviewing the different methodologies and observations mentioned in this chapter. The study aims to analyze the different aspect markers from synchronic and diachronic perspectives, which supports the multi-modal approach of studying language. It will not be possible in many cases discussed here to determine if change has taken place due to the lack of historical documentation, but every effort is made to provide data from natural language data. First, the study identifies the use of the different aspect markers in the different dialects by examining a corpus consisting of many texts. The major requirement for all the texts to be included in the study is for the texts to have context. It is only by understanding the context, with its pragmatics, that the semantic meaning of the verb and its marker can be analyzed. Studies that tend to avoid context and analyze 58

the functions of grammatical structures tend to assign a single meaning for every form. Consider the example provided above from Matras’s study on Romani aspectual markers where the copula kān was assigned with one meaning in different contexts, namely the hypothetical context and the indicative context. This action is usually the result of analyzing grammatical forms devoid of context. Another example comes from using future b- and indicative b- before imperfective in the majority of Levantine dialects. The syntactic distribution for these two structures is identical. However, it is only by means of analyzing context that we should know if the prefix marks future or indicative. Compare the following sentences devoid of context vs. in context (Brustad, 2000: 250):

b-imperfective devoid of context b-imperfective in context

bi-šūf-a bi-šūfa kill yōm b-3rd -see-her IND-see.3rd.f every day ‘He sees her every day’

b-yitṣālḥ-u bukra b-yitṣālḥu b-3rd-makeup.they tomorrow FUT-3rd.make up.pl ‘Tomorrow they’ll make up’

It is obvious that analyzing structural morphemes in this case obscures the range of meanings of the morpheme unless the analysis includes context.

The nature of the speech performed by speakers in this corpus range between narratives and conversations. The importance of narrative contexts for the linguistic research is highlighted by Brustad (2000: 186):

Narratives provide a range of meanings of forms and structures. While ostensibly about another time and place, narratives are often present in a way that emphasizes the relevance to the moment of speaking: to be as close as possible to the audience, the narrative context is brought into the there and now. Narrative uses of verb forms are strikingly similar across dialects, and reflect the centrality of aspect to the verbal system of Arabic.

For the reasons mentioned above, I deliberately excluded descriptive texts in which speakers are asked to describe an activity, a situation or a tradition. Although the majority dialectal texts in the literature are descriptive, examining a number of these texts show that their nature tends not to allow for variation in aspectual markers. Speakers tend to stick to the gnomic and habitual aspects to describe an activity or situation that takes place in their community, such as their traditions. I found that in descriptive texts speakers rarely describe actions that do not occur habitually. My impression is that this behavior stems from the possibility that speakers understand that their task in performing for these texts do not require anecdotal incidents and that their interlocutor – here the researcher- is only interested in their traditions. This could be the direct result of researchers’ avoidance of mentioning their interest in the language of their informants by telling them that they are interested in their local traditions; a practice common among many Arabists following sociolinguistic research norms. Although this type of text is beneficial for other research purposes, it does not provide the variation in aspectual markers that this research requires.

All the texts represent spoken varieties and the majority of these texts are transcribed in works that study different aspects of Arabic dialects. Some texts are taken from video clips, and very few texts were taken from Internet forums where the texts represent written conversations by native speakers in their native dialects. In general, the written texts are excluded from this research if they do not represent the spoken varieties, either in transcription or in regular orthography. This exercise is followed in a previous study by Brustad (2000: 182) where the spoken discourse was found to be rich in a specific aspect, namely perfect aspect, whereas it was near impossible to find in written discourse. Unlike Brustad’s study, this research is concerned with aspectual markers only that are prefixed to imperfective. However, this research takes the practice of excluding written discourse into account due to the observed absence of aspectual markers in written texts. Part of this asymmetry in Arabic between the use of aspectual markers in spoken and written discourse is due to the extensive use of Modern Standard Arabic – known as fuṣḥa- in written genres. This research solely investigates the development and functions of aspect markers in Arabic dialects; therefore, general

principles of aspect in Modern Standard Arabic are not analyzed here.

In some cases where no texts were found, especially for peripheral dialects, such as Uzbekistani Arabic, I opted to consult syntactic notes about aspect provided in the grammar books of these dialects. Although no context is provided for the use of aspectual markers in these grammars, it was important to include the markers in these dialects due to the great benefit they can provide for the diachronic analysis. However, this research does not make any claims about the functions of these markers other than the cited explanations in the literature due to the lack of context.

Finally, a major cornerstone of this research is the diachronic analysis of aspectual markers. This type of analysis relies profoundly on historical documentation of the use of the marker. Unfortunately, it is near to impossible to find narrative texts that represent the spoken varieties before the 19th C. All we know about the spoken varieties before this time comes from grammarians and missionaries’ observations. Therefore, this research will take these references into consideration without assuming anything beyond the accuracy of the information they provide.

1.5.1 The synchronic analysis

For the synchronic analysis, all instances of imperfective that are preceded by indicative markers are examined. The context is the basis of analysis, which means that the marker alone does not stand as the locus of the analysis, but a combination of context and marker. This is to ensure that only aspect markers are included in the analysis and similar lexical forms are excluded. For instance, the progressive marker mā- in several Arabic dialects precedes imperfective verbs in sentences such as (unpublished data from my 2010 field study on Shihry Arabic8):

il-mōyah mā-tugṭur min is-sagf def-water PROG-3rd.f.drip from def- ceiling water is dripping from the ceiling

8(Shihry) refers to a dialect spoken in southwest Saudi Arabia. 61

This structure resembles the negation in the syntactic distribution. Compare the previous sentence with the following:

mōyat il-bazbūz mā-tiṣlaḥ li-š-šurb water.const def-tap NEG 3rd.f. for-def- drinking tap water is not good for drinking

The same homonyms are also found in the northwestern Syrian region. To avoid confusing these markers and similar cases of homonymic constructions, reading the context is the key to indicate the type of marker attached to the imperfective. Different cues that are found in context are considered to strengthen the identification of the aspect markers. For instance, adverbial expressions are sometimes used by speakers of several Arabic dialects besides the morphological marking of aspect, such as dāyman ‘always’ ʼḥyānan, ʼawqāt ‘sometimes’ for the habitual and ʼalḥīn, hallaʼ, dilwaʼti ‘now’ for the progressive when they refer to an action that takes place at the time of speaking.

Another cue that was found helpful in isolating the right aspect marker is the flow of the story in the case of the narratives. Understanding the story and the general context make it easier to isolate the right marker. In some cases, the translations provided with the transcribed texts were helpful; nevertheless, these translations were not taken for granted. I noticed that sometimes these translations do not pay attention to the structures and only give a rendering of the general ideas of the stories. In other times the Arabic structures were translated to the parallel equivalent in the translation language (usually English or German). Consider the following explanation provided by Spitta-Bey about one of the functions of b- in Cairene Arabic in the 19th C. (1880: 340-1):

Die unvollendete Handlung in der Vergangenheit, daher unser beschreibendes Imperfectum The unfinished action in the past, hence our descriptive imperfect.

In other words, grammatical equivalents are used in translating, a practice that does not always reflect nuances in usage. (A commonly-heard example of nuance in usage is the tendency of German speakers to use the present perfect when they speak 62

English according to the usage of the corresponding German aspect.) This denotes that the translations sometimes could alter the actual function of the verb in the translated version in order to approximate the meaning to the nearest equivalent in the translation language.

After identifying all the markers in the corpus, they are labeled according to their function. The functions are identified here as habitual and progressive. Then, all the instances will be categorized according to their forms to see if it is possible to map the forms and the functions and if there are is overlapping between these two categories. When applicable, the constraints of structures for every form in every dialect are listed, and these constraints will be explored later in the diachronic analysis.

1.5.2 The diachronic analysis

The last step in the synchronic analysis section serves as the introduction to the diachronic analysis. The identification of the synchronic use of aspectual markers solves half of the puzzle, while the second half resides in the diachronic identification of the aspectual markers. Since this type of research is challenged by the lack of historical documentation, any piece of information about the historical marking of aspect is considered for this research. This includes grammarians’ notes about the historical aspectual markers and their functions. Where possible, the texts provided in the appendices of some of these works are analyzed (e.g., Spitta-Bay, 1880).

After collecting and presenting the available data about the use of aspect in Arabic dialects historically, these usages are analyzed in light of some of the major historical events that took place in the region and times and places of sustained contact between speakers of different dialects. This step is important as it facilitates a better understanding of the historical distribution of the aspectual markers. At this stage, the data collected from the synchronic analysis are mapped with the findings from historical research in order to analyze the possible development paths and the source form(s) for each current aspectual marker in every dialect. This does not require us to decide that any of the speculated paths is only possible pathway. As noted earlier, the scarce documentation of Arabic historically makes it unfeasible to make any speculations about 63

the progress of structures with complete certainty. Therefore, all the possible proposals of developmental paths are presented, and each of these proposals is supported by reasons to justify them.

The proposals presented in this research do not support the probable influence of internal factors over external ones or vice versa in all cases of change. The practice of preferring one factor to the other without examining other possibilities is attested in the literature. Poplack and Levey claim that the majority of cases of language variation in bilingual communities are explained as contact-induced changes (2010: 398). This unfounded judgment overlooks the possibility “that the inherent variability characteristic of all spoken language may have been mistaken for change” (ibid: 391). This action is influenced by a number of factors: the first is the researcher’s preference for single- modal approaches where she has to prove the existence of the change due to either internal or external factors in all cases of change; the second reason is the researchers neglect of non-linguistic factors, such as socio-historical factors, or extra-linguistic factors, such as pragmatics, which makes contact-induced change the only conceivable explanation. In order to avoid these pitfalls, this study examines both internal and external factors. Therefore, the possibilities of development for every form in every dialect are examined as being either internally or externally induced or subject to a combination of the two factors. Thus, the existence of aspectual forms in Arabic dialects is the result of:

a) external factors, such as contact, or

b) internal factors, such as grammaticalization, or

c) a combination of (a) and (b), such as contact-induced grammaticalization.

Each of these factors is identified by the parameters that are listed in the methods described in the literature of each factor. The analysis begins by testing for external factors since I expect these factors to show more tangible traces of borrowing compared to other factors. The only way to explain the existence of the form as a result of contact is, first, by comparing historical usages and contact history. The criteria mentioned 64

above by Poplack and Levey (2010: 398) will be applied to test for external factors. Their methodology is repeated here for the reader’s convenience.

A candidate for contact-induced change in a contact variety is present in the presumed source variety and either 1) absent in the pre-contact or non-contact variety, or 2) if present (e.g., through interlingual coincidence), is not conditioned in the same way as in the source, and 3) can also be shown to parallel in some non-trivial way the behavior of a counterpart feature in the source.

Another layer of testing for borrowing due to contact will also be applied. If we know that the dialect under examination came in contact with another dialect that has the same form, then we should compare the two aspect forms. If the forms and functions are identical and there is no areal continuity between the two dialects, then we have strong evidence that borrowing has taken place. The only task left here is to ensure that the presence of the aspectual form is not due to coincidence or other internal factors such as reanalysis or analogy. If the forms are different and functions are identical, then we could speculate that the form has emerged in the dialect under examination by means of b) or c) above, i.e. internal factors or a combination of external and internal factors, respectively. In case that the two dialects in contact are continuous, we can argue for areal diffusion, which is also contact-induced change, only on a larger scale. In this case, Poplack and Levey’s methodology will be used as the only way to confirm speculations in favor of contact-induced change.

Internal factors such as grammaticalization will also be tested in parallel with the external factors. The mechanisms that characterize grammaticalization in the literature are provided as the parameters that are used in this research to test for grammaticalization. These mechanisms are:

e) semantic bleaching (or desemanticization): loss in content meaning,

f) context extension: use in new contexts,

g) decategorialization: loss of characteristic morphosyntactic properties, and

h) erosion (or phonetic reduction): loss in phonetic substance. (Heine &

Narrog, 2015).

In order to test for these mechanisms, we need to compare the forms that are currently in use with the historical forms that are given as the source forms for every claimed grammaticalization path. I will only compare the source with the current form in case no evidence is available for the forms that are used in the transition stages. If it is attested that the same dialect has different synchronic forms, then these forms will be compared in light of the grammaticalization mechanisms to see if one or more forms have undergone grammaticalization.

At this point in the analysis, I expect the results to vary between contact-induced change and grammaticalization. If some forms show a clear case of grammaticalization and we know that contact with other dialects that have the same form or function of the marker has happened in the past, then we can test for hypothesis (c) above, i.e., contact- induced grammaticalization. If it turns out that the form has probably emerged independently without copying the form of another dialect, then we can argue for a case of ordinary contact-induced grammaticalization. If the mechanism of grammaticalization in the other ‘model’ dialect is copied in the replica dialect, then we have a case of replica contact-induced grammaticalization. As mentioned in section (1.4.3), the only way to mark the line between these two types of contact-induced grammaticalization is by examining the transition stages – mainly stage (c) in section (1.4.3), presented here for the reader’s convenience.

Ordinary contact-induced grammaticalization:

c. Speakers of R develop Rx using construction Ry by drawing on universal strategies of grammaticalization.

Replica contact-induced grammaticalization:

c. Speakers of R replicate a grammaticalization process they assume to have taken place in language M, using an analogical formula of the kind [My > Mx]: [Ry > Rx].

If we do not have historical evidence from this stage – stage (c), no speculations

can be made about the specific type of contact-induced grammaticalization.

Finally, the attested synchronic forms will be placed on a map in order to demonstrate their distribution. This distribution will be compared to the results of the diachronic analysis so far: source and path of development for each form. We expect one of the following arguments to take place for every isogloss of markers:

1. The areal concentrated current forms on the map

a. show different etymons suggesting that we have:

i. a case of contact-induced change. Unless there is strong evidence for grammaticalization in this area, we can argue for structural borrowing

ii. If we see strong evidence of grammaticalization, then we have a clear case of contact-induced grammaticalization.

2. If the distribution of the forms is arbitrary

a. If we do not have evidence for contact, then we argue for grammaticalization

b. If we know that contact has taken place with a dialect that has

i. similar form, then we can argue for borrowing

ii. different form, then we can argue for contact-induced grammaticalization.

As mentioned earlier, this study is hindered by the dearth of historical linguistic documentation for the majority of the history of Arabic language. Any speculations made herein are based on collecting and analyzing as much contextualized data as possible, little as that may be. It is a huge challenge for any researcher to embark on historical research about Arabic language with the intention to find definite answers. Doubt and speculations are inevitable in this research, and I have tried, to the best of my knowledge, to collect all the available resources and analyze them in light of the latest linguistic apparatus. Sections three and four will reveal how the different methodologies

applied in this study can serve the research of Arabic language.

Chapter Two

Cross-dialectal analysis of durative markers in modern spoken Arabic

2.1 Introduction

In the majority of spoken Arabic dialects, the morphological marking of the imperfective carries temporal, modal or aspectual meanings. Versteegh has shown that modal endings in Classical Arabic are not actually related to modal marking in spoken varieties (Versteegh, 1997:108). This suggests that researchers should not assume the existence or use of dialectal grammatical forms based on their realization in Classical Arabic. Durative aspect is a grammatical domain that is neglected in Arabic studies due to the lack of durative aspectual morphological marking in Classical Arabic. This study attempts to fill our knowledge gap in spoken Arabic aspect by exploring the aspectual forms and functions as they occur in context. This chapter provides cross-dialectal synchronic analysis of aspectual forms that are attested in the majority of Arabic dialects.

An examination of the semantics of imperfective marking should be made with a caveat for several reasons; the first is that the distinction between the different aspects or moods conveyed by the different verbal inflections can be fine and meanings can overlap. It is possible that a single instance of a verbal inflection could be polysemous, i.e. have more than one aspectual reading besides its modal or temporal functions. The second challenge in examining the functions of imperfective inflections resides in the fact that speakers sometimes find other non-morphological ways to express the same meaning of the aspect marker. For instance, the participle has been shown to express the progressivity of certain kinds of action (especially motion) as one of its main functions in the dialects (Brustad, 2000:169), besides its other primarily resultative function. The following elicited sentences from Saudi Arabic express motion in two different ways, yet they share progressive meaning.

iḥna māšīn li-l-masjid alḥīn We [are] on our way to the mosque gāʻidīn yimšūn ʻala nafs il-ḫaṭṭ min iṣ-ṣubḥ They have been driving on the same road since the morning

Another unfortunate challenge that any researcher of Arabic faces is a lack of contextualized documentation. The majority of works related to aspect and mood in Arabic are descriptive and are based on morphological patterns and lexical forms more than the functions of these forms. Examining these forms in isolation from their respective contextual environments does not provide a satisfactory basis for the analysis of the nuances in their meanings and functions.

In this chapter, I will examine the marked forms of the imperfective in the majority of documented Arabic dialects and explain the syntactic and semantic distribution of these forms. These will be analyzed according to apparent etymological roots of common markers and the contextualized use will be examined in every dialect to the fullest extent possible. Only through context are we able to assign the semantic category of the form. Also, and as stated earlier, it is not possible to assign a single meaning to every form, since there is an overlap between mood, aspect and tense in the use of these forms. When the context allows it, the different meanings will be provided.

In the following sections, the progressive and habitual markers are examined in groups according to their lexical source. Each section lists all the dialects that have the same lexical root as a durative marker with the specific functions of each.

Functions of gʻd and jls ‘to sit’ as durative markers

Map 1 shows all the dialects that have different reflexes of the durative marker gʻd. There are several phonological variants of this marker, such as gʻd, qʻd, and ʼʻd9. The map illustrates the widespread distribution of this durative marker.

9 The phonological variation is due to historical processes that led to different realizations of the Old Arabic /q/ in different regions. 70

Map 1: The distribution of gʻd reflexes in spoken Arabic dialects

The progressive markers that are coined from the root gʻd are the most common across the Arabic speaking world. Although we do not have complete information about the use of progressive markers in all spoken dialects, it looks like gʻd functions as an urban form in some dialects, whereas it is considered a more rural form in others. It thus emerges as one of only three progressive markers that sit at the crossroads of dialect contact (and as such will be analyzed in Chapter Four). In situations of dialect contact, speakers use it to accommodate their speech in different ways. In parts of the Arabian Peninsula, for example, speakers of minority or marginalized dialects use gʻd to accommodate their speech to more urban forms.

The participle gāʻid, or the verbs in the perfective stem gaʻad, and imperfective stem yigʻ(u/a)d can all occur before imperfective verbs to impart to them the meaning of continuity of an action or a state. The progressive marker in any form can also, in some dialects, occur before participles of stative verbs to give the meaning ‘to remain’ which indicates the ideas of continuity and progressivity of a certain state. Since the differences 71

in usage among the participle, perfective and imperfective forms are not always clear due to the dearth of examples, I will refer to the durative marker in any stem as gʻd unless it is clear from the examples that there is significant difference related to the core meaning of the durative form.

2.2 gʻd in dialects with no habitual marking

In the majority of the dialects spoken in the Arabian Peninsula outside the Hijaz and parts of Iraq the indicative in the habitual aspect is unmarked. The progressive is marked with forms of gʻd. The marking of the progressive with gʻd is also attested in Wādi Ḥaḍramawt in Yemen, which is possibly the only place in Yemen that has gʻd marker.

In Peninsular Arabic, gaʻad is used to refer to an action or a state that took place in the past for an extended period of time. The continuity of the action or state is expressed by using the progressive form gaʻad before the main verb and the tense is indicated by using the perfect form of the marker. yagʻid also indicates continuity of the action or state, but the tense assigned to the action or state is different. Thus, gaʻad in these dialects is both an aspectual and temporal marker. The following example is cited in Kuwaiti Arabic10.

gabel mḥallil syāsy gāʻ iygūl ʼaṣlan wla dawlah ʻarabyyah fakkarat itḥarrir li-kwēt In the past, a political analyst said [lit. is saying] that no Arab country considered liberating Kuwait.

In Iraqi Arabic, the form of the progressive marker carries communal meanings besides its semantic values. Baghdadi Muslims use gāʿid/qāʿid, and da- while Christian and Jewish Iraqis use qa(d)- (Blanc, 1964; Fischer and Jastrow, 1980: 154).

iṭṭuyūr min ǧinsa, min šakla w-da-yḥuṭṭin ʻala nġīṭa. wliʼaǧal halbaʻīd halgawwād hāḏa da-yṣīdhin da-yṣīdhin. Of the birds after their kind, their peers, and they fall if he attracts. And thanks to

10 https://web.archive.org/web/20170330042719/http://www.q8yat.com/t1014727-12.html 72

that damn pimp as he chases them, he chases them. (Denz and Edzard, 1966: 69).

In Iraqi Arabic, sometimes the use of the verb gaʻad also signifies the commencement of action or state (inceptive) besides continuity (progressive).

giʻdat tākil She has started to eat (Mahdi, 1985: 224).

We do not know of any other form or dialect that has this function for similar posture verbs. Actually, the relationship between the perfective giʻad in this usage is fully consistent with the use of the participle gāʻid aspectually. This means that the perfective expresses a point of entry into the state, while the participle expresses the resultant state.

One of the cases that prove the importance of context in analyzing markers is the case of da- in Iraqi. This marker is also given with the imperfective to mark intention11 (Denz and Edzard, 1966: 71). The only way to distinguish between progressive and intentive da- is through context. Compare the intentive structure daḥčīlak in the following example with the previous one:

šbīha, būya, ǧǧrīda, baʻd bass rūḥ mā ygudrūn yiḫluqūn, ugʻud d-aḥčīlak šbīha What is already there in the papers, Dad, a soul they cannot yet create (?). Here, sit down, I'll tell you what it says12.

Similarly, in one of the Baḥārna rural dialects d- marks progressive and habitual aspects (EALL, “Bahraini Arabic”: 1-246).

kil mā bēn ṯalāṯat šuhūr d-yišrabha he would drink it every three months

11 Possibly related to the intentive form ta- attested in many Levantine and qəltu dialects. 12 The German translation gives ‘I want to tell you what it says’, which is an intentional expression. 73

The same meaning of progressivity is found in some areas along the Iraqi-Syrian border, specifically in the qəltu dialect cluster13 spoken in Khawētna (54 km east of Al- Ḥasaka in northeastern Syria) (Talay, 1999: 182):

qēʻid yəsḥabōn b-əddalw wasax w ykəbbōn barra They keep pulling the dirt with the leather bucket up and throw it outside.

Besides the progressivity and continuity of the action, the idea of entry into state is implied in the meaning (ibid).

ahli šakku, ənnu darāhəm qēʻid tənbāq my parents noticed that money is [being] stolen.

The expression qēʻid tənbāq implies that the state of losing money has started and is still ongoing. This interpretation is possible if we think of the progressive as an aspect that is concerned with continuation of an action, implying its onset, but denying it an endpoint. It is possible that since the action explains the midpoint it might as well include the entering point, but not necessarily the end point.

The two examples show that the form qēʻid in this dialect is uninflected, which means that the form has reached an advanced stage in the grammaticalization path, i.e. decategorization. The progressive form is uninflected for number in the first example and for gender in the second example.

The same structure indicates the persistence of the action regardless of its starting point. Using the expressions la ḥadd əlʼān ‘until today’ (but not stopping today) in the following example shows that the action has taken place sometime in the past and there is a level of persistence in performing it (ibid).

la ḥadd əlʼān qēʻid yəxbəzōn ləčʼēč ʼat-ttannūr until today they bake the biscuits in the Tannur oven.

13 The term dichotomy of qəltu-gilit was coined by Blanc in his pioneer work on Baghdadi Arabic. This dichotomy is represented in all the dialects that are spoken in Mesopotamia. 74

The use of the particle gʻd to mark the meaning of persistence is also attested in modern Lebanese (Al-Batal, personal communication).

In Qašqa Darya, a dialect of Uzbekistani Arabic, the progressive is marked by placing the participle gāʻed after the imperfective (Jastrow, 2014: 210).

ǧuhūd kin-yiʻayyin-i gāʻed 14 The Jew was looking

Jastrow reports that this dialect does not mark general present, which possibly includes habitual in his terminology (2014). However, no contextualized examples for the habitual are reported.

In Egyptian Arabic, the use of qāʿid is attested in texts dated back to the 17th C. (Davis, 1981; Zack, 2009:111). Of note here is that the marker qāʿid here precedes participle and not imperfective. However, it conveys the continuity of the state that the stative participle indicates:

fulān qāʿid musahhim so-and-so is frowning

The same function and use is still found, though rare, in modern Egyptian15.

[ta]ḥiyyah l-kull maṣri ʻabqari ʼāʻid mitannaḥ ʼuddām il-qana l-maṣriyyah salute to every Egyptian who is staring [lit. sitting and distracted] at the Egyptian first channel.

14 Jastrow explains that this dialect has a “parasitic” –i that occurs before the progressive marker. If it is true that this –i occurs in all cases of progressive sentences, it would be important to examine its source in order to understand how the progressive has developed in this dialect. However, it is also not clear if this –i is attached to the progressive marker and therefore part of it, or if it is attached to the imperfective and considered as part of the progressive construction in this dialect (imperf-i prog. or imperf i-prog). The only way to tell the difference is to find examples with possible modifiers between the imperfective and the progressive form. However, no examples that yield conclusions about this structure could be found. 15https://ar-ar.facebook.com/nation.heart/posts/710171622332434 75

The most common use for the form gʿd in modern Egyptian is before imperfectives, which represents the aspectual structure of progressive (Brustad: 389):

hiyya daxalit daxalit li-ḥadd ʻand iṭ-ṭabla, miš ʻarfa tʻaddi f-ʼaʻda tixbaṭ fī ṭablit widni ʻašān tiʻaddi tikammil baʼa l-mišwār bitaʻha It entered, entered until the [ear]drum, [it] couldn’t pass and it was sitting [there] hitting at my eardrum in order to pass and finish its journey.

It is possible that the 17th C. form in Egyptian represents an earlier phase in the grammaticalization of the form where the postural meaning is still primary but the notion of stativity is introduced by using this verb before stative participles. The same function is attested in Nigerian Arabic for the root gʿd. Consider the following examples from Nigerian Arabic (Kaye, 1993).

ʼassulṭān wāsa leyya bakān haw gaʻat murajjihum The sultan got the place ready and sat waiting for them (ibid: 182). ligīta gāʻit rāgit fi beta I found him sitting – lying down in his house (ibid: 186).

gʿd is also attested in Sudanese as a progressive marker (Spencer, 1939; EALL “Sudan”: 379).

qāʿid … fi is attested in Tunisian Arabic (Saddour, 2011) and the postverbal marker fi alone is considered as the base of the progressive aspect only if a direct object complement follows. That means that the preverbal marker is optional whereas the retention of fi is obligatory in certain syntactic contexts to express progressivity. The postverbal marker that stands as the basic element in the aspectual structure is interpreted by Saddour to be a preposition of location (2011). In fact, the preposition in the Tunisian durative structure is not different from the same preposition that expresses persistence/continuous meaning and found in many Arabic dialects. Consider the following example from Saudi Arabic:

gāʻdīn nʻallim fīk min iṣ -ṣubḥ w-la int rāḏ̣y tifham

We’ve been teaching you since the morning and you don’t seem to understand.

This structure is analyzed in detail in section (1.3.1.2.1).

The progressive gʿd is attested in Benghazi Arabic spoken in Libya16. This form is fully inflected and appears in the imperfective, perfect and participle form (Benkato, 2014: 82).

gāʿid nākəl, nā! I am eating!

qā- is attested in the Jewish dialects of Tripoli in Libya and Tunis (Yoda, 2005:193). In these two dialects, qa is attached to the beginning of the imperfective to indicate the progressive. However, no contextualized examples are provided for the use of this marker in any of these dialects.

In Maltese, the form ʾiyed is used to mark progressivity and it is often shortened to ʾed. In some parts of Malta, qiyed is used and it is shortened to qed and also kiyed/gieyed are attested and are shortened to ked (Comrie, 1991; Sutcliffe, 1960).

qed jikteb He is writing (Comrie, 1991: 11).

Progressive gʻd is also documented in Chadian, but in this variety b- is always attached to the following imperfective after the progressive (Roth, 1979: 48).

ana mašēt fi zerʼi ligīta wiledak gāid biterib I went to my field I found your son sowing.

Another reduced reflex of the progressive marker gʻd is attested in Juba Arabic, an Arabic pidgin spoken in South Sudan (Manfredi and Petrollino, 2013). This variety marks indicative aspect with ge-. The descriptions of Juba Arabic ge- are contained

16 Besides its function as a progressive marker in Benghazi Arabic spoken in Libya, gāʿid has a copular and inchoative function (Benkato, 2014: 81). 77

within the system of verbal markers as a whole, rather than independently, in order to show that this language is in accordance with universal pidgin systems. Thus, the function of this marker is compared with the functions of the two other TAM markers, káan and bi. The three are labeled as káan = ”anterior”, bi = “irrealis” and ge- = “non- punctual” (Tosco, 1995; Owens, 1980, 1991; Miller, 1989). However, using the term “non-punctual” to explain the functions of ge- is problematic, because the term is vague and does not allow us to distinguish between various kinds of indicative. Based on the examples provided, ge- is considered here an indicative marker that is attached to the imperfective to indicate habitual and progressive aspects.

Habitual: ána ge-ágra árabi I study Arabic Progressive: ána ge-rówa juba I’m going to Juba

Related to this form is a similar one found in Ki-Nubi, an Arabic-based creole spoken in Eastern Africa. The use of this form is similar to ge- in Juba Arabic (Tosco, 1995). Consider the following example (Hein, 1982: 52).

abín to-ùmon gí abínú júa ta turáa, fóo building their PROG build house of mud, above Concerning architecture, they build mud houses.

2.2.1 Discussion

The vast distribution of gʻd and its shortened variants is presumably due to several factors -such as historical and social- that led to its use in many dialects. It also reveals that in some cases social factors such as prestige and religion play a major role in selecting the forms that reflect the aspect system. Speakers of some dialects prefer gʻd over local forms for social purposes, while others move in the opposite direction. These situations are governed by the forms used in the urban centers close to these dialects. 78

2.3 jls

The progressive marker jls is obviously related to gʻd semantically- both verbs means 'to sit', and this relationship will be explored further in Chapter Four.

The progressive marker jls is attested in Ṣanʻā and other scattered areas of Yemen. jss is a variant of this marker that is usually cited in narrative texts and is more common in natural speech. This marker occurs in the imperfective form yijlis (yjiss); this indicates that the form is at an early stage of grammaticalization where it has not been decategorialized.

ḫalāṣ agḍaʻ taḏkirih w-ajiss arayyiʻ la-s-sāʻah sitt Okay, I buy a ticket and I keep waiting [lit. sit and wait] until six o’clock. (Watson and al-ʻAmri, 2000: 98)

What is interesting about this marker is that the participle CāCiC that is found in gāʻid dialects is missing, and the form jiss is used whereas the participle is expected compared to the other dialects. This could mean that this form is slightly less stative than gāʻid. Consider the following example.

ʻindamā šāhadt al-jamal ġarr jiss bi-dūr bi-dūr bi-dūr fī maḥallih when I saw the camel going round and round and round in its spot (Watson and al-ʻAmri, 2000: 46)

jls as a progressive marker is also found in many modern varieties in the rest of the Peninsula where, unlike Yemeni Arabic, this verb can be used in the participle in addition to the imperfective and the perfective stems to give a verb progressive meaning. It is important to note that this marker coexists with gāʻid in many of these varieties; however, we do not have any information about the variation patterns or the exact distribution of this marker. We also lack the descriptions that would help us understand if the variation between the two coexisting markers has any sociolinguistic or historical factors. Anecdotal evidence suggests that jālis/jālsa/jālsĭn is used by some speakers in the Peninsula to distance themselves from the Bedouin persona associated with the other 79

durative gʻd.

2.4 nwm/qwm

The progressive in the dialect of Bukhara where Uzbekistani Arabic is spoken is m(ī)-+ imperfective + nāyim/qōyem, whereas the habitual consists of m(ī)+ imperfective. The prefix mī- resembles in function the Levantine habitual b- that sometimes occurs after the progressive ʻam. The discussion of the history of nāyim ‘sleeping’ and qōyem ‘standing’ as progressive marker is important for the discussion of the grammaticalization trends in Arabic dialects, which will be analyzed in detail in Chapter Four.

2.5 kwn

There are different forms attested in different dialects that are believed to develop from the lexical root kwn, and these are ka-, kū-, ku-, and ki-.

kan- is given by Borg (1985: 76) as a “habitual or progressive past” in Cypriot Arabic, a dialect that has the indicative marker p(i)-. This sounds familiar, because this kan- is not different from the one used in many other Arabic dialects. However, what is especially interesting about Cypriot Arabic is that the marker p(i)- does not occur before the imperfective where one expects it to happen if kan- is provided. This is the same as many Levantine dialects, and this distinguishes them from western dialects, such as Egyptian and Moroccan (Brustad, 2000). It seems that the aspectual value of durative p(i)- is fused in the tense marker kan-.

d-dinye kulla kan-tiǧri oxar āwnke oxar āwna. ōxar kanaʻāytu, miskon fāzaʻa. mā- kayyāʻrifu aš tesāw. (Borg, 1985:173) everybody was running about this way and that. Some people were shouting; fear seized them (and) they did not know what to do.

Thus, we can argue that the Cypriot kan is in fact a temporal verb that does not function as an aspect marker on its own.

2.5.1 Maghrebi kv-

Moroccan dialects use ka- as an indicative marker (Brustad, 2000: 234). Another preverbal form related to ka- is ta-. This one also has the same functions as ka-. It is explained as a regional variant of ka- that is more common towards the center and the southern part of Morocco (Brustad, 2000:234; Heath, 2002).

ka-, and equally ta-, marks what Vanhove et al. refer to as the “real imperfective” (2009: 12). This imperfective includes habitual and general truths, repetition and progressive. Therefore, we can argue that Moroccan Arabic does not distinguish morphologically between habitual and progressive aspects.

Habitual: ḥāǧīt-lək ʻal waḥd r-rāǧəl ʻndu l-mra ta-təwləd ġī[r] l-bnāt, mā ʻndhāš l-wəld (Brustad: 380) I tell you a story about a man whose wife bears only girls; she has no son. Progressive: n-nās mā ka-tfəhəmš baʻḍha, mā ka-tfhəmšay w ka-t -- l-āxur ka-yākul hna, l- āxur ka-yākul l-kuwwar, l-āxur ka-ysəyyəb z-zbəl hna, l-āxur ka-ynʻas bw-uḥdu (Brustad: 383) people don’t understand each other, they don’t understand at all, and they – the other [person] eats over here, the other one eats watermelon, the other one throws trash here, the other one is lying down by himself.

Vanhove et al. have suggested that the lack of the preverbal form before imperfective is due to syntactic dependency or modal functions (2009). Brustad proposes the modal value as represented by the potentiality of the action, specified as subjunctive, unrealized actions.

2.5.2 kū-

Jastrow records that kū- acts as a present tense marker in the Jewish dialects spoken in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the Arabic dialects spoken in Anatolia, Southeastern Turkey, known collectively as qəltu dialects (2006a: 423). Tracking the aspect markers in these dialects can be sometimes challenging as there are different

forms that look the same lexically (kv-), but they all have different semantic functions that can be best understood by examining the context. Some researchers rely on vowel variation alone to determine the exact meaning of the form --see Talay’s translation of kī- below-- but the vowel cue in the majority of these forms is tricky as it can be sometimes affected by the first phoneme of the verbal inflection in the following verb. Consider the following examples from Jastrow’s data for Jewish ʻAqra located in Iraqi Kurdistan (2006a: 423).

aš kū-trīd? what do you want? kō-qəllək (

Now we should compare the vowel in kv- in the previous examples with the following example. This text is extracted from a story given by a Jew residing in Jerusalem who is originally from Səndōr, a small village in northern Iraq that is fairly close to ʻAqra, where kū- is used as an imperfective marker (Jastrow, 1993:162). The speaker pauses while narrating a story to explain what they usually do on Saturdays.

hāk əlyōm kəlla lənhār, kə-təmši əlmənḥā kə-tṣalli. kə-təǧi, xalləṣna That day all day long, you go to the afternoon prayer and pray, and then you come back. That’s it!

Lexically, this form resembles another form that seems to mark the perfect aspect. For instance, Jastrow (1993: 170) gives the following example.

qallətlu Sīso qərbānək, əbni Yōsēf mā-ǧā. qalla ayn kū-məši? She said to him, “Siso, I beg you, my son Yōsēf has not returned.” He asked, “Where could he have gone?”

In this last example kū- is a perfect marker probably developed from *yakūn. This explanation is supported by the use of the verb məši in the perfective form vs. the imperfective yimši that is used in the durative structure. The explanation of the 82

development of this form kū from yakūn can be paralleled with Moroccan irrealis conditional (kun < *yakūn), where the inflection has been lost.

Another example comes from the same text where the full form of kān is in use in the conclusion of the story. In this context, the full form is used before the imperfective. The transition from the perfect to the imperfective indicates that the storyteller wants to draw the attention from the fact that the actions in the story are complete and have taken place in the past to the fact that they used to happen frequently. In other words, the perfect form heightens ‘relevance to the moment of speaking’ while the imperfective describes the non-completeness of the process (Brustad, 2000: 172).

haḏī b-xāli kū-ṣārət. kəlla kū-ṣāru ʻəddna, kān yṣīrūn (Jastrow, 1993:172). this [story] has happened to my uncle. All of it has happened with us, used to happen.

The same text has another example that shows the use of kān in a compound verbal structure (Jastrow, 1993:166).

marḥūm ʻammi kān ykūn ʻəndu kān yəmši l-ʻəndu. My late uncle used to go to him [lit. used to be at his place]; used to walk to [his place].

The sequence of kān here shows that the first one is a tense marker that frames the action in the past. The second kān acts as the finite verb and is given in the imperfective form to indicate, together with the temporal verb kān, the aspect meaning of habitual. This exact use of kān is attested in other qəltu dialects that are spoken in Christian towns on the Syrian-Turkish border. The dialects exhibit the use of uninflected kān before imperfective (Isaksson and Lahdo, 2002). This use of the uninflected kān is also attested in some of the modern dialects of south Egypt (Schroepfer, 2017).

Jastrow claims that some Anatolian dialects do not mark for aspect--he gives Mardin Arabic as an example--but the majority of these dialects have kū- to mark the progressive aspect alone while the habitual remains unmarked (1978, 1980, 2006a,

2013).17 Consider the following example from his data in Fəsken, Siirt:

Habitual: amma kəs-sane mō yəǧi falǧ. snīn yəǧ falǧ snīn mō yəǧi (Jastrow, 1980: 170) But it doesn’t snow every year. Some years it snows some years it doesn’t. Progressive: Ṭalləḥtu, fī mōvaḥ īllūlu bayn əṭṭarīqayn, fī raššahiye kū-təǧi əšem təʻdi āk ərraššahiye hama yəʻdi w yəǧi āke (Jastrow, 1980: 171) There is a place called "the two ways"; [there], I saw a shadow approaching. How is this shadow! He ran and came close.

However, a more recent documentation of the dialect of Hasköy (Dēr-Khāṣ) in east Anatolia, Turkey, a dialect spoken by a majority of Muslim Arabs, shows that this dialect exhibits the use of kī-/kə as a habitual marker, but not progressive (Talay, 2002). In the following sentence, kī marks the habitual. The speaker clearly contrasts the current habits of snow with those of the past. The 3rd m.sg. imperfective yi- prefix is affected by the preceding the vowel (ibid: 47).

yaʻni mamlakat lē ṣōbna, arbaʻ šhūr šalǧ kī-səbb, zamān qədmēni šalǧ bōš kī- səbb, amma ssaʻane, šalǧ kəma qəddām mā baġa That is, in the areas around us it's been snowing for four months. At earlier times it used to snow heavily. But now there is not as much snow as earlier (my translation).

In contrast, the progressive aspect in the next example has no prefix:

qāle, lāwo, qāle, šī āksa māfi, qultu, dāde, ʻanəni, mō–tīq ānam, ʻanəni īwaǧǧaʻūni, mō–rəf šəne āsi. (p. 57) She said, “but my child, such a thing does not exist”. I said, “Mom, my eyes [hurt], I can’t sleep, my eyes hurt, I don’t know what to do.”

It is important to mention here that Talay does not consider this kī- to be an aspect marker. Rather, he gives the conjunction ‘that’ in the glossary as the translation for kī-,

17 Jastrow (2006a: 109) refers to habitual and gnomic as ‘general present’ and progressive as ‘present continues’. 84

and ‘as’ for kə-. Yet, the translation provided in German for the verb kīsəbb in the first example is ‘schneit es’, which supports my interpretation that this kī- is an aspect marker. Moreover, the second verb kīsəbb is headed by the adverb bōš ‘very’. We would expect the adverb to occur after the conjunction here if we assume that kī- is actually a conjunction, but the fact that kī- is not separated from the verb by the adverb further corroborates this interpretation.

The two dialects represented above are both considered Anatolian. Yet, Anatolian dialects show great diversity for myriad reasons, because geographical, historical, communal and social factors have all acted together in shaping the linguistic diversity within this province. Jastrow (1978, 2006b) designed a scheme to categorize and group many of the Arabic dialects spoken in this area according to their shared linguistic features. The two dialects mentioned above belong to two different groups: Hasköy (Dēr-Khāṣ), according to Talay, belongs to Sason dialects group and Fəsken, Siirt, according to Jastrow, belongs to Siirt dialects group. This grouping could explain the difference in the aspect marking in the two dialects. Unfortunately, we do not have any information about the historical events or contacts that led to the split and subsequent emergence of these groups.

A historical use of the kv- can be traced back to the 12th C. in Andalusian texts (Corriente, 2013). The syntactic use of this prefix resembles the current use found in Moroccan Arabic. It can be found in an inflected form for person (kin+1st person/kit+2nd person/ka-+3rd person). However, unlike current dialects that use this marker for the indicative, this prefix in Andalusian is claimed to mark eventuality (EALL, “Andalusi Arabic”: 110), a function claimed by Corriente besides the subjunctive. He provides the following example for the eventual, subjunctive meaning:

kin-nizūrak wa-innamā ṯam ʻilal (ibid: 111) I would visit you, but there are reasons [preventing it].

Corriente also proposes the aspectual meaning of durativity for this marker. Consider the following examples.

kin-nasʼal allah an yubqīk (2013: 112) I pray God to lengthen your life

The eventual and subjunctive in the first example could be better interpreted as conditional with kān; thus, we can read it as I should visit you, but there are reasons [preventing it].

From this discussion, the available data from Andalusian suggests that the durative form in this variety is not different in function from the Moroccan from. As for the vowel variation between the Moroccan and Andalusian, Chapter Four discusses the source and the development for each form that led to this vowel difference.

Finally, it is worth noting that syntactic restrictions on the aspect marker kv- are few, at least according to the limited set of data we have. In fact, the only restriction to emerge so far is that the eastern dialects do not allow the use of kū- in sentences headed by temporal verbs other than kān, and section (2.8.1.1) shows the same restriction in Cairene Arabic. Consider the following example.

qāmu yəmšawn əlkalak ələḥǧār, hūwe kū fə … they began to walk to the cairn, there was a …

The Western ones, in particular Moroccan, do not have this restriction on ka-. The following example is taken from Moroccan (Brustad, 2000: 216)

ka-ybqa yqūl ši kəlma qbīḥa He keeps saying some nasty word

Djidjelli Algerian Arabic is reported to show vowel variation in the durative marker. This dialect has ku- for the 1st and 2nd person whereas the 3rd person takes ka-. We do not have any other reports for this vowel variation in any other Maghrebi dialects.

2.6 ʻml and its shortened forms

The particle ʻammāl and its several shortened forms are attested throughout the Levant as far north as the Turkish borders (Isaksson and Lahdo, 2002) and Egypt. However, the semantic meanings associated with this form are not exactly the same in every dialect. For instance, this form is attested in Egyptian Arabic as an intensifying progressive marker (Brustad, 2000: 247), and this intensifying function is not prominent in modern Levantine dialects though it is attested in a letter written in late 19th C. Beirut.

In Palestinian Arabic, the full form is still in use, although sometimes speakers tend to use the shortened form ʻam- (Seeger: 487 lists both the long form and the short form in Palestinian Arabic). It is reported that the particle ʻammāl in Egyptian and Palestinian show subject agreements and it can be conjugated for number and person. Consider the following headline, taken from an Egyptian headline:

iḥna ʻammālīn niḥuṭṭ ʻala iš-šaʻb wi žašaʻ it-tužžār [or gašaʻ it-tuggār] ha- ydammar il-balad (Parlmany, Aug, 4, 2016) We are adding to the burden of the nation, and the merchants’ greed will destroy the country

it-televiziōn il-maṣrī kān mišaġġal ʼuġniyah waṭaniyyah l-šādyah ʻammālah tʼūl, “udḫulūha ʼāminīn udḫulūha sālimīn” wi-taḥt katbīn ʻājil tafžīr bi-l-haram. ḫallu šakl šadyah wiḥš ʼawy 18 The Egyptian TV had put a national song by Šādyah, saying, “Enter [Egypt] with peace and security”, and [in the news ticker] they wrote “breaking news: explosion in the pyramid [area]”. They put Šādyah in a very embarrassing situation.

18 https://goo.gl/LEsnM1 87

And the following example from Palestinian Arabic:

ʼawwal ma waṣal laʼā dallāl māsik ṣabiyyeh mitl il-ʼamar w-ʻammāl yiʼūl mīn yištry (Littmann, 1905: 53). When he arrived he found a slave trader holding a very beautiful girl [lit: like the moon] and saying, “who wants to buy?”

The same Palestinian texts use ʼāʻid for progressive (Littmann, 1902: 14):

baʻdēn bûfutū n-niswân bu-ʼuʻdū iġannū nyimbísṭū then women get inside and keep singing to enjoy themselves.

A letter from Butrus Al-Bustani19 in the 19th C. shows that the full formʻammāl was still in use in Lebanon at this time (cited in Brustad, forthcoming). The whole context of the letter reveals that he is following up with the recipient about the latest news in their community.

hum mabsūṭūn alʼān w-ilbāyin in iskandar ʻammāl yitraqqa They are fine now and it looks like Alexander continues to be/is still being promoted.

The semantic property of the lexical verb yitraqqa ‘being promoted’ does not categorize it as an action that requires repetition and durativity. Yet, its appearance in this context with ʻammāl suggests three possible meanings:

1) Alexander’s promotion is still ongoing and he has been promoted more than once and is expected to be promoted more in the future, so the focus is on the fact that he is doing progress;

2) The promotion is still processing at the moment of writing the letter. The

19 Butrus Al-Bustani is a Syrian nationalist who advocated the nationalism of the Greater Syria, an area that includes all of the Levant. 88

word il-bāyin ‘the obvious’ suggests that there are hints about the promotion but the actual promotion has not taken place yet;

3) The promotion is actually happening. The context makes space for speculations that both the sender and recipient were expecting the promotion.

If the first meaning is true, then we expect the function of ʻammāl in this context to be iterative, highlighting the iterativity and repetition of the action. Meaning (2), on the other hand, does not reflect repetitions, but progressivity of the action and the fact that it lasted for a considerable period of time and is still going at the time of writing. Meaning (3) suggests that this ʻammāl functions as an emphatic marker. Its main purpose is to intensify the action, which makes it semantically parallel to the English do ‘the promotion did happen’.

In the rest of the Levant, the shortened form ʻam from ʻammāl is more common, and other shortened forms are attested in parts of north Syria and north Lebanon such as mma and ma (Durand-Zuñiga, personal communication). Consider the following example, which is extracted from a text given by a Christian speaker from a village south of Aleppo:

hallaʼ ṣāyrīn il-banāt mma yṭannšu mā ʻād mma yihmmon yaʻni Now, girls have begun to pay no mind, they longer care, that is. (Brustad, 2000: 404).

The progressive marker ʻam used in the majority of Levantine dialects is in fact perceived as an urban form that speakers of some dialects, who originally have other particles for the progressive, adopt to accommodate their speech (Talay, 1999: 182, Brustad, 2000: 247). The examples of qēʻəd cited in Khawētna above are found in the same place where the following example is also found:

mō hiya əssabab, əssabab hannās ʻam tətballāna (Talay, 1999: 182) sie hat damit nichts zu tun, diese Leute sind es, die uns Schwierigkeiten machen [it is not her fault, these people are the ones making troubles for us].

Woidich (1996:13), Fischer and Jastrow (1980) and Behnstedt and Woidich (1985: Map 221) report a varying range of the shortened forms in Upper Egypt. These include ʻamma-, amma-, ʻa-, imm-, um-, ʻama-, ʻam-, maʻ-, ma- (Map 2). The following example is recently reported from a text recorded in Fayyūm in Upper Egypt:

ʼālūlu, “ma intāš ʻa… ʻamma tirkab iggaḥš” They said to him: “ You are not a… You’re riding the donkey (de Jong, 1996: 84).

The following map explains the distribution of these variants in Upper Egypt (Behnstedt and Woidich, 1985: Map 221).

Map 2: durative prefixes in Upper Egypt 90

The use of the prefix b- after ʻammāl or ʻam is optional in the dialects that have the two markers: ʻammāl or ʻam and b- (Brustad, 2000:247). This use of b- is restricted to the forms ʻammāl and ʻam20, therefore; the dialects that have the shortened forms mma- and ma- and have b- at their disposal as an indicative marker do not accept the b- prefix after the progressive marker. It is possible that this restriction is led by the speakers’ need to prevent homonymic clash between the progressive marker +optional b- and negative marker ma-+indicative b-. It is also possible that the allowance of b- in dialects that allow it represents an innovation that arose recently.

2.7 Other mv- durative forms outside the Levantine-Egyptian area

2.7.1 Shihry ma-

The use of the marker ma- is also recorded outside the Levantine-Egyptian area, in the southwestern Arabian Peninsula. However, we do not have any reason to believe that this marker descended from ʻammal because unlike in Egypt and the Levant, there is no trace of any other form. This prefix is cited in the Shihry variety of Arabic, spoken in a small area in southwest Saudi Arabia. However, the semantic functions associated with this form in this dialect are more general than those attached to main the northern edge of the Arabic speaking world (AlShihry, 2010). Unlike what we know about some Arabic Peninsular dialects, which do not mark the indicative form of the imperfective (Brustad, 2000: 254), this dialect does mark the indicative with ma-, whereas the lack of marking indicates the subjunctive. In this respect, the prefix main Shihry carries a modal meaning besides its aspectual functions.

In Shihry Arabic, ma- is a habitual marker:

w-hāḏa al-ʻāṭil malla ma-ysaḥḥib šanṭatah kul ṣubḥ fī hāḏa ed-daraj wla istafdnā šayy and this loser [lit: unemployed] does nothing other than taking his backpack down the stairs every morning, and we didn’t get any benefits. (Unpublished data from

20 I could not find any texts that yield suitable examples or detailed description for the use of other shortened forms such as ʻa; therefore, no claim is given here about the use of optional b- after these progressive forms. 91

my 2010 research)

ma- is also a progressive marker:

gumt iṣ-ṣubḥ w-lgyt ummy ma-tyawwd faṭūr I woke this morning and I found my mother fixing breakfast.

The only other dialect close to Shihry where the use of ma- is attested is one of the dialects spoken in north Yemen (Behnstedt, 2016). Unfortunately, no description or contexts are to be found anywhere for the use of the indicative markers in these dialects.

Unlike the status of ʻam in the Levant, where it is considered an urban form compared to the “less urban” form qēʻəd, the Shihry form ma- is considered a rural form and is less common in interactions with outsiders. Therefore, it is possible to note that the same speaker alternates between this form and the more urban form gāʻid, depending on the social settings (AlShihry, 2010).

2.7.2 Bukhara Uzbekistani m(ī)-

mī- ~ m- is also attested in Uzbekistan Arabic, which is spoken in Central Asia, as an indicative marker, compared to the unmarked subjunctive (Fischer, 1961: 247). It is claimed that the progressive in the Bukhara dialect is exhibited by using m(ī)- before the imperfective, followed by the participle form nāyim “sleeping/lying”, or more rarely by the participle qōyem “standing”. Consider the following example (Jastrow, 2014: 210):

amīr meʻayyin nāyim The emir is looking

The habitual, on the other hand, is marked with m- to indicate the indicative mood but it lacks the other progressive modifier nāyim.

anā m-oġdi, ḥaǧara maǧība I will go and bring the stone

Therefore, the progressive in this dialect is m(ī) + imperf.+ nāyim/qōyem, whereas the habitual is m(ī) + imperf. It should be noted that the m(ī)- itself is not part of the aspect structure; rather, its occurrence in the indicative regardless of its aspect indicates that it might carry a modal meaning that expresses the indicative.

2.8 b-

2.8.1 Egyptian Arabic

The use of b-imperfective is attested as early as the 17th C. in written representations of spoken Egyptian Arabic (Davis, 1981). This marker is also found in the grammars of spoken Egyptian Arabic written by missionaries as early as the mid 19th C. However, there are two problems in dealing with these grammars. The first problem is related to the fact that all these grammars describe the educated colloquial of Cairo, which was at that time considered to be the standard Egyptian dialect (Woidich, 1996). Although some of these grammars acknowledge the existence of variation between the varieties they describe and other varieties spoken outside the capital, they do not go into detail to explain these differences. The second problem is related to the grammatical analysis in these publications, which is sometimes described in light of the grammar of the native language of the writers. This fits in with the goals of the missionaries, since the main goal of these texts is to make them accessible for fellow missionaries. For instance, Spitta-Bey describes in his grammar the functions of both the marked and unmarked imperfective by drawing parallels with the functions of German syntactic structures (1880: 340, 346). In doing so, moreover, he gives the structures of the verbs in these writings more weight than he gives to the actual functions. Nevertheless, an abundance of in-context examples makes some of these grammars rich resources for analyzing the b- historically. One example is the texts provided by Spitta-Bay in his Ḥikāyāt ‘stories’ section. Due to the scarceness of historical dialectal data in general, this material provides the possibility of confirming the use of the marker historically in a fashion that looks relevant to the current data. I will draw a comparison between the current and historical usages of Egyptian b-, more specifically Cairene Arabic, that mark different aspectual meanings in order to propose that this marker has gone through a 93

cycle of changes. For the sake of this comparison, historical texts that provide contexts for the verbs under scrutiny are analyzed and compared to more recent texts. Only instances from the historical texts that show significant differences between the historical and current usages of b-imperfective will be mentioned here. Otherwise, current usages will be used as the default to explain the functions of indicative b- in Egyptian.

2.8.1.1 Functions and usages of b- in modern Egyptian

The b- prefix in Egyptian Arabic has modal and aspectual values. The attachment of this prefix to the imperfective puts it in the indicative mood, while its absence indicates the subjunctive mood. Besides the modal meaning, Egyptian b- also has many aspectual functions. The exact meaning that the marker adds to the imperfective depends in large part on the context.

This b- functions as a habitual marker.

masalan fī tamsiliyya illi kānu bi-ygibūha fī t-tilivizyōn illi hiyya bi-tʼūl ḥabakit yā ʻumda, il-lēla? (Brustad, 2000: 390). For instance there is this serial that they used to show on TV that says “Is it really necessary, Mayor, tonight?!”

It also functions as a progressive marker (Brustad, 2000: 390).

bass huwwa fiʻlan kān b-iyišrab bass il-ʼahwa ʼēh, yaʻni hiyya mā kānitš ʻarfa ʼēh illi raggaʻha But he was really drinking, but the coffee, that is, she didn’t know what returned it [to its original state].

It is also possible in Egyptian for b- to mark multiple functions at the same time. Consider the following example:

ʼinta ʻārif ḥabakit yā ʻumda, il-lēla? b-aʼul-lak fī lafẓ fī gumla bi-tʼūl ḥabakit yā ʻumda, il-lēla? Do you know “Is it really necessary, Mayor, Tonight?!” why? I’m telling you, 94

there is an expression, there is a sentence that says “Is it really necessary, Mayor, Tonight?!” (Brustad, 2000: 391).

The b- in b-aʼul-lak is progressive, but it also carries another subtle meaning that is suggested by the contexts this b- occurs in. Besides the progressive action, this type of b- is usually found in sentences where the listener’s attention is drawn to another utterance by giving the impression that the antecedent that the action refers to is focal to the context. In other words, this b- works as an indicator for the listener, meaning ‘pay attention to the following/what I just said!’ We usually see this b- - but not exclusively- in threat statements, like the following elicited examples:

ma yṣaḥḥish illi b-tiʻmilu da. ʼana b-ʼul-lak ahoh!! What you’re doing is not acceptable. I’m telling you ʼana b-aḥzzarak;ʼiwʻa tiʻmil kida tēny. I’m warning you; don’t do this ever again

Also a common expression in Egyptian to get someone’s attention employs this b-.

b-ʼul-lak ʼēh. Tell you what

Although this b- could be confused in meaning with stative b-, where the meaning suggests a change in state, the context in which this b- occurs indicates that it does not give any implications about the state of the action. This function is also attested in Nigerian Arabic and will be discussed later in this chapter.

b- in Egyptian could be used as a historical present marker. This function is explained in length in section (2.8.5).

2.8.1.2 Functions and usages of b- in 17th and 19th C. Cairene Arabic

As stated earlier, the current use of imperfective marking suggests that unmarked imperfective is subjunctive, whereas the marked is indicative. However, a comparison between the historical and current use of habitual b- in Cairene Arabic reveals that the

distribution of this marker was historically not regularized until around the end of the 19th C. Consider the following context from the mid-19th C. of unmarked indicative where one would expect to see habitual b-.

qālet-loh ana ʻandy walād ibny we-aḥibboh ketyr qawy (unmarked indicative) She told him “I have a boy, my son, and I love him so much.”(Spitta-Bay, 1880: 442).

If the historical marking were similar to the current use we would predict that this context is in the subjunctive mood, which means that the woman potentially loves her son. However, we know from the context that the woman actually loves her son and no potentiality is implied in the context. The following examples show similar behavior:

qālaha winti ē tiʻmily? qālet-loh ana af ʻal aktar minnak (ibid: 442). He asked her, “and what are you doing? She said, “I do more than you [do]”

We learn from these examples that unmarking was not necessarily subjunctive in Cairene Arabic. In fact, some imperfective verbs that occurred in subjunctive contexts are marked. Consider the following context (ibid: 451):

baʻdēn laffoh fy hudūmoh feṭiliʻ-boh lummoh qal-laha ḫody. qālet-loh di ē di? qal- laha ana b-aʻarf? (Marked subjunctive) Then he buried him [the boy] in his clothes and said to his mother “here, take!” She said, “What is this?” He told her, “How would I know?”

There are also other historical instances of imperfective marking that coincide with the current mood marking (ibid: 445): (unmarked subjunctive, marked indicative)

wenadah essāʼil quddāmoh qal-loh jā rāgil elli yisʼal masalan yeqūl ḫijār elmaʻāṭy lillāh winte bi-tqūl jā waḫdoh kulloh jā faʼtoh kulloh. And he called for the beggar to be brought before him [the king] and said to him ‘Lad, whoever begs should say, for example, for the sake of God [give from] the best of what you would give; and you are saying whoever takes it all loses it all’.

It is possible that the inter-speaker variation seen here is due to other social factors 96

such as prestige rather than inter-language factors. However, Davis (1981) notes the same in his analysis of colloquial Egyptian texts from the 17th C. He attempts to explain this unparalleled modal marking of imperfective in Egyptian by providing a systematic principle based on speakers judgments of bi-marking. He concludes that treating the marking of imperfective with bi- using principles of punctuality is the source of this problem. The idea of punctuality suggests that the actions are binary, and they are either complete or incomplete. He also suggests that there is a semantic continuum where actuality and contingency (which is the exclusive domain of unmarking) lie at the opposite ends of this continuum and the different parts of this continuum are governed by “act-ness” vs. “state-ness”. The following graph shows Tosco’s continuum (Davis, 1981: 245):

Figure 2: Tosco’s continuum

The examples and different contexts cited above suggest that the functions currently associated with b-, whether modal or aspectual, in Cairene Arabic are not exactly the same as they used to be. Restrictions and functions were not always the same. One of the restrictions that are associated with imperfective marking occurs in Cairene temporal compound phrases (Brustad, 2000; Mitchell and El-Hassan, 1994: 98). Current Cairene Arabic allows indicative b-imperfective in temporal compound phrases only if they are headed by kān (Consider the example mentioned above: bass huwwa fiʻlan kān b-iyišrab’ and ‘imrātoh kānet be-tiʻgin). This entails that other temporal verbs do not embed marked indicative imperfective and the following verb is either unmarked or the participle in the case of stative used. Moreover, Brustad mentions that marking indicative in phrases headed by temporal verbs other than kān is a characteristic of non-Cairene Egyptian Arabic (2000: 252). However, historical texts suggest that these marking restrictions in Cairene Arabic were innovated later and the current non-Cairene Egyptian treatment of indicative marking after temporal verbs other than kān- used to apply to Cairene as well. Consider the following examples from 97

Spitta-Bay texts produced by educated Cairene speakers in the 19th C. (Spitta-Bay, 1880: 449).

elyahūdy gamboh ḥiṭṭet ṭūba ṣeġaiyere, qām ḫadhā b-išauwar ʻala-lgeʻēdy biha. The Jew found a small brick; he took it and waved it to the geʻēdy [musician].

In this example, the compound phrase headed by the temporal verb /qām/ allows marking of the imperfective. Compare it to the current use from Cairene Arabic:

Unmarked imperfective (Brustad, 2000: 392). fa-ʻamalit-lu l-ʼahwa, gay yišrabha, ʼaʻad yišrab ʻādi w kida huwwat. So she made him the coffee, he comes to drink it, he keeps drinking it, normal, and so on. Participle (ibid): ʼām ḥāṭiṭ-laha šanṭa, nafs iš-šanṭa il-muṭabqa li-lli kānit fi d-dulāb He up and put a briefcase for her [to find], just like the briefcase that had been in the closet

2.8.2 Syrian Arabic

Historically, the use of indicative b- is attested in missionaries’ manuscripts of Damascus Arabic in the early 18th C. (Zwartjes and Woidich, 2012). However, these texts provide a simple description of indicative b-, and its allomorph /m-/ for the 1st person plural, and lack the necessary analysis for different roles of this prefix. Analyses from the last century reveal that Syrian b- entails a complex system of modal and aspectual marking. Luckily, the different meanings associated with this proclitic are now well studied. Brustad (2000: 250) explains that the functions of this prefix are diverse and act as a case of overlap between the different known functions for lexically similar proclitics in other dialects.

Table 1: Meanings of Syrian b- (Brustad, 2000: 250)

In Syrian Arabic, the reading of b- depends on the context it appears in, besides its syntactic position. Therefore, context alone is an important cue for distinguishing indicative b- from the lexically identical future/intentive marker b-.

When b- occurs in main clauses it indicates that the verb is marked for durative. The following example shows the habitual use of b-:

ʼalit-lu bass niḥna mnaʻrif[h]a ʼinnu mā btaʻrif ʼinglīzi. (Brustad: 397) She said, but we know she doesn’t know English.

In this example, /m-/ in mnaʻrif[h]a and /b-/ in btaʻrif are attached to the imperfective ʻaraf , which indicates that, unlike Egyptian Arabic, verbs of mental states 99

do accept marking in Syrian.

When b- is headed by temporal verbs in compound phrases, it adds a stative meaning to the verb (Brustad, 2000, 250).

ʼamma hallaʼ, waqt bi-tkūn mitʻallme w kaza w ṣārit ʻand[h]a mantūǧ w b-tiṭlaʻ b-tištiġil, ṣār yaʻni bi-tlāqi ġēr maǧāl ʼinnu tlāqi šarīk ḥayāt[h]a il-munāsib As for now when she is educated and so forth and has become productive and goes out and works, she has started finding other ways to meet [a] good, appropriate life-partner (Brustad:405).

There is a level of variation in speaker commitment keyed by indicative b- before imperfectives in the speech of speakers from the same areas. For instance, a female speaker from Aleppo would stick to marking imperfectives after the complementizer ʼinn(u).

ʼalit-lu bass niḥna m-naʻrif[h]a ʼinnu mā b-taʻrif ʼinglīzi. She said, but we know she doesn’t know English. ʼilt-lu niḥna m-naʻrif inn ij-jār mā b-yaʻrif jāru I told him, We know that [a] neighbor doesn’t know his neighbor (Brustad: 397).

On the other hand, three other speakers who are also from Aleppo do not mark imperfectives after the complementizer ʼinn(u)

w yʼūlū yʻni ʼinn ir-rijjāl mā yaʻni yšūf il-ʻarūs wlā tšūfu, yʻīšū aktar min hallaʼ And they say, you know, that the man wouldn’t see the bride nor she see him but the [the marriages] would survive longer than nowadays (ibid: 403). hallaʼ yaʻni ṣār šwayy l-ʻālam itʻawwdu ʼinnu yšufu tnēn māšyīn maʻ baʻḍon hēki Now everyone has gotten somewhat used to seeing a couple walking together like that (ibid: 407).

It is possible that the inter-speaker variation seen here is due to other social factors rather than inter-language factors.

However, the absence of this marker before imperfectives in main clauses carries

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another meaning, which adds another layer of complexity to this prefix. The 0- imperfective is actually a marker for subjunctive mood.

2.8.3 Yemen and Oman

In several Yemeni dialects that spread across the highland and cover a swath running from central highlands Ṣanʻā to the northern Yemeni border, the b- indicative forms are widespread. These forms carry a durative meaning that covers both habitual and progressive meanings. In the majority of these dialects b- marks 1sg and bi-/ba- marks everything else. In some dialects, bayn/bēn/bīn/bin represent an indicative marker for 1st person singular and bi- for all other persons (Watson, 1993; Behnstedt, 2016). Consider the following example (Watson and al-ʻAmri, 2000: 225).

ḍabʻan anā maṯalan miṯlī ʼanā ʼaštī ʻala l-lagall fi l-ʻīd al-wāḥid ʻasb fī ḥudūd xamsatʻāš lā ʻišrīn alf liʼannanī bayn-azūr xawatī bayn-azūr ʻammātī bayn-azūr ahlī. Of course, me, for instance, [someone] like me needs at least around fifteen to twenty thousand to give as festival money for the one festival because I go to visit my sisters, I visit my [parental] aunts, I visit my family.

Besides the bayn/bi forms, other indicative forms include ḏv- (some dialects with bān- or ḏib- for 1sg.) and lā-. The geographical distribution of each group does not overlap with other groups (see Map 3).

In Dhofārī, which is a dialect spoken on the southern coast of Oman, b- is described as an indicative prefix that marks both habitual and progressive aspects (Davey, 2016).

ho bi-kaðab ʕalē-nā he CONT-lie.3MS to-us He is lying to us

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Map 3: Yemeni indicative markers (Behnstedt, 2016: 230)

2.8.4 Najdi b-

There is a type of b- that is attested in many Arabic dialects in negation sentences, here, I will refer to this b- as Najdi b-21. In the Saudi TV show 42 Days (episode 6, min

21 This term is not meant to imply that this b- is only used in Najdi, but is rather to avoid mixing this b- with the indicative b- attested in many dialects such as Levantine and Egyptian Arabic. This same b- is attested in Gulf dialects, but we cannot call it Gulf b- because it is attested in Najdi- a dialect spoken in central Saudi Arabia-. Also, it should not be understood that this term claims a unique Najdi source for this b-. 102

3122), an actor who speaks Najdi responded the following line about someone that his friend wants him to spend time with:

A: bas tra wallah innah yiḥibbik, wallah B: ana māny b-aḥibbah, māny b-adānīh, ana akrahah fi ḥyāty A: But he likes [lit. loves] you, I swear B: I don’t like him, I can't stand him, I hate him.

Another example comes from a context in which the speaker responds to his father regarding his whereabouts (selfie, episode 18, min 3:1023):

wallah kint maʻa ilwāldah f-el-mistašfa, wtrāk mgaṣṣir f -ḥaggha, wla nt illy b- tzūrha wla ant illy b-tjyha yubah. I was with my mother at the hospital. And by the way, you are not taking care of her and you are not visiting her [lit. visit and come to her], father.

From these two contexts, one can argue that this b- resembles in function and form of the Egyptian b- in that it marks the indicative mood. However, examining other cases of b- in Najdi, other than future b-, shows that this b- is part of the negative construction; therefore, negative construction in Najdi is mā/lā/mū + (b-). Moreover, the fact that b- can attach to participles and other nominal structures in negative sentences is evident that this b- is not an indicative marker.

lā tṣally wl-ant b-rāʻy dīn (selfie, episode 18, min 2924) You don’t pray and you are not a worshiper [lit: you are not one of religion]. mū-b jaddah ally gālah It wasn’t his grandfather who said it.

Brustad calls this type of negation ‘categorical negation’ and explains that this type of “negation negates absolutely and categorically” (2000: 283).

22 https://goo.gl/CY8S34 23 https://youtu.be/6KT8deerVhQ 24 https://youtu.be/6KT8deerVhQ 103

These contexts and others reveal that the Najdi b- is an emphatic marker that only appears in negative structures. The fact that we do not have any traces of this form in non-negative positions casts a problem if we want to discuss the form and function of Najdi b- within the realm of the present study. Yet, the emphatic function associated to this prefix contributes to the overall picture of aspect markers development in spoken Arabic.

The Najdi b- suggests that relying on one type of usage to examine the function of a construction can be misleading if not paired with other related usages. The Najdi data suggests that synchronic diagnosis of all the structures that share the same morphosyntactic form can reveal more information than if the context of a specific phrase type is examined independently from the other types. The examples above show that b- + imperfective looks and functions in a way similar to indicative b- in other dialects; namely Egyptian and Syrian. However, by comparing negative sentences before different nominal structures, we concluded that this b- is an emphatic marker that functions as part of the negative structure and is not fulfilling any modal function.

2.8.5 Cypriot Arabic

In Cypriot Arabic, Borg (1985: 76) explains the use of the prefix p(i)- (m- for 1st pl.) before the imperfective simply as a non-contingency marker. An examination of the texts provided in his book indicates that this marker carry several meanings. Besides its habitual function, it can function as a progressive marker (Borg, 1985):

fkūllu āyšo yapō? xāllini tanām. āš piṯk aīmna mif-fis-sāxxar? p-ikūnni yapāti, kōm olān, kāti p-isūr mimpārra. p-ākšaʼa ayrōplana, p-ākšaʼa, ākke mantētše, l-ixxār mō–kaes. I said to him: ‘what is it, dad? Let me (lit. us) sleep. Why are you waking me up so early (lit. at dawn)?’ My father said to me: “get up, lad! Something is going on outside; I see airplanes or something. Something is amiss (lit. the day is not nice).”

In this example, it is obvious that p- has different functions, and the interpretation of every instance of this marker is elicited by examining the context. The phrase 104

‘pikūnni’ (< b-yqūl-li -- b-imperfect-obj) indicates that this prefix functions here as a historical present marker (also known as narrative or historic present). This marker is attached to imperfective verbs for past events in narrative contexts before certain verbs, such as gūl ‘say’ (Brustad, 2000: 213). Its main function is to relate the previous part of the story to the next one in a way that makes the sequence of events vivid for the listener so they can follow the flow of the narrative as if they were present in the event. The use of historical present is common in many Arabic dialects and it takes different forms; compare the following example from Egyptian and Kuwaiti Arabic with the marker b- and čān respectively (Brustad, 2000: 213).

rayḥīn hnāk, ʻugub mā ruḥna čān agūl ḥagg Nūra hah Nura, mā tyawwizīn Nada? We’re going there, after we went, I say to Nura, Hey, Nura, aren’t you going to marry off Nada? fa-ruḥna, wi bitʼul-lu widni ḥaṣal kaza kaza. fa-biyšūf widnaha kida. so we went, and she tells him, my ear, such and such happened. So he examines her ear a bit (Brustad, 2000: 388-389).

The next instances of p- example are before the verbs isūr ‘it happens’ and p- ākšaʼa ‘I see’. Here the p- functions as a progressive marker, giving the meaning that something is happening and airplanes are seen at the time of speaking. This use of p- is similar to the Levantine use of ʻam (bi)- before imperfective to indicate progressive. Compare the following example from Syrian (Brustad: 2000: 397):

ʼēš ʻam b-itsāwi, ʼiza mā ʻandik ši bi[d]na nidxul nišrab finjān ʼahwe ʻandik ‘What are you doing? If you don’t have anything [aren’t busy], we’d like to come in and have a cup of coffee [with you].

2.8.6 Sudanese Arabic

Although gāʻid is sometimes cited in descriptive grammars as both progressive and habitual, it is b- that expresses habitual function in this variety (Tosco and Manfredi,

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2013). Consider the following examples25:

ʻājbny ragmak bi-šbah tārīḫ an-nakbah I like your number. It looks like the date of the Nakba [Day of the Catastrophe].

2.8.7 Nigerian Arabic

This variety of Arabic exhibits an interesting case of employing different markers, especially the preverb b-. This preverb can be used to mark habitual, progressive, subjunctive, and historical present, besides its common function as a future marker. Context alone can reveal the type of b- used before every verb, since all the different forms of b- look the same: b-imperfective.

For progressive b-, consider the following example, where the verb jalsāt is used.

jalsāt bilkallaman. ʼassulṭān jā simī kalāmhan. They were conversing, speaking. The sultan came and heard their discussion. (Kaye, 1993: 182).

Form this example, one can argue that progressive b- in this dialect is part of the construction jls + b-. Although this is true in this example, other examples from the same text show that b- can stand alone before imperfective without jls and yet the context clearly indicates a progressive meaning.

It should be noted that Kaye suggests that the root jls in this variety of Arabic often means ‘have a conversation’, whereas gʻd means ‘to sit.’ However, even if his translation of jls is correct, this interpretation of the root jls does not stand against the argument that b- in the previous example (jalsāt bilkallaman) is progressive based on the contextual meaning.

Other examples show the use of b- as a progressive marker without the use of jls:

gālō lē ʼassulṭān b-idawwirki, jābōni min benna.

25https://web.archive.org/web/20170330044257/http://www.blue- nil.net/vb/showthread.php?t=69705 106

They told me the sultan [he] wanted you- they brought me from our house. (ibid: 184) My translation: They told me the sultan is looking for you- they brought me from our house gāl laha kēf albāri b-asmāki tugūli šuġul ʼahlāʼ min alfusux mā fi da. He told her: how (is it that) yesterday I heard you say that there is nothing sweeter than lies? (ibid: 186). ʼalla yaṭawwail ʻumrak. ʼalla b-isallim lēk. She told him, “May God prolong your life. God is greeting you” (ibid: 186).

b- also functions as a subjunctive marker.

ʼalla wēn? nādum b-ilgā b-išīfa wēn? Where is God? Where is a person who could succeed in seeing him? (ibid:190). ʼalmarīse di kammāha hilwe di, humma dōla da gadē kulla b-ijū b-uruddu b- išarbūha. if this alcoholic beverage is not good, would these very (guys) once again [come] to return to drink it? (ibid: 184).

In this previous example, the use of b- as a subjunctive marker is also accompanied by the use of gadē, which is according to Owens (2000: 340) a Kanuri loan functions as a discourse connector when it occurs with kulla. As a response to the previous statement, the other speaker - the sultan- repeated the sentence while removing the b- and keeping gadē:

gāl laha bittī kalāmki sahi. nādum yašarrat kārē, jilda kulla bedamma, gadē kulla yaji lešuġul da ʼillammasa da. He told her, “My girl, your remarks are true. A person would tear his clothes –all his skin has his blood- would he come again to touch this very thing? (ibid: 184).

A first look at this case of inter-speaker variation in the use of the preverb b- as a subjunctive marker suggests that the use of this b- for this specific purpose is optional and there could be a degree of speaker’s commitment to using this marker. However, this argument can be dismissed since the two sentences were produced by the storyteller, and it is unlikely that he intentionally attempts to produce the same verb with different 107

marking for every speaker he is quoting. Therefore, it is possible that the modal value associated with this form in other dialects is not existent in this variety of Arabic. Another explanation comes from the historical Egyptian case, where the mood-marking system is not regularized. it is possible that the Nigerian b- is not regularized for mood- marking; thus the irregular marking with b-.

2.8.8 Juba Arabic

bi- is also documented in Juba Arabic. Tosco (1995: 59) explains that in Juba Arabic bi- has recently become an irrealis marker that covers habitual actions after this language regularized its tense-mood system. In the past, habituality was generally described by marking the verb with ge-. Now, potentiality is expressed by bi- exclusively and actuality is expressed by ge- exclusively. Compare the following sentence with the ones with the ge-:

múmkin ita bi-rákabu ákil íta bi-kútu talája You can cook the food and then put it in the refrigerator.

Even though Juba Arabic is usually referred to in the literature as a variety that shows characteristic features of creoles, the complexity it shows for aspect marking is more in accordance with the complex aspect marking in Arabic. This observation, along with the history of contact with other Arabic dialects, puts the Juba Arabic system of aspect marking in line with the general pattern of Arabic dialects.

2.9 Discussion

This chapter analyzes the synchronic use of indicative markers in Arabic. It examines the most common marking forms that are documented in literature. The form of these markers is analyzed in conjunction with their semantic functions. The root gʻd was found to be the most common form across the Arabic speaking world, followed by b- and ʻml. It was found that the semantic properties that all the durative forms cover are considerably similar. The vast majority of these forms mark habitual or progressive or both at the same time. In some dialects, they add another layer of meaning by marking 108

the mood of the action/state, which makes them either indicative or subjunctive.

Some dialects have more complex systems of marking than others, whether the complexity is caused by the range of meanings covered by the markers or the syntactic dependency of the markers. Syrian, Egyptian and Iraqi dialects show the highest degree of complexity compared to other dialects. It is possible that this complexity is related to the old development of durative markers in these dialects.

Apart from gʻd, the synchronic geographical distribution of aspect markers shows that pockets of areas can be drawn (Map 4). If isoglosses were to be suggested in this case their boundaries would look blurry and not definitive since we do not have a clear idea about all the markers used in the areas that were not covered. A vertical line that extends across the western end of the Levant and upper Egypt down to the south east of the Arabian Peninsula delineates where the use of ʻml and variant forms is attested. There is another line that extends across the Mediterranean coastline up to the eastern side of the Anatolian plateau where the use of kv- is attested. Historically, these lines are explainable and related to historical events that possibly yielded to the current geographical distribution. The historical events and how they lead to forming paths of markers development are elaborated in the next chapters.

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Map 4: Geographical distribution of durative markers in the Arabic-speaking world

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Chapter Three

The history of the examined Arabic dialects: A brief overview of periods and places of sustained contact

The goal of this chapter is to provide a summary of the history of the significant movements and contact in the Arabic-speaking regions from a linguistic perspective. It presents an overview of the recent discoveries from historical and epigraphic research that shed light on contact patterns of the ancestors of the contemporary dialects using all the sources that we have access to. This overview will be helpful in analyzing the diachronic paths of development for aspectual markers in Arabic dialects. The data presented here will be used as a guideline in determining the different languages and/or dialects that came in contact historically in the regions under examination and how these languages could have interacted and affected the social and linguistic aspects of the speakers throughout the history of the spread of Arabic.

The data available to us range from inscriptions from late antiquity to more recent historical events that shaped the Arabic language as we know it today. However, the research of the development of Arabic structures is not without its challenges. To begin with, the most obvious lacuna impeding the work on Arabic grammatical structures from a historical point of view is the lack of primary documentation for the language along the time dimension between the epigraphic practices and the 19th century. The paucity of historical evidence has made research on the development of grammatical structures mostly speculative. Even the seminal works of medieval scholars that are used as primary sources for the analysis of Arabic structures are either written centuries apart from the events they refer to or are based on the traditional narrations and tales given by presumably knowledgeable individuals. The former group is illustrated in the history of Ibn Khaldun, the 14th century historiographer who wrote about the history of Arabs from antiquity to his time. The latter group is represented by the 11th century geographer Ibn Al-Bakrī’s work, Kitāb al-Masālik wa-al-Mamālik “The Book of Highways and Kingdoms," which is based on the tales of the merchants and travellers about Africa. He

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himself never left Andalusia. That being said, the objectivity of these works, along with others, in presenting information and the extensive details that they provide grants them the status of primary historical references for socio-historical research on Arabic.

This study will not try to trace back the full development of Arabic, since any attempts here to go into any detail about the series of events that encouraged the spread of Arabic would require a much more comprehensive treatment than is possible here. This chapter will highlight some of the major historical events related to the development of Arabic language and the speakers who identify themselves as Arabs. These will be represented in terms of contact and relative social standing of social groups that could have affected language borrowing or contact-induced grammaticalization. These two factors will be analyzed from a sociolinguistic perspective, taking into account how the social behavior of the different parties led to shaping the use of Arabic in every region.

Of course, there is the problem of defining the line between the ethnic, cultural and linguistic categories of Arab/Arabic (Restö, 2003; Webb, 2016). Moreover, the terms ‘Arab’ and ‘Arabic’ in the ancient times do not necessarily mean that we should expect a linear relationship of those people and their language with the current Arabs and their language. It is possible that the current Arabic language is the result of the contact of Old Arabic with the languages that were spoken in the same area. In other words, it is not sufficient to examine the language of ancient Arabic-speakers and expect these to have a structural system identical to the Arabic structural system as we know it today. Understanding the interplay of language and identity within their socio-political context in the areas under investigation could enhance our understanding of the development of structural systems and how they relate to current usages.

Before proceeding to the historical overview, it is important to note several methodological precautions that prevent us from accepting the historical record that we have as an accurate reflection of sociolinguistic facts. The next section summarizes these points.

Precautions of relying on historical evidence for analyzing aspectual markers

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diachronically:

1. The settlement of one Arabic-speaking tribe (or group) in an area for a relatively long time does not necessarily indicate that the dialect of this group showed any substrate influence. We have reports of strict language maintenance policies in some of the conquered areas, and it seems that the Arabic-speaking authorities were aware of the linguistic effects of contact between their troops and the locals. Indeed, the fact that they felt the necessity to issue a policy about language maintenance would suggest evidence for contact. Similarly, the long interaction between the newcomers (Arabic-speakers in this case) and the local conquered communities cannot diminish the fact that, despite government policies, speakers of different communities come in contact and one of the natural vestiges of this contact is language change. Although the social and political dominance in this case is in favor of Arabic, the disproportion of language speakers of Arabic compared to the sea of local speakers of the other languages allows for borrowing possibilities. Yet, the defining line in the direction and type of language change is not the demographic disproportion, but how the two communities integrate and interact with each other (Mufwene, 2001). Therefore, the chances of strict language maintenance -and how its policies maintained- and substrate influence should equally be accounted for in order to be able to trace the origin of grammatical forms.

2. It is impossible to speculate how the original dialects of the tribes that emigrated from the Peninsula looks like. It is even harder to speculate how their dialects changed after arriving to the new colony with the historical sources making no indication about the linguistic aspects of the migrations.

3. Koineization26 is possible when groups of Arabic speakers of different origins settle in one new city, such as the case of new cities "the ʼamṣār". Therefore, we are left with the possibility that the settlers in the new city may have

26 Koineization here refers to the process by which a number of mutually intelligible varities are spoken by the settlers. Sometimes, a new dialect forms when there is levelling and simplification of variant forms of the same linguistic items (Trudgill, 1986, 2004). 113

developed a koiné that takes its morphosyntactic marking from different sources. Ferguson describes a koiné that he suggests is the ancestor of modern Arabic dialects (1959). Although this suggestion is challenged by many scholars, the principles of the social set up that led to the formation of this koiné is relevant to our argument here. Ferguson explains that the formation of this koiné is the result of interacting Arabic-speakers with the speakers of other languages who learned Arabic after the Islamization of their homelands. The koiné developed due to “a complex process of mutual borrowing and leveling among various dialects and not as a result of diffusion from a single source” (ibid: 619). An example for this phenomenon is cited in one modern Arabic dialect, namely the Arabic dialect of Amman in Jordan (Al-Wer, 2002, 2003). Al-Wer reports that the formation of this new city witnessed huge influx of immigrants from different parts, but the highest numbers come from Palestinians and Jordanians who moved from other cities. By the turn of the millennium, Amman has three generations of settlers, and it is only in the third generation the ‘Ammani’ dialect-identity started to emerge (ibid).

4. A linguistic analysis based on the historical events mentioned here should not suggest that the armies of the conquests are the only settlers in the conquered areas. For one thing, armies tend to have accompanying groups that both facilitate and benefit economically. Moreover, given the fact that the conquered areas were all under the rule of one government, people can and did move easily between its different parts, whether for trade, migration or other purposes. Although we are interested in large migrations that could easily be predicted for the conquest armies, we should not overlook the fact that migration continued, and successive large-scale migrations are also possible, even if no reports are provided about them.

5. Finally, although the majority of migrations are assumed to have taken place from the Arabian Peninsula outwards, we should also consider migrations in the opposite direction that are stimulated by visiting the religious cities in the Peninsula and later settling in these areas. Another migration pattern that should also be considered is the movement from the less urbanized areas to the more 114

urban centers, whether the ʼamṣār or others27.

The first section describes what we know about the earliest attestations of Arabic in the pre-Islamic Arabia. This section presents a brief overview of the main discussions about the use of Old Arabic and the people who spoke this language. The remainder of the chapter will first list the durative markers attested in the modern dialects spoken in each region. Then it will depict the Arabization processes throughout history outside the Peninsula, proceeding geographically from east to west. The last section is devoted to the Arabization of peripheral areas outside the contemporary (political) Arab world where Arabic is still spoken today. Finally, the conclusion of this chapter will provide some basic points that will be used as a guideline for this study in linking the historical events with the development of the aspectual marking of Arabic.

3.1 The Ancient World

This section will include major historical events that are speculated to have resulted in shaping the Arabic language in the pre-Islamic period. Of course, it is not possible for this dissertation to include all the recent discoveries about the spoken languages in pre-Islamic Arabia. And frankly, it is pointless for the research of aspect in Arabic to investigate inscriptions from antiquity in the hope of tracing durative markers because the extant texts makes it unlikely to find examples where durative marking is represented in the actual speech of their authors. It would be useful to investigate the history of movements and contact in the ancient era only if aspectual markers were attested in other languages that were spoken in the areas where Arabic is spoken today. However, at the time of this writing, we do not have any information about aspect markers in any extant epigraphic documents of any Semitic language. The only exception is found in some Ancient South Arabian (ASA) texts that exhibit the use of a marker that is similar in form to the aspect marker b- used in many Levantine dialects.

27 Recent research on Ancient North Arabian languages suggests that these languages show the use of many features that are known to be characteristic of Arabic (Al-Jallad and Al-Manaser, 2016). If it is true that Arabic was spoken outside the Peninsula before Islam, perhaps parts of the conquering armies as well came from tribes from these areas as well as from the Hijaz. Unfortunately, we do not have any evidence to build our analysis on this assumption. 115

The function, though, has been the source of debate among epigraphists (Beeston, 1962; Avanzini, 2009, 2014). Still, it is worth looking at major population movements from and to the areas in which ASA was spoken.

3.2 Epigraphic evidence

Currently, one of the heated debates in Arabic research is defining the urheimat 'original homeland' of Arabic; this discussion has been prompted by the discovery of new Ancient North Arabian (ANA) inscriptions in the Levant28. The truism surrounding the origin of Arabs, and consequently their language, has been for a long time that they hailed from Yemen. This argument has been challenged recently by means of analyzing new linguistic evidence (Al-Jallad, 2012). Until the 2nd c. BCE, Arabic was only spoken, and speakers lacked the means and motivation to express this language in writing. The arrival of the Nabatean script made it possible for the Arabic speakers to express their language through this script. Moreover, Al-Jallad suggests that the Safaitic and Hismatic scripts that spread across North Arabia all the way to Ḥawrān (an area spanning southern Syria and northern Jordan) presents evidence for the earliest stage of Old Arabic (forthcoming). The political references in the discovered texts suggest that they were written between the 1st c. BCE to the 4th c. CE. Later, the term ʼʻrb started to appear in Sabaic inscription in South Arabia, but we do not have any information about the language of this group, nor have any texts been discovered in any kind of Arabic in ancient South Arabia (Al-Jallad, forthcoming).

Another text that was considered to represent the earliest-discovered Old Arabic script is dated to the first-second century CE and was found in Qaryat al-Faw in south central Arabia. The text is scripted in ASA, which was the prestigious script of this area, as opposed to the Nabataean Aramaic in north-western Arabia. (Hoyland, 2009: 391). Based on this discovery, it was argued that the speakers whose language is considered the oldest known form of Arabic, called by scholars ‘Old Arabic,’ originated from the

28 The unfortunate terminology of Ancient South Arabian (ASA) and Ancient North Arabian (ANA) is based on geographical classification and does not suggest that these languages are derived from Arabic. 116

south-central Arabian Peninsula, more specifically in the base of the tribes of Qaḥṭān and Kinda (Hoyland, 2009: 391). Al-Jallad challenged this view, claiming that his linguistic analysis of the text revealed that it represents “a transitional dialect between North Arabian and Sabaic, if not an artificial mixed register” (Al-Jallad, 2014).

In the analyses of population interactions in the ancient Arabian Peninsula, the questions of who spoke Arabic and whether every Arabic script was written by an Arabic speaker invite many caveats about the historical identity of ‘Arabs.’ First, we cannot draw the line between the Arab and Arabic names and general Semitic names at the time of the inscriptions. Although these lines might be clear for researchers now, it is not necessarily true that the current distinctions were reflected in the same way in the past. Second, the assumption that the presence of the Arabic speakers in Syro- Mesopotamia is largely due to huge influx from southern and central Arabia should not always be taken as a means to explain the use of Arabic in the north. Hoyland (2009) and Macdonald (2009a) refer to the importance of smaller group migrations that moved frequently within the Syro-Arabian region for different purposes in shaping the identity of the ‘Arabs’ in and outside the Peninsula.

Macdonald advises caution in the discussion of the origin of Arabs and their language (1998). According to him, it is not scientifically reasonable to refer to the epigraphic documents that are scattered around the Arabian Peninsula with the assumption that they were written by Arabs. The ethnic and linguistic identities of the authors of these documents have been subject to dispute since the discovery of these inscriptions. Thus, any analysis of these inscriptions should also include literary sources, such as ancient historians accounts, and the context of the inscriptions represented by the interaction of spoken and written language and degrees and types of literacy (Macdonald, 1998: 180-1) in order to better understand the internal structure of a society and its language (ibid: 178).

Macdonald presents an intriguing explanation of why we do not fully understand the social structures and the personal identities of those who wrote these texts from the epigraphic documents alone. For instance, the majority of the monumental inscriptions

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represent formal documents that are left in public places for everyone to read, which allows for the assumption that the authors are selected, and probably trained, carefully to craft these texts. It is assumed that they usually inscribe them in a fashion that corresponds with prestigious language forms, a practice that rarely reflects the spoken language of the scribes or the area. Related to this assumption is the possibility that not all writers of these scripts are necessarily speakers of the languages they represent (Macdonald, 1998). It is only by means of non-urban graffiti, written by nomads wandering in the desert who do not expect anyone would read their drawings, that we have access to documents that give far more information about the actual linguistic and social structures of their lives. The social, and probably the intellectual, pressure applied to the former group is lacking in the case of the latter group. Macdonald argues that, unless we have access to private letters or diaries, we will not be able to understand how these communities reflect their self-perception. This indicates that it is not possible to know how they usually refer to their own identity, which in turn makes every attempt to categorize the language of the inscriptions questionable. Macdonald shows how the Roman and Greek historians refer to the Nabataeans as ‘Arabs,’ a description never found in the Nabataeans’ inscriptions about themselves. In the same vein, Webb, who studied pre-Islamic and early Islamic poetry, argues that the self-reference of ‘Arab’ is not to be found anywhere in these texts (2016). He notes the term maʻād is repeatedly used as a group identity, which suggests that there might be group identities but ‘Arab’ is not attested. Thus, in order to explain the presence of Arabic speakers, and consequently the use of their language, in any area, the self-perception of society members should indicate that they are Arab, besides the linguistic evidence that results from comparative research.

Based on Macdonald’s observations, it was argued that the first recorded appearance of Old Arabic in inscriptions dates back to the 5th C. BCE. The reason for categorizing this language as being Arabic and not another dialect of ANA comes mainly from the linguistic evidence. Unlike the ANA definite article *h-, this language uses ʼl-. This conscious selection of the Arabic definite reflects “communal self- perceptions; ” yet, it is not until the fourth century CE that we see the conscious mention

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of ‘Arab’ as a self-perception identity (Macdonald, 1998: 179). This mainly spoken language was in constant contact with other languages, and it appeared in the scripts of the other more prestigious languages that were in use across the Peninsula, namely Sabaic, Dedantic, Aramaic and Greek.

The overall debate about the identity of Arabs and their language illustrates that our knowledge about Arabic in the ancient world is still in its infancy. Yet, the evidence collected so far makes it possible to highlight important linguistic and social analyses of the discovered inscriptions that reveal mixing of different languages, which can be considered a sign of multilingualism in Arabic and other languages. We can also learn from these texts that there is contact and friendly relationship between the nomads and settled people, who probably passed the knowledge of inscribing to the former group (Macdonald, 2010).

3.3 Movements of Arabic Speakers

In the previous section, we argued that Arabic speakers were in constant contact with speakers of other languages. It was also suggested that this group of speakers have made frequent movements across Arabia and into the Fertile Crescent. This section is devoted to the pre-Islamic movements of Arabic speakers and the events that encouraged and resulted from these movements.

A number of factors propelled several large population movements out of the south of the peninsula further into different areas up to the north. One major factor is the constant wars between the major ruling empires in this era, namely the Roman and Persian empires, over the major trade areas. These powers invested in the areas under their rule, which resulted in shifting importance from the South Arabian kingdoms towards the north. Several invasions of the areas under the rule of ASA speakers were under attack from different powers. These began with the sporadic Arab invasions from the north starting from the 2nd century BCE until the 6th CE, followed by the Roman invasion of Yemen in the first century BCE, then the Aksum attacks in the 4th and 6th centuries CE, and finally the Persian attack in the 6th century CE. Although these invasions are centuries apart, they gradually weakened the ASA kingdoms. Besides the 119

Roman and Persian invasions, Arab tribes were also invading the territories of other tribes for several reasons, the expansion of power being among one of the most common causes of these invasions (Hoyland, 2009)

Another factor that encouraged movements from the south to north is economic. This factor is related to the political one mentioned above; the stronger ruling powers attract economic interests to their territory at the expense of the less strong ones. The presence of the Roman and Persian empires in the Levant and Mesopotamia lead to a momentous boom in these regions. The Hijaz under the Nabataean empire witnessed a substantial economic boom and Mecca was considered a major trade site (Kennedy, 2007). Different trade cites that lay on the trade routes attracted populations from all over the peninsula .

Finally, natural disasters also played a major role in the movements from the south. The collapse of the great Ma’rib dam in the second century CE created an influx of the southern population towards different parts in the Peninsula.

Epigraphic evidence offers support to the theory of major southern population movements toward the north. The ASA inscriptions from the late 2nd to the 6th centuries CE include names of major tribes and confederations that are recognized in ayyām il- ʻArab [the accounts of pre-Islamic ‘Arab’ battles in the Arab-Islamic historico- genealogical tradition] (Hoyland, 2009: 384). In contrast, the ANA inscriptions did not include any tribal names that could be identified in the ayyām (battle) accounts.

All these historical events are difficult to present in a comprehensible timeline due to the long periods that separate them and the gradual transitions that they encounter. This gradual transition hypothesis has long been dismissed in reports of pre-Islamic history. Historical studies account for the historical incident of the Ma’rib dam as the main reason for the Arabs’ presence in the north. In fact, this claim has been put to rest by Hoyland (2009) and Macdonald (2009a) who both argue that the presence of southern tribes in the north was encouraged by a variety of reasons such as pasture, trade, wars, and many others, besides arguing that the Peninsulares movements into the Fertile Crescent were frequent and in small numbers. Thus, we can argue for the

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possibility of a large south-to-north movement that was one of many recurring movements in this direction. Yet, what historical accounts tend to ignore is the opposite direction of tribal movements, i.e. north to south movements. Our knowledge about movements in this direction is limited; probably overshadowed by the widespread claim of ‘Arabs originated in the south’. Such knowledge would affect the way we perceive the interaction and social makeup of pre-Islamic societies and, consequently, their languages.

The existence of Arabs outside Arabia and Syro-Mesopotamia is usually linked to the Islamic conquests. However, there is evidence of the existence of ‘Arabs’ in Egypt in the pre-Islamic era in references in the Hellenistic and Roman Egyptian inscriptions to Ἄραψ 'Arab' specify their nomadic qualities, despite the settlement of this group in Fayyoum and the Nile valley. Although the papyruses that include the mention of the 'Arabs’ in Egypt do not specify language distinction between them and others in the community, Macdonald suggests the possibility that this group featured a distinctive linguistic or cultural background. This assumption is based on a tradition in Ptolemaic Egypt to use language as a distinctive symbol for peoples’ ethnicities (Macdonald, 2009b: 291-2).

The overall picture of the ancient Arabian Peninsula suggests the plausibility of multilingualism and the probability of a linguistic hierarchy that put the different dialects of Arabic in different social statuses depending on the status and domination of surrounding languages/dialects. The abilities and levels of competence seen in the use of different languages in the inscriptions hints to the social structures of these societies. Arabic had a different status in different places. Some of these groups moved further to the north for different purposes, and they either settled in new locations or kept roaming. The relationships between Arabic speakers and other groups in ancient Arabia were characterized by the roles they played in the societies they lived within. Generally speaking, groups of Arabic speakers did not show signs of domination, whether political or social, outside the Peninsula. However, it is possible that they constituted a speech community whose language existed side by side with other prestigious and dominant languages, such as Aramaic and ASA. 121

3.3.1 Mesopotamia

In Chapter Two, we saw that forms of the root gʻd are attested in modern day Iraq. Baghdad shows an interesting case of communal variation; gʻd/qʻd and da- are the Muslim variants whereas Christian and Jewish Iraqis use qa(d)-. kū- is the durative marker for the majority of Anatolian dialects.

The dominant spoken language in Mesopotamia was Aramaic, and Persian was the language of the elite. There was a community of “Arabs” who spread in towns along the west of the Euphrates, and there is also evidence for the presence of “Arab” in the east of the upper Tigris and the Jazira area, which is the upper land between the two rivers in the north. However, there is no evidence that those “Arabs” spoke Arabic. The only evidence about their ethnicity comes from their Arabic names and the reference to them as Arabs by other groups (Bosworth, 1983). If these Arabs were speaking Arabic, they would presumably be bi or tri-lingual in Arabic, Aramaic and/or Persian. In the north, Persian and Kurdish were also spoken besides Aramaic. In all the areas where Arabic was spoken, it is unlikely that the other ethnic groups spoke Arabic, due to the inferior status of the Arab community in this region. However, it is very likely that they spoke Aramaic due to their constant contact with Arameans.

The ruling elite spoke Middle Persian, and members of this class did not mingle with the other groups who spoke other languages, despite the fact that they live in cities where the other groups constituted the majority. They distinguished themselves by their attire in order to maintain their distinct cultural identity. This Persian-speaking group was mainly Magian, and it is not clear if those Persian speakers were multilingual in any other languages besides Persian (Morony, 1939). Those who want to attain higher status in the administration or the economic scene had to be Persian speakers. We may speculate that any Aramaic or Arabic speaker who held a high status in their communities or at the national level ought to be bilingual in Persian ands their native language.

Al-Ḥīra was the capital city of the Arab kingdom, and it was established around the third century by the Lakhmid dynasty – also known as Muntherids, from the Tanūḫ

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federation. It is believed that this tribal dynasty emigrated from Yemen around the 2nd century CE (Zahrān, 2009). Al-Ḥīra was later inhabited by several tribes who are speculated to share the “Arab” identity in addition to the other identities they claim, such as religious identity. In fact, the historical traditions of this area show that religious identities surpass all other identities, including ethnic identity, which suggests that the possibility of a shared language-culture.

The Lakhmids were the Sassanians’ clients in Mesopotamia and they served under the Sassanians rule as the police of the desert to administrate and mobilize the tribes of the area. The status of tribal confederations serving as clients for imperial powers was common in pre-Islamic scene; the Lakhmids served as the Sassanians’ clients in Mesopotamia and the Ghassanids served as the Byzantines’ clients in the Levant.

The Tanūḫ federation who inhabited the Al-Ḥīra was mainly sedentary, as opposed to other Arab groups who inhabited the desert further in the south and west of the Euphrates and live their lives as nomadic groups. Of these nomadic groups is the Ṭayyiʼ confederation, whose name was associated with ‘nomadic Arab tribes’ in a synecdoche form in the Mesopotamian Syriac texts: ‘Tayyaye’ as opposed to the name ‘Tuʼaye’ to describe the Tayyiʼ tribe specifically (Shahid, 1986: 126; 1989: 117). It is believed that these nomadic tribes have hailed from the southwest and west of the Nafūd desert in the northern part of the peninsula (Restö, 2003: 505).

By the turn of the 6th century, the Sassanians broke their ties with the Lakhmids, which resulted in the Lakhmids losing their status in the area. This political change gradually weakened the kingdom, and it continued to lose power until it was defeated by the Islamic conquest in 633 (Kennedy, 2007: 172).

3.3.1.1 The Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia

In 633, the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia began. This conquest was aiming to gradually minimize the tribal affiliations in Mesopotamia when many people belonging to different tribes converted to Islam. However, we have reports of how tribal strife continued in some cities long after the the Islamization of Mesopotamia. We can

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speculate that non-Muslim Arabic speakers had contact with Muslim Arabic speakers who moved to Mesopotamia with the conquests, but we do not know how these two groups interacted. The fact that non-Muslim Arabic speakers lived side by side with Arameans for centuries supports the claim of their bilingualism; however, we do not know if they borrowed any Aramaic features in their variety of Arabic and their contact with Muslims facilitated the transfer of these features into Muslims variety. All these speculations are hard to prove with the lack of historical reference to the type of interaction the two groups maintained. Although the two groups spoke different varieties of Arabic, it is expected that these two varieties are not identical; it is also hard to speculate the extent of intelligibility between the two groups’ varieties. In any case, Muslim conquerors built their own towns, which yields that the inhabitants of the Arab towns that were established long before the conquest were not affected by the new wave of conquerors.

The Arabo-Islamic conquests facilitated movements from the Arabian Peninsula to the newly conquered areas, which were before the conquest under the Lakhmid-Sassanid administration. The effect of this new change impelled the Arabization processes to reach as far as the north and east of the Tigris by the end of the 7th century (Morony, 1984). This process entails that Arabic was introduced into an Aramaic-speaking area as a language of political power but little social prestige.

The agricultural areas outside the main cities were mostly inhabited by Arameans and the Arabs who moved to those areas became subject to Aramaicization. Generally speaking, it was impossible for the new Islamic troops to outnumber the Aramean majority. Although this group was not largely affected at first by the Islamic conquest as they maintained their linguistic and religious identities, it is expected that they had interactions with the new arrivals. On the other hand, the Persians as a minority were highly affected by the conquest. The use of their language gradually disappeared from the areas under the Muslim conquerors’ rule. The Persians began to assimilate into the new elite, and by the beginning of the 8th century they became part of the entire society. With regard to their religion, the Magian faith was highly targeted by the Muslim conquerors and the majority of the Persians who were Magians either converted to 124

Nestorian Christian or Islam.

It was clear that there were ever-changing dominance in the social boundaries in this area. The prominence given to religious identity before the Islam was later shifted to the social-political identity. The post-Islamic community boundaries were drawn along social-political groupings, and these lines were shifting and in constant change. Magidow (2013: 196) thinks that the situation of the pre-Islamic religious grouping was extended to the social grouping under the Islamic rule. He links this religious grouping to the linguistic situation of contemporary Iraqi Arabic known in linguistic studies as the qəltu-gilit dichotomy (Blanc, 1964) that is mentioned in Chapter Two. This dichotomy categorizes Arabic dialects in Mesopotamia where the qəltu dialects represent the old sedentary type whereas the gilit represents the newer Bedouin type. In the city of Baghdad, this dichotomy is represented along communal boundaries, where Jews and Christians speak a qəltu variety and Muslims speak a gilit variety (Palva, 2009). Magidow (2013) suggests that the distinctive communal linguistic differences of Iraqi Arabic reported since the 1960s had its roots in the pre-Islamic era. The pre-Islamic system that organized the society based on religious divisions had a great impact on the linguistic development and consequently the dialectal variation characteristic of Iraqi Arabic. The problem with this proposal is that it does not account for the constant political and economic changes that are noticed in the history of Iraq from the pre- Islamic era until today. Even religious identities in this region were changing along with political and economic circumstances. Thus, arguing for a direct line from early Islam to present day is a claim that does not reflect the changes in power and politics, economy, religious affiliations and many other factors. It is the plurality of Iraq since before the arrival of Islam that helps minority communities maintains their linguistic identity, rather than a religious divide.

A significant aftermath of the Islamic conquest is the establishment of the ʼamṣār, the new Islamic cities. Basically, these cities were garrison towns that were established to serve as military basements, but many of them developed into urban centers. Two cities were established in Iraq after the Islamic conquest; these are Kufa and Basra.

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The first newly-established Islamic city was Kufa in 638 CE by the Islamic troops, and this city marked the first stages of the Arabization of Iraq. The first settlers in the city were a mixture of troopers from Yemen, and Nizār tribes from North Arabia (Morony, 1984). At the beginning, the planning of the city assigned quarters by the tribal affiliation. Soon after, the city witnessed an influx of immigrants from different tribes and places in the Peninsula, especially from Yemen and Hijaz, which caused the city to grow rapidly (Blankenship, 1994). Thus, the establishment of the city and the processes of forming a dialect that reflects the multiple sources of the speakers started to take shape. Persians who immersed in the Arabic culture whether as captives, defectors or converts constituted a significant number in the total of Kufa’s population. By the mid-seventh century these were not considered a minority since the majority of them were considered part of the community and they became Arabicized. However, another group of Persian cavalrymen, who are known as the Al-Ḥamrā ‘the Red’, surrendered to the Muslims and later fought in the Islamic conquest alongside the Arabs. This group of Persians settled in their own quarter in the city. These conditions likely made Al-Ḥamrā members bilingual in Persian and Arabic.

At this point, the tribal division started to fade even in Kufa, and the religious grouping that was the prominent identity marker was no longer significant in the city since the majority of the settlers are Muslims. This situation allowed for a new division to come to the surface a generation after the settlement in Kūfa, namely socio-economic class (Morony, 1984). This stratification in the social class has surely led to internal conflicts between the lower and higher classes.

Another significant miṣr in Iraq is Basra. The planning of the city is vastly different than that of Kufa, in that Kufa became a melting pot of people from different tribes whereas Basra consisted largely of five powerful tribes, each with its own section of the city (Blankinship, 1994). The Arab tribes who settled in Basra are reported to have emigrated from the central and eastern parts of the Peninsula (Morony, 1984). Just like the Kufan Al-Ḥamrā, the city of Basra has the ʼasāwera (Persian asvārān), which is the name given for the Persian cavalrymen who settled in Basra (Morony, 1984).

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As for non-Muslim Arabs, they continued to live in Al-Ḥīra that was in the pre- Islamic era the Arab kingdom’s capital. Three centuries later, Al-Ḥīra started to decline. The Arabs moved to Kufa and the majority of Christians and Jews scattered in different directions, mainly to Baghdad (Morony, 1984).

The two ʼamṣār Kufa and Basra lost their prominence after the foundation of Baghdad, the new capital of the Abbasid Empire, in 762 CE. Baghdad noticed huge waves of immigrants from the surrounding cities and towns, namely Kufa, al-Ḥīra and Al-Madāʼin –the capital of the Sassanid Empire in Iraq. The foundation of Baghdad followed the system of the previous ʼamṣār, which designates the city quarters by tribal affiliation. Arabic was the most dominant language throughout the city mainly because of its metropolitan status.

During the Abbasid caliphate, the city of Baghdad witnessed constant cultural competition between Arabic and Persian cultures. It was obvious that the city was overwhelmed by the Persian presence in population and urban development. The Persian elements can be seen in the city architecture and administration system. Baghdad was the destination for many Persians who came to the city either through military settlements during the establishment of the city, or as scholars who joined the intellectual movement that flourished under the Abbasid dynasty. In fact, modern Persian sources claim that many of the notable leaders of the Abbasid army claimed Arab origin although their names indicate that they descended from Persian origin (Encyclopedia Iranica “Baghdad”29). Regardless of this prominent presence of Persian race, the Persians were outnumbered by Arabs and Arameans, and by the 9th century the majority of the Persians were submerged in Arabic culture (Encyclopedia Iranica). Arabic remained the only language of administration and probably the vernacular of the city, though bilingualism is expected to be apparent.

Many successive historical events took place since the Abbasid Caliphate in Mesopotamia. However, the historical overview presented in this section highlights the major contact situations between Arabs and others that took place in this region, and

29 https://goo.gl/2WcEbF

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anything beyond these contact situations is not relevant to this project.

3.3.2 The Levant

Chapter Two explains the use of shortened variants of the progressive ʻammāl in the majority of Levantine dialects. The habitual in these dialects is marked with b-. One wonders about the lack of gʻd in terms of contact in this area. gʻd is only documented in two dialects and in one variety is considered less urban than b-/ʻammāl.

The very first mention of the word Arab comes from the A version of the Assyrian Monolith Inscription, dated to 853 BCE, that mentions Gindibu the King of Arabs. Restö (2003: 126) explains that the name Gindibu ‘grasshopper’ is a common Arabic name that is designated of animals as personal names, which is a characteristic of Arabic and rarely found in other Semitic languages. Restö’s analysis of the whole text suggests that the king Gindibu and his people are likely to have come from the Trans-Jordan area (127). Furthermore, later Assyrian sources confirm the presence of Arabs on the eastern border of the Ḥawrān province In 732 BCE.

Greek and Aramaic were spoken, and there are attestations of bilingualism (Hoyland, 2004). There were people in this area who are described as being ethnically ‘Arab’ without specifying what that actually means. Even if those Arabs spoke some kind of Arabic, it is possible that they have shifted to Aramaic, which is the dominant language in the areas where they live (Macdonald, 2009a). Aramaic was the dominant language in the agricultural areas and Greek severed as the prestigious language of inscription. In the desert and the steppe ANA and Arabic were more common (EALL; " Epigraphic Arabic") which suggests that those Arabs are pastoralists.

In the Hawran plains, the settlement of Arab tribes originated by their appointment under the Romans as their confederate clients to administrate the area. The first confederate was the Arab tribe of Ṣalīḥ, who had emigrated from Tihama coastal plain in the south west of the Arabian Peninsula (Ibn Khaldun). This was followed by the Ghassānid raid on these tribes from central Arabia around the 5th century and became the new chief allies of the Roman imperial power in the area in the 6th century (Hoyland,

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2009: 386). The Hawran, then, is considered the capital of an Arab kingdom in the Levant.

The Namāra inscription, which was found on the lintel for the Lakhmid Arab king Imruʼ Al-Qays’s tomb, was dated to 328 CE. This text was written in Old Arabic using the Nabatean Aramaic script. The inscription indicates that Arabic speakers were to some degree entrenched in this area around the 4th century CE. This is evidenced by the fact that the grave inscription of a prominent figure who is known to be ascribed as Arab is written in Arabic. The awareness of the connection between the language and identity of the deceased king indicates that there is a degree of awareness of the competition between Arabic and other prestigious languages in the area, at least within the group of speakers who claim Arab identity (Hoyland, 2004). It is possible that the political power granted for the Arabs in this area as the Roman chief allies has granted the language associated with them relevant prestige.

Nomads in the areas under the Roman rule were described in the early accounts as Arabs. It was not until the third/fourth centuries that we see the term ‘Saracen’ to describe nomads. Since then, the application of the term ‘Arab’ gradually became exclusive for the tribes that reside in the province of Arabia- which extends from Syria to the northwestern Arabian peninsula and was formerly known as the Nabatean kingdom- regardless of the ethnicities of the populations in these areas (Hoyland, 2009: 375; Macdonald et al, 2015: 13).

With the advent of Islam in the sixth century, there were several Arab conquests of the Levant that were facilitated by the Sassanians invasions from Persia, which resulted in weakening the Roman dominance in the area and the beginning of the de- Hellenization processes of the Levant. Unlike many other invaded areas that witnessed changing the people’s culture and language, those who had strong ties with the Byzantine empire fled to Antioch, which left no place for cultural and linguistic contact between the Muslim Arab conquerors and the Greek speaking inhabitants. Only Aramaic speakers were left after the huge evacuation of Greek speakers by their government. Gradually, the abandoned cities were repopulated by Arabic speakers who were mainly

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from the Hijaz and Yemen. Unlike Iraq, Syria did not notice huge waves of emigration from the Peninsula after the conquest and the settlers in this newly conquered area were mainly the conquering troops.

After the conquest of the Levant, Arabic speaking troops still constituted a minority in this area that is inhabited by Christian Aramaic speakers. This resulted in the initiation of rigorous policies regarding language maintenance of the conquerors that forbid speaking their language by non-Arabic speakers. A text known as “the pact of ʻUmar” that was thought to be written by the dhimmis of the Levant 30 includes their promise not to speak the language of the Muslims or adopt their honorific names (kunyas) (Ibn ʻasākir, ND)31. The statements of the pact show that there is a level of language maintenance by disallowing bilingualism. It is understood why the conquerors do not want the conquered to use their native language in the presence of their conquerors. However, it is not clear from this statement why the conquerors do not want the conquered to learn their language. Although it is common through history that colonial powers enforce the use of their languages in the new colonization, in this particular case the use of Arabic by the conquered nation was illegal, and as the text reveals that disobeying this rule would result in exposing the protection given by the Muslims to the Christians in these lands. This text’s authenticity has been a subject to long-term dispute, mainly because of the direction of the conditions being directed from the, supposedly, vulnerable community to the ruling elite. What is of interest here is that the practice of language maintenance in the newly conquered lands is attested in the literature, and there are texts that record complaints about specific nations not being able to perform accurate Arabic which is considered to be threatening for the purification of the language. All these texts confirm the hypothesis of contact between the conquerors and concord.

It is under the Umayyad Caliphate that the Levant became the center of the Muslim world. The Umayyad family hailed from Mecca and declared Damascus their

30 Some reports specify Jerusalem, while others claim that it was written in Damascus. 31 There are doubts about the authenticity of this text and suggestions that it was fabricated at a far later date (Emon, 2012). 130

capital after establishing their rule in the area. The Umayyads extended their rule until they have a kingdom that spread from the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula (Al- Andalus) in the west to the Sindh in the east.

The Arabization of the Levant could not be accounted for in this era if only maintenance policies and the number of Arabic speakers were taken as the major players. Natural disasters such as plague and earthquake resulted in the depopulation of sedentary, largely Aramaic speakers in the urban centers and the repopulation of these centers by Arabic speaking nomads. However, it seems that the Arabization of the Levant was a slow process that did not result directly from the natural disasters or the Islamic conquest.

Modern day Lebanon was hard to Arabize at the beginning due to the geographical nature of this area. The terrain of mountains makes it difficult for pastoralist nomads to penetrate this area as frequently as they do in the steppe. The Tanuḫ tribe, which emigrated from north Syria in the 8th century CE, inhabited Southeast Lebanon. The conquest stretched the Islamic empire through this area as far as the Taurus Range in the north. This expansion led the Byzantines to evacuate many of their citizens from Lebanon to Anatolia. However, some of them remained in this area, as we will see in section (3.3.6.2).

3.3.3 Egypt

The durative marker in Egyptian Arabic is presented in Chapter Two as follows: gʻd is the progressive marker in Cairene Arabic, shortened variants of ʻammāl are attested in Upper Egypt, and the habitual is marked with b-. The variety of durative markers found in Egypt leads us to look for possibility of borrowing one of the forms from other dialects that came in contact with Egyptian.

Egypt has a long history of successive dynasties due to its geographical location between Asia and Africa and the Mediterranean. It was ruled by the Romans for over six centuries. It was also controlled by the Sassanians briefly before the Byzantines took it back to their control. Until the Islamic conquest, the majority of inhabitants were Copts

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who spoke Coptic.

The Arabization of Egypt did not start until the advent of Islam to this region. It is reported that Arabs used to travel to Egypt well before the rise of Islam, but these groups were mostly visitors who did not have any linguistic or cultural impact there. We have reports that the first Muslim governor there -ʻAmr bin Al-ʻĀṣ- persuaded the Caliph ʻUmar bin Al-Khaṭṭāb to initiate the conquest of Egypt by telling him stories about this country, which he was familiar with from his travels there before he converted to Islam (Al-Bakrī). This story shows that Arabs were not totally isolated from the surrounding territories beyond the Peninsula in the pre-Islamic era.

The Islamic conquest of Egypt started in 639 CE, and the first conquest army consists of Qahtanite Tihami fighters, who hailed from the Tihama plains in western Yemen. The city of Fusṭāṭ was established as a miṣr in 643 CE, a couple of years after the first Islamic conquest in Egypt. The city was founded in a location close to modern day Cairo, and later was swallowed by the mega city. After the establishment of Fusṭāṭ, it was organized in a way similar to Kufa and Basra, which allocates quarters for different tribes. The city grew to become the Islamic state’s capital in the newly conquered Egypt and it later served as a military base for the conquests in the rest of Africa. Alexandria was the most prominent city in the pre-Islamic Egypt. It lost this status after the conquest and it was overshadowed by the new-city Fusṭāṭ. However, it served as the Muslims’ base for conquests that were operated in the Mediterranean (Kennedy, 2007).

After the initial growth of the capital city Fusṭāṭ, it noticed an influx of Arabs who immigrated to this city from Hijaz and southwest Arabia. There are reports that the Muslim governor in the first half of the 8th century called for tribal migrations to Egypt by encouraging the army members to bring their families and entire clan (Suwaed, 2015: 77). The Arabs, whether the army or the immigrants, settled in the center of Fusṭāṭ, with the elite of Quraysh tribe settling in the center. This indicates that the more prestigious social classes were concentrated towards the center of the city, whereas those who constitute the segregated groups living in the fringes. The latter includes non-Muslims,

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such as the local Copts, and non-Arabs, such as Persians, converted Jews and Byzantines. Added to the population are the imported slaves from Nubia and Berbers who most likely were living with their masters. Regardless of the clear social segregation of these groups, they maintained a healthy relationship with the Arab Muslims and most likely spoke their language given that Arabic was the language of the conquerors.

There are reports that the majority of non-Yemenite tribes settled at the beginning outside Fusṭāṭ. The tribe of Qays the Adnanites, who hailed from northern Arabia, as opposed to the Qahtanites from southern Arabia, came after the first waves of migration and settled on the western bank of the Nile, whereas the first wave settlers inhabited Fusṭāṭ that sits on the eastern bank of the Nile. There were long-lasting rivals between the originally southern and northern Arabian tribes (Aharoni, 2007: 17), and it seems that the two opponents did not overlap at the early years of the conquest. The conquest continued to spread as far south as Aswan and a garrison was placed in this city.

The migrations of Arabs to Egypt were incessant. But it was the Fatimid caliphate (968-1171) that noticed the greatest waves of tribal migration from different parts of the Islamic world, including the Arabian Peninsula, Greater Syria, and Iraq. The majority of these groups settled in Sinai desert or the Nile's banks (Suwaed, 2015: 77). It is argued that this new movement to Egypt is what stimulated the Banī Hilāl epic migration from the peninsula to North Africa. This tribe hailed in large numbers from central Arabia to Egypt, and they later were exiled to Upper Egypt. They settled there for a century before continuing their migration to North Africa through the Libyan Desert (Aharoni, 2007: 17-8).

During the Fatimid reign, the country saw an economic growth when the empire stretched to include parts of North Africa, Sicily, Hijaz and parts of the Levant. This gave the empire full control of major trade networks through the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. The trade route between the Red Sea and the rest of the country accelerated the Arabization of Upper Egypt.

By the fall of the Fatimid and the rise of the Ayyubid dynasty (1171-1250), some

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Arab tribes were transferred from Gaza and settled in the Sharqia district in the northern part of the country adjacent to Sinai (Suwaed, 2015: 77).

The short rule of the Ayyubids did not notice huge migrations. This situation continued through the rule of the Mamluk Sultanate that started in the mid 13th century, and soon after the rise of this Sultanate, the tribal supremacy that characterized the early centuries of the Islamic conquest of Egypt started to decline. The Arabs did not acknowledge the Mamluks’ government who were originally slaves of different origins. This resulted in constant internal troubles between the Arabs and the Mamluk government. This, along with internal disputes and competitions over land among the clans of the tribes, has resulted in shaking the tribal units that used to tie the confederative tribal groupings. These ties started to fade and many sub-groupings emerged while others disintegrated. The new fragmented groupings were no longer holding any political or social power, and all is left is small regional tribal groupings that either held their original tribal affiliation in a local scale or created a new small grouping (Aharoni, 2007: 18-9).

Egypt throughout its history noticed excessive emigrations from the east, besides emigrations of Berber tribes from the west. It is possible that the Arabization processes started as soon as the first wave of immigrants arrived to the country. The isolation of Muslim conquerors did not prevent them from having sustained contact with the local Copts, and the successive political events have sure led to more integration between the Arabs and the others. Today, Arabic is the main vernacular of all Egyptians, and Coptic is a liturgical language that even many Copts do not master. We do not have any exact dates of when Arabic completely wiped other languages since the process of Arabization was gradual and slow.

3.3.4 North Africa

The durative marker that is attested in Morocco and Algeria is ka- (ku- is attested in one Algerian dialect). Libya has the progressive gʻd while Tunisian has qāʿid..fi.

Before the Islamic conquest of North Africa that started in 647 CE, the entire

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region that was under the Byzantine Empire in North Africa was suffering from an economic decline that led to significant reduction of settlement. The capital of the empire was Carthage, and the majority of the population was native Amazigh (Berber) who speak an Afro-Asiatic language and have a social structure based on a tribal system. There were other minorities of Byzantines who either fled from the Levant.

The Islamic conquest of North Africa was not continuous, and it lasted for a whole century before it was completed. This conquest took a couple of phases, and every phase contributed in a way to the Arabization of this part of Africa. The first phase was right after the first arrival of the Muslim conquerors in Egypt. The army of ʻAmr bin Al-ʻĀṣ that conquered Egypt, with a majority of Yemeni troop men, kept moving westward until they reached northeast Libya, then called Barqa, in 643 CE. Four years later the city of Sbeitla in northern Tunisia was conquered after a battle between the Muslims and the Byzantines. The battle ended with the Byzantine army fleeing to their capital Carthage, and it was the end of the Byzantines rule on the region and the beginning of Muslims control of North Africa. There was another attack on Tunisia a couple of years later, which resulted in the reduction of the Byzantine influence on North Africa and the Berbers’ split to allies and opponents of the Muslim conquerors.

The second phase was led by the Muslim commander of North Africa ʻUqbah bin Nāfiʼ who came to the scene ca. 670 CE. He established the Umayyad headquarters in North Africa and along with his troops that were a mix of Arab settlers in Egypt and Muslim Berbers founded the new miṣr Qayrawan. The planning of the new city is not different from the other ʼamṣār in the east; the tribal system controlled the distribution of the settlers. The elites of Quraysh and other Hijazi tribes were centered, whereas other Yemeni and southeastern tribes were scattered in other quarters.

The end of the 7th century marks the beginning of the third, and final, phase of the Islamic conquest in this region. A Muslim army was collected in Egypt with a majority of Ghassanid Arabs who were sent from the Levant. They moved to Carthage to stop the Byzantines constant raids, and they successfully destroyed the Byzantine capital. They also founded the city of Tunis close to Carthage and later settled there. During this time,

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there were several attempts by the Berbers to take over control of the areas that the Muslims conquered. During this period, the Muslims were able to eliminate the Byzantine and the Christian rule of the region.

The first quarter of the 8th century noticed the Muslims attempts to include Morocco under their rule. In 710 CE, they were able to launch an army led by the Muslim governor Musa bin Nuṣair and they took control of the central part of Morocco. This event marked having the whole region under the Umayyad Caliphs rule. Thirty years after the conquest of Morocco, the Muslim Berbers raised a great revolt against their Ummayad Arab rulers, and this revolt has been stimulated by the fluctuated Umayyad caliphs’ policies with non-Arab Muslims regarding taxation and slavery since the beginning of their rule in North Africa. Although the revolt was put down around 743 CE and Qayrawan, the Umayyad center in North Africa, was saved from the Berbers attacks, the region had never revolved back under the rule of the caliphate as it was before the revolt. This series of events declared the independence of North Africa from the rule of caliphate in the east. Many different Berber states emerged and claimed authority over different parts of the region. In general, only Andalusia and as far as the eastern part of modern Algeria was back in the Arabs’ hold, whereas the rest of the region fell under the rule of different dynasties. Of these dynasties was the Arab dynasty of Sharifian Idrisids in Morocco from 788 to 974. The reign of this dynasty was supported by Berber states that later integrated into their kingdom. The most notable event of this dynasty’s rule was the foundation of Fes in 789, and this city was populated by Arabic speaking contingents that emigrated from Qayrawan and Cordoba, which later has contributed to the Arabization of Morocco.

Regardless of all the events and migrations to and from North Africa in the span of half a century of Arabizing and Islamizing this region, the literature attributes the Hilalian migration as the most highlighted historical event that significantly marks the Arabization of this region. This notion holds that the migration of the tribes of Banī Hilāl and Banī Sulaym in the 10th century from Egypt to North Africa was a pivotal event that characterized the dialects of the areas where they settled in (Heath, 2002: 2- 12). It is argued that the Hilalians settled in rural areas, and the dialects spoken today in 136

these areas represent the dialect of the Hilalians, usually referred to as a Bedouin dialect. On the other hand, the dialects spoken today in urban areas are referred to as pre- Hilalian dialects, which indicates that the dialect of the sedentary Arabs who settled in these areas before the arrival of the Hilalians in the 10th century is what characterizes the dialects spoken in the urban centers today. Therefore, the clear-cut difference represented in the sedentary-rural dichotomy in North Africa is due to this great migration. This viewpoint was first hinted by the 14th century historiographer Ibn Khaldun, and in the past century it was adopted as a truism of the classification of Maghribi Arabic (Fischer and Jastrow 1980: 35; EALL: “Dialects Classification”).

Although the significance hinged over this topic is obvious for any historical linguistic research of this area, I will not include the discussion of the Hilalian influence here for several reasons. The first reason is related to the nature of the markers under scrutiny here. It is reported that there is no difference in use between pre-Hilalian and Hilalian dialects in terms of aspectual marking. The only difference that should be highlighted is between the consonants in ka- and ta-, which is attributed to be regional difference rather than sedentary/rural one (Fischer and Jastrow 1980: 35). Second, recent contributions of genealogical research question the impact of this migration from different perspectives32. First it was suggested that the numbers of the tribe members mentioned in historical resources are highly exaggerated, possibly because the historical texts mention that many of these tribes moved to Africa, which could be falsely understood as an indication that none of the tribes that belonged to this confederation remained in the Peninsula. Ibn Khaldun mentioned that this great confederation consists of many tribes that were annexed by means of early settlements within the Arabian Peninsula. Some of the clans that belong to major tribes moved outwards toward the west, whereas some moved to the Levant or Mesopotamia. However, a great majority of these tribes remained in the Arabian Peninsula.

Another reason for excluding the discussion of the Hilālian is justified by the linguistic nature of the places of origin of the Banī Hilāl tribes in the Arabian Peninsula,

32 Magidow (2013) has provided a comprehensive treatment for this historical event while taking into account the historical, linguistic and social impacts of this theory. 137

which casts a problem for the current research. Since we do not know anything about the historical or the current use of aspect marking in the dialects of this exact tribe, whether in the Arabian Peninsula or in North Africa, any historical treatment of their migration or presence would not contribute to the reconstruction of the aspect markers in their dialects. Unfortunately, we do not have any linguistic information about aspect even in the dialects spoken today in the locations that are suggested in the literature as their former settlements in the Peninsula before the great migration. Thus, no links between the historical Banī Hilāl and the local tribes in their former settlements can be drawn in this research.

Because of all the reasons mentioned above, the pre-Hilalian/Hilalian distinction in North Africa does not constitute a relevant discussion to the construction of aspect markers needed for the present study.

3.3.5 Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain)

ki/ka- is the durative marker that is attested in Andalusian Arabic. We are looking for contact with the Maghreb (Morocco and Algeria).

The Muslim armies started the Umayyad conquests in the Iberian Peninsula in 711 CE to take over the kingdom of the Visigoths. The first conquest was led by the Muslim Berber general Ṭāriq bin Ziyād, and the Berbers made up the bulk of the army while Arabs constituted a minority. Another army was sent in 712 CE from North Africa to reinforce the Arabo-Muslim presence in the peninsula. The majority of the troops were gathered in Qayrawan and they consisted mainly of originally Yemenites who settled in North Africa since its conquest (Barton, 2009: 27). The Muslim raids continued for several years and more armies were sent with Arab majorities. The penetration of the peninsula continued as far as Tours in north-central France, which is the location where the Islamic armies were defeated in the Battle of the Palace of the Martyrs (Maʻarakat Balāṭ ash-Shuhadā’) in 732 CE. In general, by 718 CE almost the entire peninsula was under the Umayyads’ control. The Muslims were known by locals as the Moors, regardless of their ethnicity, and this name expanded later to include all Muslims North Africa and the Mediterranean islands. 138

The exact date of the first presence of Muslim armies in Andalusia is a matter of dispute. Early Muslim historians from the 9th and 13th centuries agreed that the date of the first invasion to Iberia was ca. 648 during the time of the caliph ʻUthmān bin ʻAffān, which is about 60 years before Ṭāriq bin Ziyād’s invasion and about forty years before the conquest of North Africa. These historians reported that the purpose of invading Andalusia was to use it as a naval base to invade Constantinople. The force of Arabs and Berbers who undertook this conquest was sent from Africa and was able to guarantee victory for the Muslims and Andalusia was included in their rule (Ibn Al-Athīr). However, modern historians refuse this story for many reasons. One reason that this narration is not accepted is that the chronological order of events does not support these claims. The story suggests that the first invasion of Iberia was well around half a century before even the conquest of Morocco. All other historical reports confirmed the Berbers initial resistance of the Muslims presence in their lands at the time of the North African conquest. Moreover, the Roman powers would not allow them to advance further to the westernmost part of Africa without resistance. Thus, this putative invasion suggests that the Muslims were able to advance to Iberia through all these obstacles in relatively short time before coming back to North Africa from Egypt to destruct these obstacles, which seems a long way if they already have a base in Andalusia. Due to the inconsistency of arranging these events, this narration is regarded as unreliable.

Within the early years of the Islamic conquest of Hispania, the policies of discrimination against some groups- namely Muslims from other ethnicities and Arabs who do not claim close links to the Umayyad caliphs- led the social and political tensions in the country. The distribution of the early troops’ settlements in the peninsula was not different from the other regions where conquerors were settled according to their tribal and ethnic heritage. The Arab early comers inhabited major cities and rich agricultural areas such as Córdoba, Seville, Zaragoza, the Guadalquivir valley, Murcia and Ebro, whereas the Berbers were generally placed in pasturelands and the hill country of Andalusia and Valencia (Barton, 2009: 26-7). Other acts of discrimination that led to the Berbers resentments and complains include the fact that they were generally placed as a subordinate class within the Andalusian society, whether in terms of army and

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administration ranks or sending them to advance in battles while holding the Arab troops back until the moments of victory, which results in spreading the booties to the Arabs while excluding the Berbers. Thus, it was obvious that the same reasons that broke out the Berbers’ revolt in North Africa led the Berbers in Andalusia to fire up a rebellion in 741 CE. The Umayyad caliph sent a troop from Syria to North Africa to resolve the revolt in Morocco before it spreads in the rest of Africa. The army was defeated by the Berber rebels in Morocco and they were sieged in Ceuta in the northern corner of the country. The remnants of the Syrian army were saved by the Arab government in Andalusia to help in breaking the revolt in this part with the condition that they should leave back to Syria. They then were able to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and helped in restoring order in Andalusia. After the success that was made in Andalusia to subdue the Berbers’ revolt, the Syrian expedition decided to remain in the country despite the agreements they made with the governor. They settled in the southern countryside in return for rendering services to the governor (Barton, 2009: 27).

Soon enough, another tension between the Arab early comers and the Syrian troops who came later broke out ca. 742. The earlier settlers are largely Yemenites whereas the Syrians claim a Qaysis heritage; the two groups belong to tribal confederations that have a long history of rivalry. Furthermore, the Syrians claim another privilege, given the fact that they descended from Syria where the capital of the Umayyad caliph lies (Barton, 2009: 27). The major conflicts within the Arab society and the other inter-ethnic conflict between the Arabs and Berbers became the standing characteristic of the Iberian Peninsula for the rest of its history under the rule of the Muslims. Successive events that led to weakening this part of the Islamic state are a result of the internal tensions besides the constant conflict between Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties in the east, which had their effects on the west. In 755, the Umayyad scion ʻAbd al-Raḥmān bin Muʻāwyah bin Hishām had fled from the Abbasid executions of the Umayyads in the east to Morocco before he advanced to Andalusia. He was able to declare himself as the new Umayyad caliph in Andalusia and refused the Abbasid rule (Barton, 2009: 27). The establishment of an independent Umayyad state in Andalusia that is far from the Abbasids in Baghdad encouraged many families to flee from the Levant to Andalusia.

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Thus far in history, three groups settled in Andalusia: largely Yemeni and Hijazi Arabs who are the descendants of Arabs who settled in Egypt and Qayrawan. They settled first in Egypt starting ca. 643 CE. Then a group of them moved to Qayrawan ca. 670, and finally a group of them moved to Andalusia in 712 CE; Syrian troops who settled in Andalusia ca. 742 CE; and later waves from the Levant starting from 755 CE, although we do not know exactly the ethnicities and origins of these groups. The lag time between the residence of the first group in Egypt and then Qayrawan before finally moving to Andalusia suggests that successive generations were involved in every stage of movement. Therefore, it is possible that every generation had acquired the koiné spoken in the miṣr where they grew up and transmitted this koiné with them to the new miṣr.

It is not mentioned in the historical records how the linguistic Arabization of the Berbers took place during the early times of the Islamic conquest. Although we know that the Arabization of this group was a slow and gradual process, such knowledge would be helpful in understanding whose Arabic dialect they shifted to in the early stages of the Arabization. Although the Berbers outnumbered the Arabs in Andalusia and similarly in North Africa, they were politically and socially marginalized. Regardless the fact that they shared the religion of the Arabs, they remained culturally Berber. Furthermore, the distribution of Muslims throughout the early history of the Islamic conquest was based along ethnic and tribal lines. This indicates that the discrimination policies reduce chances of contact between the Arabs and others. It would not be too bold to argue that Berbers had no benefit in learning Arabic as a language of communication, given that they could not reach political or social status that require them to communicate with their Arab counterparts. As Muslims, the learning of Classical Arabic as a liturgical language does not demand acquiring the spoken dialects. This justification could possibly explain why Berber language was until today alive and many Berbers are bilingual in Berber and Arabic.

3.3.6 Arabic in Periphery

This section is devoted to the history of Arabic in the fringes of the Arabic- 141

speaking world (Sprachinseln). These dialects are spoken in isolated pockets where they lost contact with other Arabic speaking communities. It is argued that the majority of these dialects have evolved into distinct languages in their own right (Jastorw, 2011). This group of dialects is very important for the diachronic analysis as they usually preserve old features of the spoken varieties due to an early split from mainstream Arabic (ibid). Furthermore, the fact that these dialects are peripheral makes them rarely subjugated by the standardization processes and the supremacy of Classical Arabic. Therefore, they are not affected by the diaglossic situation seen everywhere else where Arabic is spoken today. The absence of the use of Classical Arabic makes it possible for features that are known to be associated with the spoken varieties elsewhere –such as aspectual markers- to survive in all forms of language.

This section reviews the relevant history of Arabic in the periphery from the east to west.

3.3.6.1 Central Asia

Durative markers are attested in two Arabic dialects spoken in Uzbekistan. The dialect of Qašqa Darya has the progressive gāʻed and the Bukhara dialect has nāyim/qōyem. We will examine contact with Iraqi Arabic.

Arabic dialects of Central Asia are found in today’s Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Many theories emerged about the date of the Arabs arrival to Central Asia, and some of these suggest late movement dates, some time between the 15th and 16th centuries. The most supported theory dates these migrations to Central Asia back to the beginning of the 8th century (EALL: “Uzbekistan Arabic”: 612). Even the origin of the Arabs in this region is a matter of dispute, but the most supported theory by the linguistic evidence and historical events proposes an early Iraqi origin (Jastrow, 2005:134). Uzbekistan Arabic shows traits of Iraqi Arabic, but it does not show the qəltu-gilit split, which is characteristic of Mesopotamian Arabic since the Abbasid times (750-1258). This supports the theory of the 8th century movement, which most likely was motivated by Islamizing Central Asia.

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Until the 19th century, Arabs in Central Asia maintained their nomadic lifestyle. It is reported that their isolation is what reinforced the maintenance of their language. Many of these languages are facing extinction today as the Arabs became multilingual and gradually started to open up for integration with other ethnicities in their milieu.

Uzbekistani Arabic has two dialects: the Bukhara dialect and Qašq-Darya dialect. These two dialects are not mutually intelligible, which results in their speakers’ interaction with each other in Tajik or Uzbek (EALL: “Uzbekistan Arabic”: 613).

3.3.6.2 Cyprus

The durative marker in Cypriot Arabic is p(i)-. This means that we are looking for points of contact with b- dialects such as Levantine.

Cypriot Arabic is a communal dialect of Arabic that is still spoken by Christians, mainly Maronite Christians in Cyprus. It is reported that the speakers of this variety used to reside in the village of Kormakiti in north-west Cyprus until the Turkish invasion in 1974, which led to the spread of the members of this community in different parts of the island (Versteegh, 1997:212).

This group of Christian Syriac people used to live in Antioch within the Byzantine Empire until 451 CE when they were forced to move to Apamea in northwestern Syria. At the arrival of the Islamic conquests in the area in the 7th century the Christian community in Antioch lost communications with other Patriarchates, which resulted in the Maronite community’s independence from other religious powers. With the advance of the Islamic state in the lowlands of the area, the community moved to the mountains and valleys of Lebanon (Naaman, 1998).

Although the historical accounts asserts the isolation of this community from the Arabs, it seems that the presence of Maronites in Lebanon made it inevitable for them to have contact with Arabs. The exact date and reasons for their migration to Cyprus are not agreed upon by modern historians. One of the earliest suggested proposals provides the 7th century as the time of the Maronite Christians presence in the island. Another proposal suggests that the immigration of Maronites to Cyprus was derived by the 143

Abbasids’ oppression of Christians in the Levant in the 8th century (EALL: 536-7).

Whatever the motives for the migration, we know that this community migrated from northwest the Levant. Successive migrations were also reported until the 16th century. The linguistic evidence from the comparative studies conducted on Cypriot Arabic suggests that this variety depicts heavy Aramaic influence (EALL: 537) as well as shared traits with sedentary Syrian dialects and Mesopotamian qəltu dialects spoken in Anatolia (Versteegh, 1997: 212).

3.3.6.3 Malta

Different variants of the root gʿd are attested in Maltese Arabic; these are qiyed, kiyed, ʾed, ʾiyed, gieyed and ked. This means that we are looking for points of contact with North African dialects such as Egyptian, Libyan and Tunisian.

The Arab rule in Malta was relatively short, but the linguistic impact of their presence here is important. The language spoken in Malta today is regarded by some linguists as a dialect of Arabic despite the fact that it is unintelligible for Arabs who live elsewhere (EALL: “Malta”). The extensive influence of Romance granted Maltese the label of a mixed language. Regardless of its categorization, this variety represents a priceless case for this research since it employs aspect markers similar to the ones used in many Arabic dialects today.

It is reported that Malta was conquered in 870 CE by a force that invaded the island from Sicily under the lead of the Aghlabids. Several accounts suggest the presence of Muslims in the island before this date; however, the majority of sources confirm that the island was uninhabited after the late 9th century invasion and was only visited sporadically by shipbuilders and hunters (Al-Ḥimyari, ND). It was not until 1048 CE that the Muslims started to inhabit the island and build the city of Mdina. The origin of this wave of settlers is said to be from Sicily or North Africa (EALL, 2006: 215)33.

33 Although many western historians claim that medieval historians reported the second invasion to be from Sicily, I could not find any reference to the origin of the settlers of the 11th c. in the Arabic historical texts. Regardless, Brincat (1995) presents an extensive historical analysis of all available data to prove that Sicilian and Maltese Arabic are related. 144

Only five years later, Malta was invaded by a great Byzantine army that besieged the island (Al-Ḥimyari, ND). The original text by Al-Ḥimyari shows that the number of Muslim military aged men was about 400 and their slaves’ outnumbered them. They all gathered in an army that defeated the Byzantines and resulted in freeing all the slaves who contributed in the army as a way of rewarding them34. If this account for the Muslims’ number is accurate, then we should expect the island is still sparsely populated at this point in history. A decade later, the Normans invaded Malta in 1090 CE, and the island was annexed to their kingdom in Sicily. At the beginning, the Normans’ rule was characterized by religious tolerance towards Muslims, as they perceived them as a tribute source (Brincat, 1995). The Muslims remained in charge of administration and the island continued to flourish in all aspects (Mifsud, 1995). During this period of the Norman rule, connections with North Africa remained intact. Muslims were still considered the socio-religious elites. Therefore, the language they spoke represented the prestige and power associated with them and Classical Arabic was prominent as illustrated by inscriptions on tombstone discovered in Gozo that dated 1174 (Mifsud, 1995: 23). The island hosted a complex heterogeneous society ethnically, religiously and linguistically. The Muslim Arabs coexisted with non-Arab converts, Christian Sicilians and Normans which entails that Arabic and Romance (mainly Siculo-Italian) were in use concurrently. It was not until the middle of the 13th century when Muslims started to face the Norman oppression (ibid: 23). At this time, all Muslims who lived in Malta were either forced to convert to Christianity or expelled.

In order to understand the linguistic dimension of the Arabization of Malta, there are a number of points that should be accounted for regarding the history of this island. First, it is understood from Al-Ḥimyari’s account that a long period of Arab rule is historically insignificant since the island was uninhabited for about a century, leaving the actual Arab domination on the people who settled in Malta for only about 42 years (Mifsud, 1995: 23). Therefore, it is those 42 years starting from 1048 CE plus the

34 Western sources interpret this number as the number of Muslims in Mdina. However, the Arabic text did not mention the capital Mdina and specifies this number for the Muslims in Malta, which means the entire island. 145

Norman reign before the mid 13th century that characterizes the Arabization of Malta. It is not clear from the historical accounts how Arabic survived in the islands after the 13th century when Normans started targeting Islam and the language associated with it. However, it is possible to suggest that the Arab presence in Malta under the Normans rule mostly marks the period when Arabization was established. The fact that they occupied a prestigious social status without having ultimate political control made the social situation on the islands different from other regions where Arabs held ultimate political control. This situation encouraged the contact of Maltese Arabs with Maltese of other ethnicities in a way less restrained than the Arabs’ contact elsewhere. This has helped in preserving Arabic language and local cultural identity and at the same time allowed other less socially prominent groups to maintain their language and identity without having to shift completely to Arabic, such as the case of Arameans under the control of Arabs in Mesopotamia and the Levant. It is also possible that geographical factors had lead to the acceleration of Arabization in Malta compared to other Arabized regions. The islands smallness and isolation serves the spread of Arabic in the early stages of Arabization, makes it possible that the majority of the inhabitants had access to this language in a relatively short time. However, these factors do not explain the maintenance of the language, given that after only three decades the Normans took over control and brought with them a new wave of language and culture. Moreover, we do not have any accounts for later emigrations from Arabic-speaking areas to Malta that can be regarded as a major contribute to the presence of Arabic on the islands.

3.3.6.4 Sub-Saharan Arabic in the rest of Africa (Sudan, Chad, Nigeria)

gʻd is the progressive marker in the dialects of Sudan and Chad, whereas b- is the attested progressive in Nigerian Arabic and ge- in Juba Arabic. The habitual is marked with b- in Sudanese whereas the other dialects do not distinguish between progressive and habitual marking. We will examine cases of contact with Egypt and other North African dialects.

The exact date of Arabic speakers’ arrival to the rest of Africa beyond Egypt and North Africa is not documented, and all speculations about first contact with Arabs in 146

this part of Africa are still a matter of dispute. Some references mention that the oldest reference to the presence of Muslims in this part of Africa goes back to the Umayyad Caliphate. The medieval geographer Al-Bakrī (1014-1094) explains the Muslims presence by referring to the second generation of Muslim invaders in East Africa (1068: 877).

This text shows that the second generation of the invaders converted to the locals’ religion; however, they are lighter in skin and they do not intermarry the Sudan “the blacks”. It is possible that their community consisted a minority that quickly lost its contact with the Arab base35. This text shows that Arabs did reach further in the west of the territory of their empire in order to spread Islam, but their presence in some places was not significant at the beginning. As for the east, the great waves of Arab tribes mentioned in section (3.3.3) who settled in Aswan were forced to move south to Sudan in the 14th century due to the Mamluks invasion to the kingdom of Nubia. The migration continued until the 16th century when a second wave of a mass migration came to the Sudan. This group split in two directions: some went further south to spread along the two Niles, whereas the second group advanced west toward present day Chad.

In the 11th century, Al-Bakrī presents a text of “the broken Arabic of the Blacks”, which is presumably a pre-pidgin spoken in Sub-Sahara, more specifically in a small town called Maridi. The text comes within a description of Aswan and other Egyptian

35 Al-Bakrī refers to the Nile in the descriptions of this area, which is clearly Ghana Empire (875) given that he mentions a short distance to Moroccan cities from the cities of this empire to describe trade routes, besides providing towns’ names that are still in use in Ghana today. This empire did not include modern day Sudan, and it is possible that the Nile here refers to the Senegal River, different from the Nile known in eastern Africa as the former approached the Atlantic Ocean. It is possible that the author refers to “the Nile” as a collective name for any river in Africa. 147

towns. The narrated text has been analyzed extensively by Thomason and El-gibali (1986: 321-2) and others.

Someone told me that a dignitary from the people of Aswan used to travel a lot. One day he reached a small town called Maridi. Upon his return, he said to the prince of the believers [the ruler in Islamic faith; presumably the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt], ‘Sir, may God give you plenty of good and honor your face, here is my case! Its goal is to preserve and spread the word of God. The Blacks have mutilated our beautiful language and spoiled its eloquence with their twisted tongues. During my visit, Sir - may God protect you - only God’s guidance helped me escape the dangers and understand their miserable Arabic. Sometimes, and may God forgive me if I did wrong, I could only laugh at what they called Arabic; and may God forgive me if I call what they uttered Arabic. Listen, Sir: One day there was a man whose name was Jumuʻa. He had a camel and a son. They were going to stay in a place. People(?) said to him, “Shame! You are a barbarian! Your son should not walk, you barbarian; seat him!” They were on the camel. People(?) said to him, ‘Shame! You are a barbarian!” The son sat and Jumuʻa walked. People(?) said to him, ‘Shame! You are a barbarian!” Jumuʻa said, “People(?) are neither good nor important”. The prince of the believers ordered that his need be met. Traders from the countries of Islam or the Sudan pass by them, so they feed them bread. And some of them are Muslims. Between them and the sea, there live the tribes Beni Ṣanhāja, who were established there after 440 [i.e. in the 11th century A.D., by Christian reckoning]. They are Muslims who follow the sect of Malek Ibn Anas.

The problem of this text is that it is fragmented and was only found in one printed copy of Al-Bakrī’s manuscripts. This copy does not compare to the other editions which do not include the text and its surrounding context. Only one edition contains the description of Egypt that comes before and after the text, but not the text itself. Thomason and El-gibali suggest that this text is spoken in Western Sahara, which is now modern Mauritania, probably by Berbers. Although there is a town called Maridi in south Sudan, about 300 km west to Juba- where Juba Arabic is spoken today- they dismissed the possibility that this town is the one in Al-Bakrī’s text, simply because there is no evidence that Arab travelers have reached this far south before the 13th century. Thomason and El-gibali’s main reasoning for placing this text in western Africa is the last paragraph in the text, which describes the Berber of the Ṣanhāja tribe, who

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lived in modern day Mauritania. More importantly, the text presented by the traveler as broken Arabic is analyzed, and some of the linguistic features match those of the Arabic pidgins spoken in Africa.

For the purpose of this chapter, we know that Arabic has developed into a pidgin in sub-Saharan Africa in the 11th century, and Arabs who settled in Upper Egypt for about seven centuries have had access to this part of Africa, which suggests that it could be true that early presence of Arabs from Upper Egypt has lead to the gradual Arabization of these areas. It is possible that Muslims were able to reach for these areas in order to spread Islam, and since then Arab traders had better chances to have business with the locals in these areas. The exact date of the first migrations is still unclear; however, the greatest migrations took place between the 14th and the 16th centuries (EALL, “Chad Arabic”: 361). The results of this Arabization are not as complete as seen in other areas, such as Egypt, but at least we have evidence of early Arabization.

3.3.7 Movements of Religious minorities

It is clear from the discussions above that the history of the Middle East is characterized by the complex interplay of politics and religion. Different political poles have different religious affiliations, and it is mostly these religious affiliations that motivate the trajectory of the political and social changes. It was shown in the previous sections that the social trend of segregating religious minorities and the religious groups that do not follow the religion of the government, such as the case of Christians at the early stages of Islamizing Mesopotamia and the Levant, is an ancient practice that extended until recently and became a marker of the history of the region. Examples for these practices are the Maronite immigration to Cyprus, the Muslims expel from Malta in the 16th century and the oppression of Muslims and Jews in Andalusia that led them to flee to North Africa.

The migrations and movements of specific religious minorities are already attested in this chapter, but what this section presents is a brief overview of the major historical timelines of the presence of two religious groups that today represent religious minorities in the Arab world; namely Jews and Christians. The reason for allocating this 149

section to these groups is motivated by the fact that these groups used to constitute majorities in some pockets across the Arabic-speaking region until the penetration of Islam in the areas where they used to live. Some Christians and Jews kept resisting the new religion and the culture that came with it. The influence of the Arabic culture became inevitable, and the groups that remained Christians or Jews acquired the new language to varying degrees. There are some groups that continued to live in their homelands, whereas others chose to move to new places, taking with them the new language that they acquired. It is by means of tracing the movements of those who changed their locations that we can understand the structure of the language that they acquired and brought with them. Moreover, dialectal research in some parts of the Arab world reports the existence of communal dialects, with Baghdadi Arabic being the most cited example (Blanc, 1964).

3.3.7.1 Jewish movements In Chapter Two, we saw that the variant qa(d)- is attested in the Jewish Iraqi of Baghdad. qā- is attested in the Jewish dialects of Tripoli in Libya and Tunis. Though, geographically separate, these forms are phonologically related. It is, thus, important for the discussion of the development of durative forms to understand how the form qa- is attested in the variety of Jews in Baghdad, Libya and Tunisia.

Tracing the exact date of speaking Arabic by Jews is impossible due to the difficulty in the defining the beginning of their contact history with other Arabic speakers. Throughout the Pre-Islamic history, Jews lived side by side with people from other religions and ethnic backgrounds in the Peninsula, Mesopotamia and the Levant. There is a claim that the Jews of the Peninsula spoke a distinct Jewish dialect (Hary, 2009: 34). However, this claim is not supported by historical or linguistic evidence. In fact, some of the famous pre-Islamic poets in the Peninsula were Jews and their poems were celebrated in the Arabic and Islamic literature. Some of these poets are Samuel Ibn 'Adiya, known in Arabic literature as Samawʼal ibn 'Adiya, Al-Rabīʻ ibn Abī Ḥaqįq, and many others (Ali, 2001). The orientalist Carlo Nallino asserts that the language of the Jewish poets of the pre-Islamic Peninsula is indistinctive from their pagan neighbors

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(cited in Ali, 2001:335). Based on these observations, we will discuss cases of contact between Jews and Arabic speakers after the Islamic conquest outside the Peninsula in order to see if their Arabic language was affected by that of the Muslim conquerors.

The section will not present the full history of the Jews in the Middle East, as this would be a massive undertaking in the context of this dissertation. We will focus on their major migrations between areas where Arabic is dominant. We want to focus on their movements since we want to explore the possibilities of diffusing the Arabic grammatical structures they possess to the dialects they came in contact with in the new destinations.

3.3.7.1.1 Jews in Mesopotamia

The first Hebrew poetry that has clear Arabic influence emerged in Mesopotamia (Snir, 2015: 36). We have reports of Jewish literature that was performed in Arabic, and sometimes Arabic was used as a liturgical language in Jewish ceremonies (Snir, 2015: 36). The Jewish community in Mesopotamia became highly integrated in the Muslim community and also participated in all forms of developing the Islamic state.

The paucity of accurate census information about Mesopotamia when Islam arrived in the 7th century makes it hard to speculate the numbers or locations of Jews at that time. The majority of Jews were rurals who spread across the country (Bene, 2013). The rapid growth of the Islamic Empire in the Middle Ages led to the urbanization of the majority of the Jews in Mesopotamia. The burden of the land tax imposed on non- Muslim peasants encouraged many Jews to move to large cities and abandon agricultural professions. They also aspired by the opportunities offered in the cosmopolitan centers, which resulted in the emergence of significant Jewish culture in the major cities, especially Baghdad (Rustow, 2013). It is estimated that Baghdadi Jews constituted between 50,000-75,000 in the 12th century, which constitutes about 15 percent of the city’s population (Benet, 2013).

Section (3.3.1) discusses how the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia was characterized by apparent religious stratification where Muslims were encouraged to

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reside in newly founded cities away from the non-Muslims, such as Kufa and Basra. At the beginning, the relations between the Muslims and the Jews were not significant. However, by the 10th century, the role of the Jews in the country started to increase under the Abbasids control and they contributed to different forms of science that led to the prosperity of the country (Rustow, 2013: 80). The new Arabic culture, and consequently its language, affected all levels of the Jewish community, starting with the highly educated elites to the common inhabitants. It is around this time when the Jews in Mesopotamia started to build their connections with Jewish networks across the Middle East. They established a religious institutional system where the heads of this system act as the leaders of all Jews (Rustow, 2013).

The Islamic Caliphate began to breakup into three kingdoms: the Abbasids in the Iraq, the Umayyads in Al-Andalus and the Fatimid in North Africa, Egypt and the Levant. The successive attacks that the Abbasid caliphate received by external powers such as other dynasties and internal tensions within the dynast led to the decline of the economy in the Abbasid territories (Rustow, 2013). This resulted in a huge influx of Jews towards the west, with Egypt constituting the new center of the Jewish culture. It is also reported that in the 12th century many prominent rabbinic figures moved from the Iberian Peninsula and Palestine to settle in Fusṭāṭ. The Jews who settled in Egypt were mainly merchants, and they exploited the many trade routes that crossed Egypt under the Fatimid control which granted them great mobility and professional freedom. They had business across the Mediterranean and along the Red Sea; as far north to Italy to the south in Yemen (Rustow, 2013). They also kept close communication with merchants and traders in different parts across long distances in the Arabic-speaking world and beyond. They also worked in other highly demanded professions by the Fatimid government like scholarship. All these aspects resulted in the great prosperity of the Jewish community in the west. The status of the Jews in Egypt became a significant marker in the Jewish history, which motivated other Jews to join them in Egypt especially those who fled from the Levant after the Crusades. This unprecedented prosperity and freedom granted for the Jews in Egypt began to introduce the independence of this community from ruling states. The succession of different

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dynasties between 12th and 16th centuries did not affect the internal affairs of this community as they gradually built their own administrational systems that did not interfere with the power in place.

Returning to the Iraqi Jews who remained in Iraq after the decline of Abbasid rule, the situation for this community fluctuated under the successive rules. The general trend indicates that the numbers of Jews in Baghdad declined slowly due to changing policies towards this group. However, it was not until the 20th century that the treatment of the Jews in Iraq saw its worse days. The Arab-Israeli conflict broke nationalism movements that did not consider Jews to be Arabs. Consecutive oppression incidents against the Jews in Iraq pushed many of them to immigrate to the state of Israel.

Arabic served as the language of communication between the Jewish traders in Egypt and everyone else, including other Jews in the Middle Ages. Some scholars believe that Jews always spoke a distinct dialect or dialects, and they label these Judeo- Arabic. The urban Jews acquired Arabic earlier than their rural counterparts, and those living in isolated communities such as the northern mountains never fully acquired Arabic (EALL. “ Judeo-Arabic”: 526). Arabic remained the language of communication and held this status for many urban Jews until the early modern periods (ca. 15th-18th c.) (Rustow, 2013), whereas those who never fully acquired Arabic continued to speak Aramaic. As a matter of fact, the contemporary Iraqi community is characterized by communal variation where the linguistic variation aligns with religious one especially in the capital Baghdad. Jewish Arabic is considered a sedentary form of Arabic along with Christian Arabic (qəltu dialects), while the Muslim varieties are considered Bedouin (gilit dialects) (Blanc, 1964). The Arabic variety the Jews speak represents the language Arabs spoke before the Abbasid era. The Muslims, on the other hand, brought a Bedouin type of language that they brought with them and penetrated the lower part of Iraq. Jews of Iraqi Kurdistan continued to speak Arabic unlike their Muslim neighbors who either speak Kurdish or Turkish (EALL. “Judeo-Arabic”: 532). If this is the case, clearly old Arabic dialects were not so distinct along sectarian lines.

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3.3.7.1.2 Jews in Spain (Sephardim) and North Africa

The early presence of Jews in Spain is recorded with varying reports about the exact date and source of their migration. What is important for this study is tracing their interactions with the Arabs in the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, the history that precedes the arrival of Muslims in the Peninsula and the Arabization of the Jews is irrelevant here.

The Visigoths’ control of the Iberian Peninsula was manifested by constant persecution of the Jews. Thus, the arrival of Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula was welcomed by the Jews who were reported to have participated in the Muslim armies. The relations between Jews and Muslims under the rule of Muslims continued to grow; an environment of religious tolerance, harmony and peaceful co-existence continued to foster the development of Muslim Andalusia in all aspects. It is reported that this atmosphere in Al-Andalus made the Jews-Muslims connections closer than elsewhere (Snir, 2015: 39). The intellectual prosperity under the Muslims’ rule encouraged scholars of all religions to learn different languages. With Arabic being the lingua franca of the Islamic state, and Al-Andalus was not an exception, many hybrid literary forms in Arabic and other languages emerged (Snir, 2015: 40). Furthermore, the Jews in Al-Andalus began transferring the knowledge attained in Arabic culture and literature to the Hebrew counterparts. There are secular poems written in Hebrew that adopted the Arabic qaṣīda form, besides the many literary works that are written solely in Arabic by Jews who resided in Al-Andalus (Snir, 2015: 40).

The Muslims also recognized the role of the Jews in the Andalusian community, and the Muslim rulers in Al-Andalus had many Jewish officials in the cabinet. It is obvious that the Jews who desired to reach a notable status in the community as intellectuals or as professionals realized that learning Arabic was crucial. Some of the Jewish scholars were even trilingual in Hebrew, Arabic and Romance language. However, we do not know if bilingualism was also common among other members of the community who were less noticed.

In 1492, the Al-Hambra Decree resulted in the expulsion of all the Jews who refused to convert to Christianity, and these expellees settled in different parts under the

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Ottoman Empire and other countries (Hary, 2009). These Jews had a great religious impact on other Jews they settled with after their expel (Hary, 2009: 30). They also separated themselves from their Muslim and Christian neighbors and congregated in their own quarters, such as ḥārit il-yahūd in Cairo and məllāḥ in Morocco. The Sephardim who arrived to Morocco joined earlier Jewish residents and settled in northern cities and large central cities such as Rabat, Meknes and Fes (Heath, 2002). Whether the Sephardim spoke a form of Judeo-Arabic affected that of the resident Jews or vise versa is debated in the literature. Heath believes that the Sephardim spoke Judeo- Spanish and acquired their Arabic from the residents, both Jews and aristocratic Muslim with Spanish substrate influence (ibid: 11). His justification for this argument comes from the fact that the Jewish expellees were not all from Granada and were not all under the Muslims sphere of influence. Therefore, it may be the case that the Arabization of this group took place in Morocco and was under the influence that the Jews in Morocco experienced.

3.3.7.2 Christian movements

Section (3.3.6.2) discusses how the Christian Maronites left in large numbers to Cyprus from the Levant between the 8th and 16th centuries. Another group of this religious minority immigrated to Egypt in the 18th century, along with many Christians who belonged to different sects. Although the presence of Levantines was not new to Egypt, it is not until the end of the 18th century that the country noticed huge influx of Christian Levantines, and these became to be known in Egypt as the Syro-Lebanese or iš-Šawām (plural for Šāmi “Levantine”). This migration was motivated by the intellectual movements in both the Levant and Egypt. In the Levant, the European missionary schools developed a system of education that is based on the European system. It was common among Christian Levantines to become graduates of the missionary schools that spread in the urban centers in the Levant. They were also bilingual in Arabic and French and some spoke other foreign languages (Kaufman, 2014).

Meanwhile in Egypt, Muhammad ʻAli Pasha, the Khedive ruler (1805-1848), was 155

interested in modernizing the country by inviting the European economic system and making Egypt open Europe. These circumstances led the Christian Levantines to see the opportunities open for them in Egypt, and therefore many waves of Levantine immigrants arrived to Egypt. Muhammad ʻAli saw the coming of these migrants as a great opportunity to strengthen his modernization according to the European model dreams. He accepted them and allowed them to live freely in the country without any reservations. They even reached high status in the country and were able to hold some of the higher positions. The majority of these new comers resided in Cairo and Alexandria, and these cosmopolitan centers became hubs for an active Levantine community. Especially in Alexandria, many members of this community involved in commerce within the Mediterranean, benefiting from the freedom granted for them in Egypt and their multilingualism and high education. The break of WWI was another watershed moment in the Syro-Lebanese presence in Egypt. More and more immigrants arrived to the country to escape the Ottoman new policies in the Levant, and the majority of them preferred Cairo and Alexandria as their refuge, given that they have ties with other Syro- Lebanese who arrived to the Egyptian cities generations before. Damietta, Tanta, Mansourah and Ismailia were among the most popular settlement destinations for these newcomers. The sub-groups of the Syro-Lebanese community maintained healthy and friendly relationship with each other despite sectarian or religious differences. However, intermarriage was exclusively within the Christian group and they rarely intermarried with Orthodox Copts. The settlement of Syro-Lebanese Christians in Egypt is usually described as a case of “cohabitation” but not “integration” (Rizk, 2010). They selected the neighborhoods where they settled in groups, and they had their own lifestyle which was represented in having their own schools and associations. The Great War marked the point when Egypt was no longer perceived as the haven for migrant the Syro- Lebanese. Rather, Egypt became a transit destination for their migrations to the West.

Thus, based on the discussion above, we know that there were early comers who arrived around the end of the 18th century, and later new waves came to Egypt in the first quarter of the 20th century. Unfortunately, we do not know much about how the old communities’ interaction with the local Egyptians affected their dialects. It is not clear if

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they accommodated their speech to the dialect of the new place and eventually acquired this dialect. The only information we know about their interaction with Egyptians is speculated based on their socio-economic position in the country and by analyzing the cultural and political tensions caused by their existence in Egypt. These communities were exceptionally wealthy and highly educated compared to the average Egyptian when they first arrived to Egypt, which granted them a privileged status during the Khedive reign (Kaufman, 2014). The successive French and British presence in Egypt between the 18th and 20th century made the Syro-Lebanese community more powerful than they had been during the reign of the Khedive. These two indicators show that, politically and economically, the Syro-Lebanese held a powerful position. Yet, there was a great deal of resentment from the Egyptians against the Greater Syrians (Šawām). The Egyptian community, including many highly educated Egyptian figures, resisted and attacked their presence ; the Egyptian nationalist Abdallah Al-Nadim called them “intruders” (Rizk, 2010). The Šawām were perceived as the main internal power that facilitated the British occupation of Egypt (Gershoni and Jankowski, 1986: 16). Their resistance to integration in the Egyptian community while maintaining their close-knit network enlarged the gap between them and the Egyptians.

Although historical accounts suggest that the integration of Greater Syrians into the Egyptian community was limited, and sometimes rare, we speculate that there was a level of inevitable integration for the groups who continued to live in Egypt. If the Greater Syrians maintained a lifestyle that many Egyptians consider to be an indicator of their modernity, it would not be impossible to think of possibilities of contact between the two groups.

3.3.8 Discussion

This chapter has reviewed the information available on contact among populations who spoke, or may have spoken, different dialects. We have seen that the Arabic speakers who resided in the Peninsula before Islam had contact with Mesopotamia and the Levant. This contact took different forms, such as migrations, wars, trade, pasture and others. There were Arabic speakers in Mesopotamia and the Levant and it is 157

possible that their language represents a form of Old Arabic. Arabic speakers in these areas were in constant contact with other Semitic languages such as Aramaic.

The Islamic conquest allowed the Arabic spoken in the Peninsula to spread outward to Mesopotamia, the Levant and Africa. The dialectal variation attested in the Arabic varieties of modern Iraq represent the historical variation between the Arabic of the Peninsula and the Arabic of pre-Islamic Iraq.

The establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad gave Iraq a substantial role in the Arabic and Islamic world. So we speculate that movements to this new urban center were facilitated by the free movement between different states under the Abbasid control.

Subsequent Islamic invasions of Egypt and North Africa led to the movements of many eastern Arabic speakers into these newly conquered areas. The troops came mainly from southwest Arabia and Hijaz. The presence of Muslims in Egypt inspired many subsequent tribal migrations from the Levant and Iraq, as well as the Peninsula. The troops who settled in Egypt are the ones who moved further to North Africa to spread the Muslims rule on these areas. Other groups were sent from south Egypt to Sudan. Some of these groups continued moving south and others moved west towards Chad and Nigeria.

Spain became the center of the Umayyad Caliphate in the west and the early Muslim troops who conquered this area were joined later by others who arrived from the Levant.

As for peripheral areas, The Muslim troops who arrived in Uzbekistan came from Iraq. Muslims who lived in Sicily moved to Malta and were joined by other groups who arrived from North Africa. Cypriot Arabic is the language of the Arabic-speaking Maronites who hailed from the Levant between the 8th and 16th C.

One of the movements that this chapter reviews is the migration of Greater Syrians starting from the 18th C to Egypt. The chapter also reviews the history of Jews and their movements. It shows that Arabic-speaking Jews in Iraq used to have strong ties with Jews in Egypt and North Africa. There is a history of constant contact between these 158

different groups.

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Chapter Four

Diachronic analysis of the aspectual markers

4.1 Introduction Chapter Two maps out the synchronic forms and functions of aspect expressed through imperfective markings in spoken Arabic dialects. It is clear that an aspect system that marks the imperfective has developed in all the examined dialects and this system is to some extent shared by the majority of the spoken dialects. This is evidenced by the fact that aspectual forms are shared throughout these dialects. It is also notable that in the case of Arabic dialects’ aspectual markers the semantic forces that lead to the use of these markers are relatively the same. Based on the discussions and findings from the previous chapters, this chapter attempts to explain the diachronic paths that aspectual markers went through until they reached the forms found in the different dialects today.

Of note here is that the suggested paths of developments are all presented as possibilities. Indeed, the lack of documentation in Arabic has led many researchers to avoid discussing topics that involve diachronic development. This hesitance is caused by the fear of facing the uncertainty yielded by such topics. Unless a researcher has clear evidence supported by both synchronic and diachronic information, she or he will never be confident about the accuracy of their arguments and claims. Besides, diachronic research was for a long time considered to be historical research and thus the role of the Classical Arabic grammatical tradition overshadowed dialectal research. Therefore, and in an effort to overcome these obstacles, this chapter contributes to the discussion of Arabic dialects development by proposing all the possible paths of development for aspectual categories expressed through durative markings. The possibilities that show evidence in their favor and those that show evidence against them are all considered here and explained in order to show why the latter should be ruled out.

The development of aspect markers in human languages has been the concern of many researchers, and Chapter One presented the theoretical framework for the

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development and diffusion of these markers. This framework was adopted in linguistic typological studies that attempt to isolate the mechanisms by which aspect develops cross-linguistically, and this includes the sources that aspectual forms emerge from as well as the paths that these forms go through. Whether the development takes place through external or internal means, researchers were able to discern a certain patterns for every aspect, and they speculate that the majority of world languages develop their aspect markers from words that belong to these categories. The following section overviews the relevant research of the general diachronic development of aspectual markers in world languages.

This study represents the first attempt to do a comprehensive diachronic analysis of a feature of spoken Arabic. Rubin’s study on the grammaticalization of different aspects of grammar in Semitic languages provides a similar comprehensive diachronic analysis (2005). His extensive research attempts to reconstruct the grammaticalized forms in a wide scale by comparing identical forms in different Semitic languages, which in the majority of cases proves his grammaticalization proposals. The problem with Rubin’s analysis is that it overlooks the effect of contact between the different Semitic languages due to his interest in investigating grammaticalization. His analysis presumes that all the cases cited in his study have developed independently through grammaticalization despite the constant contact between speakers of different Semitic languages. As mentioned in Chapter One, this is one of the pitfalls of reconstructing structures in related languages or dialects of the same language. Applying mechanisms of the comparative method that attempt to distinguish cases of inherited feature from cases of independent development can be challenging for related languages, and this gets more complicated when we have evidence for contact. The current study adopts the same comparative approach as Rubin’s study in order to reconstruct the durative markers in Arabic dialects. What this dissertation adds to the discussion is that it explores the different possibilities of development that emerge from contact between the different dialects in addition to internal development. This study is based on the perspective in which we no longer think that the dialects developed in isolation from each other as a disintegration form CA. We have enough evidence to assume that

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dialects are pre-Islamic and there is history of contact. Thus, the study investigates the larger context in which contact is also considered. The general goal of this chapter is to propose models of the development of durative markers in Arabic. It puts forth alternative solutions for the problematic discussion of sources of development. Based on the framework suggested in Chapter One, the following section presents all the proposals for the development. This means that the argument in favor of or against each proposal will be presented before we come to the conclusion about what we will rule out as unsupported proposals.

4.2 Models of the development of durative markers in Arabic: paths of development proposals In section (1.3), the different sources of the Arabic durative markers are presented within their cross-linguistic framework. This section builds on this discussion to propose the paths of development according to which the durative forms have reached their current forms and usages in the modern dialects. In addition, the synchronic analysis in Chapter Two and the historical events in Chapter Three will guide the synthesis of the proposals of these paths within the general theories of grammaticalization, contact- induced borrowing and contact-induced grammaticalization of functional forms.

Section (1.3) lists the durative markers in spoken Arabic according to their source meaning. This chapter will be organized in a different way. This section presents the development of durative markers according to the number of emergences that this study presumes. This means that the forms that have the highest number of different emergences will be discussed first, and the forms that share the same source that was developed in the same way in all the dialects will be discussed last. The organization of this section according to descending number of emergences allows us to see what forms show the most cases of developmental variation in the history of Arabic. Developmental variation here means that the same source has developed in several ways in different locations until it reached its current status. Of note here is that the main criteria in assigning the number of emergences is by putting forward all the possible scenarios that are speculated by comparing the form with its current usages and historical contact and

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events.

There are three points to keep in mind in our discussion of all the markers mentioned in this chapter: first, if two particles share the same phonetic representation, they should not be understood to be the same particle or to have the exact function. This usually happens as a result of examining morpho-syntactic features in isolation of their general context. One example for this case of same-form-different-functions shows that the aspect marker ma- and the negative particle ma- could occur in the same syntactic environment in the same dialect but have different functions. The functions can only be surmised by reading the general context of the text. Consider the following examples:

hallaʼ ṣāyrīn il-banāt ma yṭannšu Now, girls have begun to pay no mind (Brustad, 2000: 405-8). bi-tḍall il-waḥde mitḥaffẓa yaʻni, ʼinnu mā yismaʻu ktīr a girl still behaves with reserve, that is, [so] they don’t hear a lot [about what she does] (Brustad, 2000: 405-8).

These kinds of differences in meaning between identical forms should be taken into account synchronically and diachronically. This means that comparing two dialects synchronically or two forms with one of them is current and the other is historical we should take into account that these forms do not necessarily fulfill the same function.

The second point that should be taken into consideration for the analysis of this chapter is that we should not assume with certainty that the existence of a marker in a certain area determines its historical existence in this area. Unless we have clear-cut evidence, such as dated texts, we cannot posit theories about contemporary markers extending from historical usages. The case of Egyptian bi- in nineteenth century texts shows that the usage of durative/progressive markers continues to evolve.

Finally, given the opacity of early data, it is not possible to suggest a unified diachronic reconstruction scheme for all the examined dialects. In fact, such a unified system does not reflect the variation in marking imperfective in modern Arabic dialects.

Map 5 shows the current isoglosses of all the attested durative markers in Arabic.

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Towards the end of this chapter, we will explain the interaction between the current distribution and what we understand from the development variation for each form.

Map 5. Durative isoglosses in the Arabic speaking area

The highest number of emergences for a durative form is represented in the form b-. Thus, this form will be discussed first.

4.2.1 b- In Chapter Two, I discussed how the particle b- is one of the most complex aspect prefixes of the markers that convey progressive or habitual meaning. Part of its complexity is related to its geographically widespread use in a way that makes it second to gʻd forms in the size of areas covered (Map 2). This section reveals another layer of complexity in tracing the source of this form, which is the large number of proposed emergences in proportion to the space covered. The prefix b- before imperfectives is attested in all Egyptian and Levantine dialects, Cypriot, Yemeni, Dhofārī in Oman, Sudanese and Nigerian.

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1. One source for all:

a. Grammaticalization of Preposition b-

In section (1.3.1.2.1), preposition b- is given as a possible source for durative b-. The discussion of whether this form is locative--as described in previous Semitic and Arabic research--or temporal suggests why semantically we believe that this is a temporal preposition. This proposal suggests that all instances of durative b- that precedes the imperfective go back to the temporal preposition b-. This also includes the historical b- that is attested in Qatabanic [he discussion of Qatabanic b- is provided in detail in section (1.3.3)]. However, this analysis is problematic for several reasons, one is historical and the other is linguistic.

The historical evidence against the one source hypothesis comes from the analysis of Qatabanic b-. Two proposals have been proposed in the literature for the function of this b-, and neither of these involves a preposition. The proposed function of Qatabanic b- is either an indicative b- similar to the modern Levantine b- (Beeston, 1962; Nebes and Stein, 2008) or a present/future prefix that appears in subordinate clauses (Avanzini, 2009). More details about these proposals are provided in section (1.3.3). Moreover, the current distribution of durative b- covers modern day Yemen, the Levant and Egypt besides some peripheral areas such as Cyprus, Juba and Nigeria.

The historical evidence against the one source proposal is related to this current distribution and the historical movements from south ancient Arabia, where Qatabanic used to be spoken, towards the rest of the Greater Peninsula. The geographical distribution suggests that if the ASA form is the source then we should expect it to move first to the Levant before spreading from there to the rest of the b-indicative areas. Yet, although we have evidence for migrations and tribal movements from the south upward, we do not have evidence for huge migrations or movements of specifically Qatabanians that could have led to the spread of their b- form.

The linguistic evidence against the one-source-for-all hypothesis comes from analyzing current Yemeni durative markers. In many Yemeni dialects, bayn/bēn/bīn/bin represent an indicative marker for 1st person singular and bi- for all other persons 165

(Watson, 1993; Behnstedt, 2016) (Map 1). The vowel+ n that is attached to the b- in the 1st sg poses a problem for the reconstruction process of the indicative b-. The most comprehensive analysis for the Yemeni form is provided by Rubin (2005) in his reconstruction of the Arabic indicative b-. He argues that the morpheme bayn is derived from Classical Arabic baynā “while” which introduces circumstantial clauses. Consider the following examples from his argument (Rubin, 2005: 219).

CA: bayna-mā naḥnu namši ʼiḏ ʻaraḏ̣a rajulun While we were walking, a man appeared

baynā nasūsu n-nāsa While we govern people

Rubin explains the grammaticalization of the particle bayn by suggesting the following process for the reinterpretation of the structure (ibid: 219):

‘Not understanding, I cannot answer’ ‘ I don’t understand, I can’t answer’

The circumstantial present tense expression was later extended to all present tense expressions, and was later phonetically eroded.

This explanation was also cited by Behnstedt in his descriptive atlas of the Yemeni indicative markers (2016). He supports this argument further by mentioning that the durative marker bānimī, which is attested in a single Yemeni dialect, as the source for all the bvn variants, and this source is linked to the Classical Arabic baynamā.

In support of the extension of a circumstantial particle to fulfill an aspectual function, Rubin explains the parallel development of the Central Semitic form yaqtulu (2005: 219). This form replaced the Proto-Central Semitic form yVqattVl, which is the imperfective and durative form. yaqtulu is the defining feature of Central Semitic as it constitutes a shared innovation, and this form ends with what looks like the Akkadian subordinating morpheme –u. This suffix attaches to finite verbs when they appear in subordinate clauses. This example is put forward as evidence for the possibility of the extension through grammaticalization of subordinated verbal forms to present forms. Semitists see this as a normal development in Central Semitic. However, in the context 166

of Arabic dialects we would want to see more of a functionally based motivation for this development. If Rubin’s argument is true, it can also support Avanzini’s explanation of the Qatabanic b- as a future/present form that occurs in relative clauses in that Rubin and Avanzini see this b- as a subordinate form that is attached to present forms. However, although the meaning of simultaneousness that is indicated by the subordinate particle in Rubin’s argument could lead to the development of progressive in other languages, this proposal is challenging when applied to the Yemeni case. Besides the functionally inexplicable hypothesis of the extension of the subordinating morpheme to durative particles, the available texts from Yemen do not include the subordinate particle baynama and we do not have any evidence to believe that the use of the subordinate particle bayna in Yemen has been replaced with another particle after its grammaticalization to a durative marker. Also, the asymmetry in the durative form paradigm is problematic and is not addressed by this hypothesis or any other possible theories. The full form bayn and its variants in all the dialects appear with 1st sg. only and all other persons take the short form bv-. Another reason is related to the classicism of the subordinate particle. Although Watson lists the subordinate particle bayna ‘while’ as a Ṣanʻāni (2002), it is possible that the speakers in her texts use it to adapt their speech to the situation of recording with a group of outsiders. She explains in the introduction of her book that this adaptation occurs in the recording sessions with all informants where they use different words from Classical Arabic. If this is the case, we do not have any reason to think that Classical Arabic functions as the source of subordinating particles in the dialect, let alone source of aspect markers. Finally, this path of development is rather long and not economic, and requires many justifications.

There are two proposals to solve the problem of Yemeni durative bvn. The first proposal particularly attempts to solve the puzzle of final –n in the prefix. This proposal suggests that bi- has gone through a process of reanalysis and extension in the 1st person that resulted in the production of the new form bvn. If we consider the paradigm of the original form bi- before the imperfective we can see how the change affected the 1st sg only and not other persons. The following table shows the imperfective forms for

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different persons/genders/numbers in the bare form without the prefix bi.

singular plural

1. ʼa-gambir I sit ni-gambir we sit

2m. ti-gambir you sit ti-gambirū you sit

2f. ti-gambirī you sit tigambirayn you sit

3m. yi-gambir he sits yigambirū they sit

3f. ti-gambir she sits yigambirayn they sit

Table 2: Imperfective forms in Yemeni Arabic (Watson, 1993: 55).

This proposal suggests that the 1st pl. imperfective prefix ni- was reanalyzed as being part of the bi- prefix: bi- + ni-gambir > bin- + gambir. The new durative prefix extended to include the 1st sg. imperfective. Although grammar books claim that the bi- before the plural imperfective is detached from the imperfective prefix ni- and the latter is attached to the stem, rapid speech does not realize this detachment between the durative and the imperfective prefixes. It is possible that the extension of the reanalyzed prefix in the 1st person occurred to level the 1st person imperfective prefix across number. This resulted in making the 1st person symmetrical for both singular and plural just like the rest of the paradigm with the exception of 3rd f. My explanation for not leveling the 3rd f. across number in a similar way comes from the possibility that such a process would create an ambiguity across gender for the 3rd sg. This means that the 3rd masculine and feminine singular will be identical. With the 1st person reanalysis and extension, no ambiguity was created across all persons in the paradigm since no gender distinction is needed to be maintained. It was only within the class of the 1st person that this process created ambiguity, and it seems that the diphthongization of the vowel in the 1st sg cleared this ambiguity. The case of restructuring across number is attested in other Arabic dialects. For instance, the Moroccan Arabic 1st person imperfective has a prefix n- for all numbers. The loss of the historical glottal stop for 1st sg resulted in the 168

extension of the pl. prefix n- and the suffix -u was extended to the 1st pl to level number across the paradigm and to clear ambiguity caused by the 1st person prefix leveling (Heath, 2002: 213).

Another proposal comes from the interesting similar asymmetry between the 1st sg and the rest of the paradigm found in the Yemeni future markers ʻa. This form is used for all persons except 1st sg, which takes ʻad (Behnstedt, 2016: 235). For the future marker, ʻad is certainly the etymon for the other persons’ marker ʻa-. Therefore, the 1st sg retained the full form and the other persons took the shortened form. The geographical areas that have this system overlap with the area where we find the bvn/bv- durative. Based on this geographical crisscrossing, we can argue for the retention of the full form for the 1st sg while phonetically reducing the form for other persons. No explanation is provided in the literature for the reason of having 1st sg different from other persons/numbers. Moreover, there is no linguistic justification of why a language would create a separate form for one person in particular for different aspect markers. The only possibility, and probably the shortest development path, comes from assuming that bvn- form constitutes the source for modern bvn/b- forms in Yemen. The full form is retained in 1st sg and was phonetically eroded in other persons.

Modern Yemeni aspect markers manifest a range of unusual developments that hinder the possibility to link them with any other forms outside Yemen. It seems that drawing a certain line between bvn and a preposition or subordinating particle is not completely convincing. This leads to the speculation that bvn and its other variants developed from another source independent from the preposition b- proposal. However, he speculated tribal migration that led to the spread of this form from the south outward is not proven by linguistic evidence. According to Behnstedt’s map (Map 1), the two durative sets bvn/bi- and bv/bv are competing. A large number of Yemeni varieties have developed forms that do not correspond with the preposition b- that is speculated for all the other dialects outside Yemen. Yet, there are other Yemeni and Omani dialects that have a single durative form for all persons/numbers/genders, which corresponds in form and function to durative b- in the Levant and Africa. This could mean two things; first, that latter group has gone through a leveling process where the whole paradigm had bv- 169

instead of having a different form for 1st sg; or second, there are two different etymologies for the same form in different regions, and these forms may have developed independently. It is hard to rule out the fact that southern and northern forms of durative b- represent a relic construction that fulfills the same function, a function that is attested in other Semitic languages such as Aramaic (Rubin, 2005). It is also hard to ignore the fact that the modern Yemeni form is identical to the northern forms except for one person. Due to lack of sufficient evidence, it is more possible that the peculiar Yemeni form sprung independently from the northern form or forms that develop from the preposition b-. This means that the proposal of the two different sources is supported by linguistic and historical evidence, and this is the proposal that this study favours. Yet, it is important for our discussion to analyze other possibilities of the single source in different areas hypothesis before we present the two-different-sources proposal.

b. Borrowing due to contact with Semitic languages

This proposal questions the possibility of Arabic borrowing its durative structure from other Semitic languages. This proposal is not completely impossible only if it suggests that the northern dialects spoken in the Levant has borrowed the Aramaic form. Yet, the historical evidence against the Aramaic borrowing comes from Cypriot Arabic, a dialect that depicts heavy Aramaic influence due to resistance of Arab influence and early migrations to Cyprus (EALL: 537). This dialect has a durative structure that is marked by placing the prefix p(i)- before imperfectives. If the borrowing from Aramaic proposal were correct, those Maronite speakers who became bilingual in Arabic would have to adopt the Aramaic form to fulfill the semantic gap left by the lack of aspect marking in Arabic. On the contrary, these speakers adapted the Arabic form, although they preserved many features from Aramaic, their first language. Another problem with the Aramaic-borrowing proposal is related to the southern dialects. We do not have any evidence that Aramaic reached the southern fringes of the Arabian Peninsula.

The opposite direction of borrowing, i.e., borrowing the Qatabanic form in the northern dialects, is less strange than the Aramaic borrowing, taking into account historical contact between south and north Arabia and the various tribal movements 170

towards the north that Chapter Three previews extensively (Shahîd, 1984). Yet, Qatabanic is not evidenced after the first few centuries AD. and there is a lack of attestation of this Qatabanic and Manaic b- prefix in any other South Arabian language. Thus, it is hard to speculate how it would be borrowed into Arabic dialects, probably much later, and without a whole lot of indication for contact with Qatabanians in specific.

Hence, we are convinced that the proposal of borrowing the durative b- between the two poles of the Arabian Peninsula in any direction should be ruled out.

c. Emphatic

The final proposal in this section that speculates a single source for all modern Arabic durative b- instances is derived from our analysis of the Qatabanic and Najdi b- emphatic meaning. In section (1.3.3.1.1), we reviewed the debate between the indicative view and the present/future form view for the Qatabanic b-. Then I presented an alternative explanation for this Qatabanic b- that is drawn from cross-linguistic possibilities. The alternative interpretation for the Qatabanic b- suggests that this is an emphatic marker that has an energetic -n. The main function of the energetic -n is to assert the action and it is probably the same -n that is found in CA. We also have suggested that it is not semantically impossible for durative markers to develop from emphatic makers, and this is one of the proposals that are given in the literature for how the English progressive developed (Killie, 2008; Killie, 2014). Thus, and based on the discussion provided here, this proposal puts forward the possibility that some Semitic languages developed this b- with a dual meaning: some languages preserved the emphatic meaning and bleached the durative meaning, such as Qatabanic, and other languages retained the durative meaning and bleached the emphatic meaning, such as Arabic durative b-. The b- found in categorical negation in many Arabic dialects, which I called here the Najdi b-, supports the claim that the b- in Arabic illustrates this split. This b- conveys the emphasis of the negation and it is not related to prepositions, whereas the other b- attested in many dialects has an aspectual meaning that convey duritivity. 171

This proposal of early meaning split is the most convincing in the single-source- for-all proposals. However, if this form is a Semitic retention then it has to be quite old in these languages/dialects. Yet, the current distribution shows that the spread of this form does not reflect its spread as an original form. We would expect to see this form in a wider range whereas the newer forms are concentrated around the areas that were considered historically urban centers. In other words, a relic form has more chances to be retained in the less urban or isolated areas. The current distribution of durative b- shows that the majority of Arabic dialects, especially in the Peninsula, do not have this form. Therefore, we do not have strong rationale to link the emphatic Qatabanic with all the Arabic modern forms.

The next section presents another view of the development of the durative b- in Arabic, which is the multiple sources view.

2. Two different sources:

It is clear that the single source for all instances of durative b- is problematic for several reasons that are explained above. Moveover, Map 4 shows that the distribution of this form is not contiguous, and this arbitrary distribution support the different sources hypothesis. This section presents all these different sources according to their geographical location, their usage and their history of contact.

a. Southern b-

i. Emphatic

We argued in the one-source-proposal section that the Qatabanic form should not be considered to be the source for all modern Arabic durative b- instances. The geographical distribution and the historical evidence all stand against the proposals that link this form with all Arabic forms. However, we do still have a reason to propose a split in the durative/emphatic meaning in the b-, but only in the small area that Qatabanic was spoken in, namely Yemen. It is possible that there was an earlier form that had the dual meaning: the Qatabanic preserved the emphatic meaning, while some

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Yemeni and Dhofārī communities preserved the durative meaning. The only problem with this claim is that the modern Yemeni bvn for 1st sg. Although we presented above a proposal for the restructuring of the imperfective marking paradigm that could support the split claim, the overlap between the durative bvn and the future ʻad supports the claim that the modern Yemeni durative bvn has not gone through any reconstruction and is most likely preserving its original form in the 1st sg. Therefore, we could speculate that modern Yemeni developed from a separate source bvn whereas the rest of the Yemeni varieties either went through the emphatic/durative split process, or phonetically eroded bvn for all persons.

b. Northern

i. Preposition

A. Grammaticalization

In section the one-source-proposal section, we explained the possibility that the preposition b- is the source for all cases of durative b- in modern Arabic dialects. The section also presents the reasons against this claim, one of these is linguistic and the other is historical. The two reasons posit problems related to the southern b-; the Yemeni bvn form does not correspond with the preposition and the historical contact between Qatabanians and the north is not attested. The two-sources hypothesis solves the problems that are listed in section the one-source-proposal section as a result of considering southern and northern b- to be developing from the same source. Therefore, the discussion of *preposition b- is valid for the northern dialects. If we consider this to be a case of grammaticalization of the Semitic preposition similar to the Aramaic structure, we will have to explain the difference in the durative structure in the two languages.

We mentioned earlier in this chapter that the Aramaic progressive structure is composed of a preposition b- + Infinitive + Copula (Rubin, 2005: 230). Similar structure is found in Biblical Hebrew where the preposition b- + infinitive gives the meaning of simultaneity. It is also attested cross-linguistically that the progressive

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propositional form is usually followed by infinitive or any nominal form, such as Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew and other languages including Germanic and Romance languages. If we want to draw a comparison between these Semitic forms and Arabic, it would be obvious that the Arabic form is different since it has a preposition b + imperfective. This variation in structure is attributed in the literature to the lack of infinitive in Arabic, which has verbal nouns instead. If we assume that the Arabic form is derived from the preposition in a way that corresponds with the cross-linguistic durative form, then it would be more appropriate for the Arabic structure to have its own verbal noun ‘maṣdar’ in the durative structure. Yet, this is not the case, and we have no evidence for any dialect that expresses the durative aspects by presposition b + verbal noun. It is possible that the imperfective takes the role of verbal noun in Arabic due to the lack of temporal reference in the Arabic verbal noun. It is the imperfective that bares the temporal meaning. However, infinitives do not have temporal reference either. It is not known to us why the Arabic maṣdar does not appear in the durative structure in a way that resembles other Semitic languages.

B. Contact-induced grammaticalization with Aramaic

The previous section questions the preposition source for Arabic b- due to the fact that, unlike other Semitic languages, the durative form prefixes b- to an imperfective. This claim shows that the case of ordinary grammaticalization is not supported. However, it is possible that the Arabic durative structure has developed on the model of the Aramaic form through the process of contact-induced grammaticalization. The constant historical contact between Arabs and Aramaeans in the Levant lend support for the possibility of borrowing. Yet, the difference in the finite forms between the two languages indicates that the development of the Arabic form was not through borrowing. It is possible that Arabic speakers developed the imperfective rather than the verbal noun since the latter is a substantive that does not show time reference (Wright, 1896:110).

From the previous discussion, it is possible that the Arabic form developed independently from the Aramaic form. The fact that the prefixes are lexically identical 174

does not prove the borrowing hypothesis. The whole progressive structure in Aramaic is different from the Arabic structure. Besides, the Aramaic form is exclusively used for the progressive aspect, whereas the Arabic durative used in the Levant is exclusively habitual and only occurs in progressive expressions in conjunction with the progressive marker ʻammāl, the actual progressive marker.

ii. The circular grammaticalization of ʻammāl

Regardless of the geographical that the geographical distribution of the Aramaic and Arabic in the Levant overlaps, the previous section describes the problems of any proposals related to development due to contact with Aramaic, whether through direct borrowing or through contact-induced grammaticalization. Thus, this section provides the more refined hypothesis for the development of the Arabic durative b-, and that is through grammaticalization. The source of the grammaticalized durative b- in the Arabic dialects that are spoken in the Levant is speculated to be ʻammāl form. The process that suggests this development is presented in detail in section (1.3.3.1.2). For the discussion sake, this hypothesis will be summarized here.

The proposal that I present here suggests that the progressive ʻammāl has gone through a cycle of grammaticalization where several stages of the grammaticalization cycle is represented in a modern dialect. Stage I starts with the form ʻammāl, which is considered to be the source of the grammticalization path for the northern b-. When the progressive ʻammāl reaches stage II it gets reduced phonetically. A very progressive stage in the phonetic reduction leads to reducing the entire form to the point that only the bilabial /m/ is preserved. This /m/ undergoes a sound change, m > b in stage III. It is in this stage that the generalization of the meaning of the progressive to include the habitual meaning. Therefore, the b- at this stage does not make an aspect distinction between progressive and habitual. This generalization of the meaning continues until it reaches stage IV. It is at this stage that the b- loses its progressive meaning and maintains the more general habitual meaning. At this point, the progressive ʻammāl emerges again as a progressive while the grammaticalized form b- maintains its habitual meaning. 175

Every stage after stage I in this circular system is represented in a number of modern dialects. Stage II is attested in many Upper Egyptian dialects that have different forms of phonetically reduced ʻammāl, such as ʻamma-, amma-, ʻa-, imm-, um-, ʻama-, ʻam-, maʻ-, ma- and ba- and bi- (Map 221 in Behnstedt and Woidich). It is certain that these forms have all derived from ʻammāl. Stage II is represented in Cypriot Arabic, a dialect that use the same form p(i)- for habitual and progressive aspects. Stage IV is represented in the majority of urban dialects in the Levant and Egypt, where b- is exclusively habitual and ʻammāl is the progressive.

We saw in Chapter Two that the Cypriot form covers both habitual and progressive meanings, and in Chapter Three we saw that their immigration took place between the 8th and 16th C. This suggests that the grammaticalization process suggested here is fairly old and possibly the form reached stage II before the Maronites migrated from the Levant to Cyprus.

By far, this proposal is the least problematic since it addresses the internal development of the form b- in a manner that does not require many justifications for differences with other languages or the southern dialects. It also manifests the different diachronic stages according to the current geographical distribution. It is, therefore, proposed in this study as the most probable path of development for the durative b- spoken in the northern dialects. However, a question that remains to be answered is whether this form was borrowed from Levantine dialects to Egyptian or did develop in Egyptian independently? The next section addresses this question.

Direction of northern durative b- spread

It is undoubtedly clear that the Cypriot durative b- arrived to the island from the Levant. Aside from Levantine dialects and Egyptian, Chapter Two cites the durative b- in Sudanese, Nigerian and Juba Arabic. Historical accounts mentioned in Chapter Three shows that a large wave of Arabs moved from Aswan to Sudan in the 14th C. and continued moving in smaller groups until the 16th. It is then when another large group hailed from Egypt south and then split into two directions. One group moved further south to spread along the two Niles, while the other group moved west. This historical 176

movement suggests that b- was brought from Egypt, most likely through Sudan to the rest of Africa. Also, Juba Arabic has certainly received this form through the Sudan through the pidginization of this variety.

4.2.2 gʻd

Durative forms that are derived from the root gʻd are the most widespread in spoken Arabic. However, we have placed forms from this root following b- is because the number of different emergences proposed for this form are less than those for b-. The current distribution and usage along with the historical evidence suggests that the independent development occurred in a small area and spread through contact to the rest of the dialects.

1. Grammaticalization of gʻd:

a. Peninsular source

Earlier in this chapter, we explained how the durative form gʻd develops through grammaticalization from the stative-continuous verb gʻd. This section will not repeat the grammaticalization process, but will explain how it spread in the different dialects.

The analysis in this section starts with the development and grammaticalization of this durative in Iraq due to the form variation in this dialect, which could have historical significance. In Chapter Three, we saw that the spread of the Arabic language started from the Peninsula outward. Historical accounts mention that the majority of Muslim troops who participated in the Islamic conquests were mainly from Yemen and Tihama (section 3.3). What this means is that if the aspect form was an archaic feature that was readily available in the 7th century Yemen, it would have traveled with the Yemeni troops to the new conquered lands. However, this claim is challenging for two reasons. First, we do not have any textual evidence to believe that gʻd marker was readily available in the Arabic varieties of the Muslim conquerors who started their raids as early as the 7th century. Second, and most importantly, gʻd is only attested in one modern Yemeni dialect; that of Wādi Ḥaḍramawt. It is bvn (b- less common as a

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progressive) and jss (alternatively jls) that marks for progressive in the majority of attested modern Yemeni varieties. Thus, old contact between Muslim Yemeni conquerors and non-Arab conquered nations cannot be accounted as the source of development for the progressive gʻd in Iraq.

However, the interaction of the social and religious factors in Mesopotamia and the aftermath of the linguistic communal variation is interesting and can lead to robust indications about the development path of gʻd. We saw in Chapter Three a proposal that this communal variation had its roots in the pre-Islamic era where community boundaries in Mesopotamia were drawn along religious groupings even before the arrival of Muslims in the 7th century (Magidow, 2013). Although the local Arameans outnumbered the Muslim arrivals, the establishment of the ʼamṣār marked the beginning of the Arabization processes in Mesopotamia. The early planning of the ʼamṣār allowed peninsular immigrants to settle in quarters that are designated according to tribal groupings. Soon, the newly built cities witnessed huge influx of immigrants from the Peninsula. Kufa was mainly inhabited by Hijazis and Yemenis, and Basra was inhabited by Hijazis and several groups from the central and eastern parts of the Peninsula. Later, Baghdad was founded as the Abbasid capital city and it gradually overshadowed the previously founded ʼamṣār. The policy of founding new cities makes it obvious that the founder ruling governments were aware of the importance of maintaining their language and culture. The segregation of the non-Arabs in these thriving cities made contact with them less threatening to the language of the Arabs. Moreover, the socio-economic status of the Muslim Arabs in these cities was higher than their non-Muslim counterparts. This resulted in further minimizing the latter’s effect on the language of the Arabs. Therefore, any linguistic influence should happen in the direction of the segregated non-Arabs rather than the opposite direction.

Due to this social separation, the qəltu-gilit dichotomy emerged in Mesopotamia and resulted in apparent linguistic variation between different religious groups. The qəltu dialects represent the old sedentary type whereas the gilit represents the newer Bedouin type. Blanc’s reports from 1964 about this dichotomy in Baghdad shows that Christians and Jews speak the qəltu variety while Muslims speak the gilit variety. The 178

Arabic variety the Christians and Jews speak represents the language Arabs spoke before the Abbasid era (750-1258). The Muslims, on the other hand, adopted a Bedouin type that penetrated the lower part of Iraq starting from the Abbasid era. This language situation distributed beyond theʼamṣār due to the spread of Muslim Arabs in the entire Mesopotamian area. There are reports that Jews of Iraqi Kurdistan continued to speak Arabic even after the fall of the Abbasid rule, unlike their Muslim neighbors who either spoke Kurdish or Turkish (EALL. “ Judeo-Arabic”: 532).

As for the progressive marker at hand, Chapter Two shows that Baghdadi Muslims use gʿd/qʿd, and da- while Christians and Jewish Iraqis use qa(d)- (Blanc, 1964; Fischer and Jastrow, 1980: 154). The historical events mentioned above as well as the social analysis of the community’s distribution suggest that the marker gʻd was brought to Mesopotamia by the Arabs of the Peninsula. Though it is not clear what group exactly brought this marker to Mesopotamia, we know that they are less likely to be Yemeni but are either Hijazis or of central or eastern peninsular origin. This scenario explains the effect of the spread of the progressive marker as part of the Arabization of the majority Aramean speakers. It is important to mention here that this analysis does not suggest the borrowing of the Arabic marker into Aramaic. Instead, this scenario explains the adoption of the marker within the whole language that the majority of Arameans became bilingual in, namely Arabic. Thus, we cannot say that this is merely a case of borrowing. The discussion here only intends to explain how the marker emerged in the Arabic dialects of Iraq.

b. Iraqi source

Another possibility suggests that the development of the durative gʻd took place in Iraq and spread from there during the Abbasid era when the capital of the Caliphate was in Iraq (750-1258). This suggests that the Iraqi capital and the areas around it were seen by all Arabs and Muslims as the center of the Islamic world under the Abbasid rule. Linguistically, the level to which the form has been phonetically eroded-- a normal mechanism of grammaticalization that is not seen elsewhere for gʻd--in a way that is not seen in the majority of the Peninsular dialects supports the Iraqi origin for the 179

grammaticalized form. The reduced form attested in Baḥārna rural progressive da is not attested in the Baḥraini Sunni counterpart. The fact that this form is only attested in the variety of Shiite Baḥārna suggests that it was borrowed from Iraqi Shiite sects. This possibility is supported by referring to the significant religious status of Shiism in Iraq where the most sacred Shiite sites are located. Thus, we speculate that the grammaticalization of the durative gʻd took place in Iraq and spread from there during the Abbasid rule that had its base in Baghdad.

In the Levant, the modern use of the form gʻd is only attested in Palestinian and a few rural villages that lie close to the north Syrian-Iraqi border; everywhere else in the reported Levantine dialects we see the use of ʻam and less likely mma- and ma-. It is also cited that speakers in these rural villages where gʻd is used as a progressive marker switch to the urban form ʻam to converge their speech to the more modern, urban centers of the Levant (Talay, 1999). Of course, this report of the current sociolinguistic variation of the progressive forms does not reflect the historical status of any form if considered alone. However, the current distribution of gʻd is what could explain the historical one. The distribution of gʻd in the border villages is close to the north, where the marker kū- is used in the Iraqi side. This distribution asserts the possibility that gʻd in the rural villages does not represent a geographical extension of the southern Iraqi gʻd. It is possible that this form is retained in the rural villages while another form developed and replaced it in the rest of the Levant. Thus, it is possible that the form gʻd is the older progressive marker that was replaced later by the more urban ʻam. gʻd is still seen in Palestinian Arabic besides the form ʻam, though grammars of this dialects claim that only ʻam is attested in the dialect.

The historical environment of contact between Arabs and non-Arabs in Iraq and the Levant is almost identical and the origin of the Arabs who led the Arabization processes in the two areas is the same. This could suggest for and independent grammaticalization. However, the absence of this form in Cypriot Arabic that split from the Levantine Arabic suggests a later development, probably after the thrive of the Abbasid rule. If the previous discussion about the status of the progressive gʻd in the Levant is true, we can argue that it either spread from Iraq or it was introduced from the 180

Peninsula as part of the Arabization. It is more likely that the form was introduced later from Iraq in a way similar to how it was introduced to the Peninsula.

It is important here to mention that the progressive construction and the general notion of aspect morphological marking are not new to Aramaic. Different varieties of Aramaic spoken in Syro-Mesopotamia exhibit the use of the progressive marker qā. This is attested in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and Mandaic (Rubin, 2005). The form attested in these Aramaic varieties is claimed to derive from the root qwm ‘to stand’ through the process of grammaticalization and has been coined in the participle form qā’ē (< qā’ēm). The loss of the final m in the participle is a regular phonetic change that occurs in several forms of the root qwm when the consonant m occurs in final position (ibid). The use of this marker in Aramaic might suggest that the Arabic progressive form qa- that appears in the Jewish and Christian varieties of the qəltu type in Mesopotamia is due to borrowing from Aramaic36. Nevertheless, at least in Baghdad, the use of the full form qad and its allomorph qa- indicates that the Aramaic etymon is not borrowed in the Arabic varieties. The Baghdadi Jewish and Christian aspect marker is undoubtedly derived from the Arabic form qāʻid.

Spread of gʻd all over the Arabic speaking area

It was explained in the previous section that the Iraqi form is most likely the source for gʻd in Arabic and it developed in Iraqi through grammaticalization. Linguistic and historical evidence from this section suggests that none of these areas developed the durative gʻd independently. Thus, the emergence of the form here is unified and does not count as different cases.

This section discusses the proposals for how the durative was brought to the rest of the Arabic speaking world.

36 It is not clear whether this Aramaic form was more widely spread than the small Jewish Babylonian and Mandaic community. If this was the case, then we would have strong evidence twoards contact- induced grammaticlaization. Yet, we do not have evidence for the use of this form beyond this small community.

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Egypt, Sudan, Juba, Chad and Nigeria

Tracing a definite period for the presence of a single Arab tribe in Egypt in order to link its presence to the spread of the progressive gʻd is not a feasible task. Many tribes of different origins moved to Egypt from the east after the arrival of Islam and these movements continued well after the 13th C. Thus, we suspect that this form was transferred through the Palestinian land. This is evidenced by the current use of gʻd in Palestinian Arabic. It is also possible that the Peninsular Arabs who immigrated from Hijaz to Egypt after the Islamic conquest contributed to the introduction of this form that was supposedly already grammaticalized in their language. This means that the form was spread and acquired in Egypt as part of the Arabization of the area in a manner similar to what is proposed above for the introduction of this form in the Levant.

As for the use of gʻd in Sudanese Arabic and the rest of Africa, this is definitely a marker that arrived with the Arabs who moved from Egypt south to Sudan. The majority of historical reports link the first presence of Arabs in Sudan to the great waves of Arab tribes in the 14th C. This group settled in Aswan and later was forced to move south to Sudan during the Mamluks’ rule to invade the kingdom of Nubia. The migrations to this area continued later in small numbers. In the 16th century, another huge wave arrived to the Sudan and then split in two directions: one group went further south along the two Niles, and the other moved west to Chad and Nigeria. Although there is consensus about the dates of these migrations, the claim that the Arabization of the Sudan and the rest of Africa did not occur until the 14th C. is not accurate for reasons given in the next paragraph.

The analysis of Al-Bakrī’s text from the 11th C. that is mentioned in Chapter Three refers to an Arabic pidgin that was spoken in a town called Maridi in Africa. Thomason and El-gibali (1986: 321-2) suggest that the pidgin of the text is a language that was spoken in present day Mauritania and is not the present day Juba Arabic, which is today spoken in south Sudan around a town called Maridi, which is still called by this name until today. Although the pidgin mentioned in the text exhibits many linguistic features of the present day Juba Arabic, Thomason and El-gibali provide extensive analysis for

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the text and its language to prove that the speakers of this pidgin are originally speakers of Berber who reside in West Africa. One of the interesting features in this text is the use of the durative marker dy. Thomason and El-gibali suggests that this form is derived from the CA form jaʻal ‘to make’. Their reasoning for this derivation is that the sound /j/ is usually substituted by /d/, such as jamal ‘camel’: damal. They further suggest that other pidgins of Africa such as Ki-Nubi actually developed from the same verb they reconstructed for Maridi.

Although reconstructing jaʻal as the source of the durative Maridi is more phonologically explainable in light of the whole text, the nature of the text poses problems that make any structuring of the form doubtful. As the introduction of the text reveals, this text was not given by a native speaker, it was rather reported by an Arab traveler who complained about the wrongful, broken Arabic language of the Maridi inhabitants. It is possible that this reporter was exaggerating the speech of the group he is reporting while trying to imitate their speech. This makes the text doubtful in every aspect and any tentative linguistic analysis of this text should be made with caveats of generalizations. Regardless of these problems and the others described in Chapter Three about how this text of “broken Arabic of the blacks” is fragmented and is only found in one edition of the manuscript, it reinforces proposals about early dating of the Arabization of beyond Egypt and North Africa. Whether Thomason and El-gibali’s guess of the location of the pidgin in the text is true or not, what is important for us here is to highlight the dating of the using durative markers in Africa, which is well before the 11th C. This is one of the reasons why dating the Muslims arrival to Sudan in the 14th C. is not accurate.

Going back to the durative marker ge- in Juba Arabic, this form is certainly borrowed from the Sudanese gʻd. The general TAM of Juba Arabic corresponds with that of Sudanese. Also, the geographical position of this variety as well as historical reports about how Arab fighters moved from Sudan south support the proposal of Sudanese gʻd source. It is probably the same source for Nigerian and Chad Arabic.

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Libya and Tunisia

The durative marker gʻd is also attested in some Libyan and Tunisian varieties. The spread of the form in these two countries was through Egypt. Arabs who settled in these two lands started their spread right after the Islamic conquest of Egypt in the 7th C. The miṣr of Qayrawan was established in the last quarter of the 7th C. The settlers were of different origins, but the elites of Quraysh and other Hijazi tribes were centered in this new city. Towards the end of this century, a Muslim army of Ghassanid was sent from the Levant to destroy the Byzantine capital. The city of Tunis was founded and this Levantine army settled there. It is possible that this is the group that brought the gʻd marker with them from the Levant. It is also possible that this form was brought by the Hijazis whose tribal affiliation granted them higher social status within the new communities. In any case, we do not have a definite date or information about the exact origin of the form gʻd in Libya and Tunisia. However, if the durative gʻd in Egypt and North Africa is of Iraqi origin, we suspect that the form did not arrive to these areas until after the 8th C. This date marks the beginning of the Abbasid rule in Iraq which we explained earlier as the reason why this form spread out of Iraq.

This unique structure of double durative marking suggests two things; first, it is possible that this structure is a Tunisian innovation, and this dialect embarked the grammaticalization path independently. However, the double durative marking is not attested to be part of the known grammaticalization stages. Besides, the historical evidence suggests that the Arabs who contributed in the Arabization of Tunisia have arrived from Egypt, and we expect that the form gʻd was brought to the new land via this group of settlers. This last statement takes us to another possibility, which is that the use of durative fi was already apparent in the Egyptian dialect of the Arab settlers in Tunisia. We still see the use of the durative fi in some expressions in Egyptian, such as ḫallīk ḍārib fi-l-garas l-ḥadd ma-yiṣḥu. It is later in Tunisia that the speakers added the durative fi to emphasize the durativity of the action/state. Another possibility suggests that the Tunisian form retained the original structure.

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Malta Owens suggests that comparing Arabic peripheral varieties that are spoken in the fringes with Arabic in the mainland strengthen “the contention that long-distance isoglosses point to common origins at a considerable diachronic depth” (Owens: 1998: 72). Furthermore, the study of these varieties of Arabic reveals valuable information about historical usages in mainstream Arabic. These peripheral varieties froze the use of the Arabic forms they acquired before they reduced – or even cut- their contact with Arabic in mainland. Arabic in mainland, on the other hand, would have gone through many stages of change that makes it sometimes difficult to trace older forms.

Maltese is one of the peripheral varieties that lost their contact with Arabic centuries ago. In Malta, this began in the 13th C. with the Norman oppression of non- Christians who lived on the island. We explained in Chapter Three that the Arabization of this island technically started in 1048 CE when the Muslim waves started to arrive to the island from Sicily or North Africa. We also explained how the geographical factors of the island’s size and location had accelerated and reinforced the Arabization of Malta in the early period.

Based on the historical estimation about the origin of Arab settlers in Malta to be from North Africa or Sicily, and also the use of different variants of the form gʻd in this variety as the durative marker in this variety, we can confirm a North African origin for the marker in this dialect. It should be noted here the possibility that the Arabic speakers in Sicilia originated largely from North Africa; thus, it seems that the origin of the Arabs in the two islands was mainly from North Africa, possibly Tunisia or Libya. Therefore, the durative form in Maltese has a North African origin, more specifically Tunisia or Libya where we still see the use of the durative gʻd.

Uzbekistan The Arabic dialect spoken in Uzbekistan is a significant source for understanding the development of aspect markers in Arabic. This is because the old features of the spoken varieties that contributed to the Arabization of this area are still preserved. The status of this variety in isolation from all the changes that affect other varieties as well as 185

their early split from mainstream Arabic act as a historical window to the language of the conquerors. Chapter Three explains thoroughly the historical events that lead to the Arabization of this area, and I will summarize them here for convenience.

The most supported theory by historical and linguistic evidence suggests that the origin of the first Arabizers in Uzbekistan came from Iraq. This variety of Arabic shows linguistic traits that are linked to Iraqi Arabic. It is also suggested that the movement and the Arabization of this area started in the beginning of the 8th century. This dating is supported by the lack of the qəltu-gilit split in Uzbekistan Arabic since this dichotomy emerged in Iraq during the Abbasid reign (750-1258). It is not clear from the historical evidence why or when the links with the Arabic spoken in mainland were reduced in Uzbekistan and central Asia in general, but it is argued that the nomadic lifestyle of Uzbek people contributed to the maintenance of the Arabic varieties that they speak.

In Chapter Three, we saw that two aspectual markers are used in two dialects of Uzbekistan. Jastrow (2014) cites post-imperfective progressive gāʻed in the dialect of Qašqa Darya. gāʻed is a straightforward result of the Arabization. It is certain that the form arrived to the area as the Arabic durative marker that the Qašqa Darya speakers acquire within the Arabic language system.

2. Contact-induced grammaticalization on Aramaic model

In the grammaticalization proposal for durative g’d in Iraq and the Peninsula, we saw why the Aramaic > Arabic direct borrowing of the progressive is not proven and we explained all the reasons against this claim. However, this argument cannot stand against possible contact-induced grammaticalization. The constant contact with Aramaic in Mesopotamia and the Levant gives us a reason to propose the grammaticalization of the Arabic gāʻid on the model of the Aramaic qā’ē (< qā’ēm). This might be considered a case of contact-induced grammaticalization, where speakers of Arabic found the Aramaic progressive marker and grammaticalized a verb from their language to match the function of qā’ēm in Arabic.

The problem of this argument is twofold. First, the Aramaic structure requires

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the use of a finite participle whereas the Arabic structure requires the use of a finite imperfective. The discussion of this argument is similar to the detailed discussion of the use of infintive in section (4.2.1) and it will not be repeated further here. The second problem of this proposal is that it does not explain why Arabic speakers decided not to grammaticalize a verb that has the same meaning as the Aramaic. Although the two verbs are postural, the Arabic verb means sitting while the Aramaic means standing. For these two reasons, we will rule out this hypothesis since the Arabic does not follow the conditions of contact-induced grammaticalization in developing the marker; namely, the grammaticalization of a native structure based on the model of another language.

4.2.3 ʻml 1. Grammaticalization: Levant and Egypt

The distribution of ʻammāl forms is restricted to the Syrio-Egyptian dialects- and this should not be confused with the distribution of northern b-. Chapter Two shows that urban dialects in the Levant have the shortened forms of ʻammāl and no longer use the full form. Historically, one of the occurrences of the full form is cited in Butrus Al- Bustani’s personal correspondence in the 19th century. In Chapter Two, I provided an analysis for all the possible meanings of ʻammāl in his letter, and these were iterative, progressive or intensifier. Among the cited shortened forms, ʻam is the most common, but other forms such as mma- and ma- are cited in northern Syrian and Lebanese towns (Brustad, 2000; Durand-Zuñiga, personal communication). The synchronic analysis provided in Chapter Two depicts that contemporary Palestinian allows for the full- inflected form ʻammāl as well as the shortened form ʻam to mark progressive. This dialect has also the progressive marker ʼāʻid, which is also cited in the eastern fringes of Syria in the town of Khawētna (qēʻəd). Talay (1999: 182) reports the marker ʻam in Khawētna and explains it as being borrowed from the koiné. It is not clear what koiné Talay refers to since there are many koinés in Syria, but we will assume that he refers to the capital’s koiné that represents the urban, most prestigious variety in Syria. The fact that the two markers qēʻəd and ʻam coexist in Khawētna suggests that this variation has a sociolinguistic dimension that is worth mentioning here. Talay explains that qāʻid is

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the original marker and ʻam is borrowed, and we know that ʻam is the progressive marker used in urban centers in Syria. It seems that Khawētna speakers converge to the urban speech by adopting the urban marker and use the rural marker when there is no need to show convergence. This is how we expect the form ʻammāl to spread within the Levant. It is the urban and modern connotations associated with the dialects that adopt ʻammāl first that have facilitated replacing other forms with ʻammāl. The only urban documented dialect in the Levant that still preserves the two forms is the Palestinian, although we do not know for sure if the cited examples are taken from rural of urban Palestinian centers. Also, the arbitrary distribution of gāʻid in the Levant suggests that this form is connected to migration and movements. gāʻid moved to some areas but did not replace ʻammāl, which is the more prestigious form.

As mentioned above, Killie’s (2014) analysis of the English form be + V-ing form the Old English periphrasis beon + V-ende suggests that this construction evolved as an emphatic durative marker. Through the gradual process of grammaticalization, the emphatic meaning was bleached out and only the durative meaning remained until it reached the stage of aspect marking. Compared to the case of the English emphatic periphrasis, it is possible that the Arabic ʻammāl as a durative form has first developed as a grammaticalized intensifier and durative marker. The emphatic function was bleached in the Levantine dialects and the dialects of Upper Egypt and only the durative survived in the form of a progressive marker, whereas Cairene and possibly the Palestinian ʻammāl preserved the emphatic meaning and bleached the durative meaning. The first group marker went through phonetic erosion where ʻammāl was reduced to ʻam in the majority of the Levantine dialects and less commonly mma- and main the northern Levantine dialects and Upper Egypt- the latter shows far more variation in the phonetic reduction. It is also possible that the Palestinian dialect represents the earliest stage of the grammaticalization path where the form ʻammāl is still used as an intensifier and progressive marker and it is fully declinable.

It is important for the analysis of the form ʻammāl to speculate the date of its development. Previously we show above that the Maronites moved to Cyprus between the 8th and 16th C. Based on these dates, we suggested the possibility that this time span 188

shows that ʻammāl has reached stage III in the circular path of its grammaticalization. Examining the manuscripts from two centuries later of Damascus Arabic that are mentioned in Chapter Two reveals that these manuscripts do not mention the use of ʻammāl as a progressive marker and only hint to the usage of b- as an indicative marker without specifying if this form includes the progressive function. Only a century later, we see the use of ʻammāl in Butrus Al-Bustani’s letter as progressive/intensifier., which could suggest that by the 19th C. the form has reached stage IV and then passed to next stage where ʻammāl is adopted as a progressive form. This suggests that the progressive/intensifier ʻammāl emerged between the 18th and the 19th century in the Levant. It is also possible that ʻammāl is much older and got reintroduced in a new cycle. This claim is supported by having this form in the rural and peripheral areas which can explain phonetically reduced and semantically bleached form like mā-.

The discussion of this section so far is concerned with the Levantine ʻammāl form. The same process of grammaticalization is proposed for Egyptian Arabic. However, Chapter Three discusses the movement of iš-Šawām in large number to Egypt starting from the 18th C. The next section discusses the possibility of borrowing the Egyptian ʻammāl from this group of immigrants.

2. Borrowing

a. Borrowing in Egypt from iš-Šawām

The circular grammaticalization of ʻammāl explains how the durative b- was grammaticalized through ʻammāl in the Levant and Egypt. However, this section did not mention the possibility of borrowing ʻammāl. This discussion is presented here in this section.

ʻammāl is also attested in Cairene Arabic as an intensifier besides the progressive marker gāʻid. The examples of ʻammāl that are cited in Chapter Two show that sometimes this marker occurs fully inflected for person and number, and both form and function resemble the Palestinian intensifier. It is, however, phonetically reduced in the majority of the varieties spoken in Upper Egypt and has a durative function. The

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distribution of ʻammāl within the contiguous geographical region of the Levant and Egypt is investing for speculations about contact effect in Egypt. This suggests that the form first emerged in the Levant, and from there spread to Egypt. This proposal is supported by the historical evidence of contact between the two regions as well as the functions of this marker.

Chapter Three illustrates a significant historical migration from the Levant to Egypt starting from the 18th c. The Christian Syro-Lebanese iš-Šawām who arrived in Egypt in large numbers were granted many privileges by the successive governments. This group of immigrants was promoted by the Khedive government as a modern addition to the Egyptian society. Historical reports discuss how this group distanced itself from the Egyptian community and this resulted in a great deal of resentment of them on the part of the Egyptians. Regardless of these reports, the prestige of modernity associated with iš-Šawām and their high socio-economic status should have left some impacts on the intellectual milieu in Egypt that might have led people to aspire to be like them. Language would be one of the most prominent characteristics that people can converge to in order to claim the status of any prestigious group. It is in this manner that we speculate that this form sprang up in the Egyptian dialect of the urban centers. This requires that the Upper Egypt dialects have acquired the progressive forms independently.

The texts that we have for the 17th C. Cairene dialect do not show any traces for the intensifier ʻammāl as are the Levantine manuscripts from the 18th C. If the Šawām’s scenario is true, then we should expect the form ʻammāl to arrive a century later than the 17th C. texts. Nevertheless, not having this form in the early texts does not necessarily support the possibility of later borrowing. It is not impossible to suggest a parallel case of grammaticalization where the Cairene intensifier was in its early stages at the time of writing the 17th century’s texts. It is also possible that this form started as a stylistic device where its use was not appropriate for the context of these texts (narrative).

A strong case for the argument of the grammaticalization is shown in the variation of the progressive marker in Upper Egypt, which is considered less urban than Cairo and

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Alexandria. Scholars have reported several forms that are undoubtedly eroded ʻammāl forms. These include ʻamma-, amma-, ʻa-, imm-, um-, ʻama-, ʻam-, maʻ-, ma-, ba-, bi (Behnstedt and Woidich, 1985; Woidich, 1996:13 and Fischer and Jastrow, 1980). We also saw in Chapter Three that the Šawām’s concentrations were in cosmopolitan centers such as Cairo and Alexandria. We have reports about how they maintained their network closed and resisted integration in the Egyptian community. Their privileged socio- economic and political status compared to the average Egyptian enlarged the gap between them and the Egyptians and therefore their contact with the Egyptians was limited. These immigrants were described by Egyptian nationalists as intruders, and there were constant attacks against them. At times, they were sometimes linked to the British occupation of Egypt. All these factors suggest that any apparent influence that the Šawām could have on the community would have been subsidized by their own enclosure and resist to the Egyptian integration and the negative impression they left in the Egyptian community. Thus, and based on this discussion, the use of the progressive marker in the less cosmopolitan towns of Upper Egypt where the many shortened progressive forms are attested could not have been due to direct contact with the iš- Šawām. The borrowing of this form in these areas is most likely to be from the local prestigious dialects. Since no contact is maintained between iš-Šawām and Upper Egyptians, and the latter's progressive forms have reached an advanced stage in the grammaticalization path where they were phonetically eroded, we can speculate that the source of the Egyptian marker is not borrowed from iš-Šawām. The progressive forms used in Upper Egypt support this proposal by exhibiting the progressive function for ʻammāl that was bleached in the Cairene dialect.

As stated above, this proposal argues for the parallel grammaticalization of the progressive ʻammāl in Egypt, which could be explained as a case of a shared innovation.

b. Borrowing in Meccan from the Levant/Egypt

This scenario links the use of ʻammāl in the Levant to the same form used in Mecca. The Meccan form is indeclinable.

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w ʻyāl ʻammāl tizaʻʻaig yā maṭarah ḥuṭṭy ʻalēna and kids are screaming, “Rain, [come and] pour on us!”.37

This scenario suggests that the marker ʻammāl emerged in Mecca and was later borrowed in the Levantine dialects. The establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate, whose founders hailed from Mecca, in the Levant granted Hijazis, and Meccans in particular, higher social status in the Levant. On this basis, one might be tempted to argue that this prestigious status is what led to the spread of the form in the Levant.

This scenario is problematic for several reasons. First, assuming that all linguistic features in any Arabic dialect outside the Peninsula should have emerged from the Peninsula is a false generalization. ʻammāl, b- and many other linguistic forms have emerged in the Meccan dialect due to contact with other dialects. The status of this city in Islam makes it a hub for Muslims from all around the world. This indeed has resulted in the Meccan dialect being influenced by many languages and dialects. Moreover, the distribution and variation in the use of the form ʻammāl in the Levant suggests that this form has emerged in this area. Above all, the speculated date of the emergence of ʻammāl in the Levant suggests that it has emerged centuries after the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate in the 8th C. who hailed from the Hijaz and had their capital in Damascus; therefore, the Meccan source of ʻammāl should be ruled out. This leaves us with the assumption that the Meccan form has actually emerged in this dialect as a result of borrowing from the Levantine dialects. This argument is supported by the fact that ʻammāl is not attested in any other Hijazi dialect.

4.2.4 kwn

The root *kwn is given in this study as the source for the durative marker in several Arabic dialects. Chapter Two shows kv- as an aspectual marker in a number of Anatolian and Northern Iraqi qəltu dialects, Moroccan and Algerian as well as Andalusian. The qəltu dialects have kū- kī/kə in different regions; Moroccan has ka-

37 https://goo.gl/pTlkv2

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(and the regional alternative ta-), one variety of Algerian has ku-/ka-, Andalusian has ki-. It is reported in the literature that Andalusian prefix indicates eventuality, but Corriente cites some examples that specify the indicative mood. We also argued that the claimed eventuality form is actually a conditional form, which suggests that it is not related to the durative examined here. We also explained in Chapter Two that in some dialects, like Moroccan, this form marks durative aspects, which include both the progressive and the habitual. On the other hand, the different qəltu dialects that use this marker show variation in the types of aspect that this marker covers. We explained that some Anatolian dialects have kū- for the progressive alone and the habitual remain unmarked, whereas other Anatolian dialects do the opposite. This distribution is probably due to their membership in different dialect groups. The dialects that mark the habitual only belong to Sason group, whereas the dialects that mark the progressive only belong to Siirt group. Unfortunately, we do not have any historical evidence of why this split occurred and what events or contacts contributed to it.

Three scenarios for the development of kv- in Arabic are put forward in this section. One of them clusters the kv- in all the different dialects as being developed from the same source. The other two suggest different paths related to borrowing in the Moroccan and Algerian (Maghrebi dialects).

1. Same source kwn, different developments

This hypothesis suggests that the durative kv- in the all qeltu and Maghrebi dialects derived from the same lexical source, but each group developed their morpheme independently from the other group.

a. Development of the qəltu dialects kv

Jastrow (1978) proposed that the Anatolian and northern Iraqi prefix kū- is the result of what he refers to as demonstrative copula. This means that this prefix is formed by combining the demonstrative element k- attested in Mesopotamia with a personal pronoun; thus, k- + hūwe ‘he’ > kū. Rubin supports this argument by giving examples

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from a number of qəltu dialects that contain the full form for different persons, such as kana ‘I am’ and kənt ‘you (m.sg) are’ (2005: 210). Jastrow later revisited this reconstruction and proposed that kū- is derived from the verb *yakūn (2013); thus, yakūn > kū-. To the best of my knowledge, these are the only explanations in the literature for the vowel in the qəltu form.

The interpretation given by Rubin to support the demonstrative copula is made on the basis of using this form in locational contexts (2005: 210).

əbnu kū qəddām əmmu His son is in front of his mother

However, the particle k- can appear in many contexts beside the locational presented above. Therefore, it requires many justifications for the development of this particle to a durative marker whereas the other proposal yakūn > kū- suggests an extension of the continuous meaning that the temporal verb yakūn already conveys. This proposal requires neutralization of yakūn for all genders and persons and the phonetic reduction (Rubin, 2005: 211).

b. Development of Maghrebi ka-

Jastrow provides a different etymological form, yet from the same root kwn, for the durative Moroccan Arabic marker ka- (2013). He believes that this ka- is derived from the verbum existensiae kāʾin. Vanhove et al. (2009) provide the same etymological root for the preverbal marker ka-, except that they think the perfect form kān ‘be’ and not the existential verb kāʾin is the source for this marker. This form is supported by Rubin (2005) who believes that specifying the participle kāʾin poses a problem if we examine the vowel in the aspectual marker. Therefore, he suggests that the source for Maghrebi kā- is kān ‘he was’ for the third person and the source for kū- is kun (as in kunt ‘I was/you were’) for the other persons. Although Rubin admits that the development of present tense markers from past tense forms is fairly strange, he thinks that putting the two forms kāʾin and kān against each other gives kān more chances of being the actual

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source, taking into account the ka-/ku- vowel difference attested in Algerian Arabic. The attestation of the Algerian ku- in Rubin’s study is cited in one variety of Algerian for the 1st and 2nd person whereas the 3rd person takes ka-. The vowel variation in this dialect is explained to be due to the development of the 1st and 2nd persons form kun and 3rd person from kān. The problem with Rubin’s proposal of the kun for the 3rd person is that it does not explain why kun is taken for 3rd person but kān for 2nd person that originally has /u/ in the form kunt ‘you were’. Thus, this study dismisses the exception created by the Algerian form since it is only attested in one variety and we do not have extensive analysis for the use of the marker either in this variety or any other Algerian dialects.This means that the form ka- is considered here to be the Maghrebi durative marker and we suggest that it developed from kān.

Corriente (2013) explains that, unlike Maghrebi dialects, the Andalusian form is inflected for person: kin+1st person/kit+2nd person/ka-+3rd person and it marks both eventuality and indicative mood. Based on Corriente’s observations, it is possible to reconstruct the source for Andalusian and Maghrebi dialects. If we think of the Maghreb and Andalusia as a unified linguistic area that went thought the same process of grammaticalization, the form kān does not correspond with the inflectional prefix ki(C) attested in Corriente’s analysis of the Andalusian form. kāʾin would better represents the Andalusian form and Maghrebi ka- if the vowel only is considered. However, the source of the consonant he suggested for the second person- /t/- is not related to either kāʾin or kān. It is important to highlight the fact that the final consonant of the form ki(C)- suggested by Corriente is in fact part of the imperfective inflection for person and not part of the durative morpheme. Thus, the Andalusian durative is kv-imperfective and the vowel variation for person is related to the imperfective marking: n- 1st person, t- 2nd person and y- 3rd person.

The previous discussion shows that there is a general agreement that the origin of the Maghrebi form is the root kwn. Also, the discussion above indicates that kwn derivation for the qəltu dialects is more satisfactory than the demonstrative copula. Therefore, the grammaticalization of this form in all the dialects that have durative kv- seems to correspond to some extent with the universal trends of durative markers 195

developing from an verbs to be.

2. Borrowing

a. Qeltu from Aramaic

Historical evidence presented in Chapter Three explains that Aramaic was one of the main languages spoken in the Levant and Mesopotamia. The Arabization of these areas resulted in Arameans becoming bilingual in Arabic. Gradually and over time, the majority of the Aramean people became monolingual in Arabic. These historical facts are inviting for speculation about possible borrowing of the Aramaic k(v)-.

b. Maghrebi from qəltu

One of the discussions provided in the literature for potential cases of borrowing of kv- is that of Colin (1935: 134), who suggests a direct influence of Berber on the formation of the Moroccan construction. Thus, he suggests that the Moroccan ka- has developed from the Berber form aqqā ‘see!’ Corriente (2013) makes a similar proposal in his discussion of the Andalusian preverbal morpheme ki-. The proposals of borrowing the Berber form are refuted here since this path does not express the function in the Arabic dialects. Rather, this section presents another borrowing possibility; namely borrowing the qəltu form in Maghrebi Arabic.

It is possible to imagine a horizontal line that extends along the Mediterranean coastline all the way to the eastern side of the Anatolian plateau where the use of kv- is attested. This line shows that the distribution of durative kv- is limited to some dialects spoken in the northern fringes of the Arabic speaking world and we do not see this form below this line. This distribution is inviting for speculations about a historical movement that led to the diffusion of this form westward. Regardless of the straightforward geographical distribution, the hypothesis of the borrowing of the qəltu marker in Maghrebi dialects is rejected. Historically, we do not have evidence for contact between the Anatolian plains and the Maghreb that could have led to the borrowing of functional morphemes. Even if we want to consider the possibility of diffusion through the North

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African lands, namely Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, it would be difficult to explain how this durative form exists in the two ends of the proposed movement line but not in between unless it is so old that it was gradually replaced through borrowing or contact by gʿd. We do not have linguistic evidence of the use of kv- in any of these three countries whether historically or contemporarily.

Another justification for ruling out this proposal is related to the vowel difference in the two ends of the kv- dialects. The qəltu dialects have kū- whereas the Maghrebi durative is ki. Based on these justifications, this proposal is ruled out as an explanation for the Maghrebi durative prefix kv-.

c. Maghrebi form from Jewish qa

The majority of the Jewish dialects of North Africa have qa- as the durative marker (Yoda, 2005:193). This includes Tripoli in Libya and Tunis as well as the Jewish varieties of Morocco. This feature is also attested for the southern Jewish varieties of Mesopotamia, more specifically the Baghdadi Jewish Arabic. The northern Jewish varieties of Mesopotamia have durative kū- instead. What this proposal suggests is that the spread of the ka- prefix in Maghrebi dialects was through contact with Jewish varieties that have qa-. Possible lenition led to the loss of the emphatic feature of the Jewish form (q > k).

This proposal is problematic for several reasons; one is linguistic and is related to the lenition of the Jewish form. The emphatic q is attested in many North African varieties today. Thus, this sound change is not explainable in this environment. The second reason is related to the status of the Jews in North Africa. In Chapter Three, we presented a thorough historical review of their movements within the Arabic-speaking region. Although they mastered professions that would possibly made them superior to others, such as trade and intellectual professions, they were considered minorities in the areas where they live. Thus, any linguistic influence they had on the local Arabic dialects is highly doubtful. Based on these reasons, the durative qa- cannot be explained as the source for the Maghrebi durative kv-.

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Which meaning developed first, habitual or progressive?

Bybee at al (1994) and Comrie (1976) suggest that the two meanings of progressive and habitual develop diachronically in a unidirectional way. It is normally the more specific meaning of progressive that develops first before it gradually gets generalized and becomes habitual.

Of all the aspectual markers used in Arabic dialects, kv- is the only one that marks habitual and progressive in all the regions where it is used. In Maghrebi, the prefix covers both habitual and progressive. kv- marks habituality only in one qəltu dialect group while it marks progressive only in another group. The answer to the question of what meaning came first is straightforward if we consider the use of kwn in Arabic in general.

One of the several functions of the verb kwn in Arabic is that it marks tense to indicate past actions. It also conveys the meaning of habituality when it occurs in the sentence without an explicit progressive form. Thus, kān yitkallam kəṯīr ‘he used to talk a lot’ expresses the habit of talking a lot, while kān gāʻid yitkallam kəṯīr ‘he was talking a lot’ expresses the action of talking continuously for a specific period of time in the past. It is possible that this general meaning of habituality of kān that introduced the aspectual function of the form, and since the meanings of habituality and progressivity are related semantically and diachronically, we can assume that the meaning of progressivity was added later to the same form. Although the direction of development from the general meaning of habitual--referred to as ‘imperfective aspect’ in many studies-- goes against the direction suggested by Bybee et al. and Comrie, the synchronic comparison of the use of kān in Arabic dialects shows that it goes against this typological trajectory; the universal trajectory is progressive > habitual whereas the kv- trajectory is habitual > progressive. This implies that the typological trajectory is not unidirectional and we can expect the opposite process to occur.

4.2.5 jls

1. Grammaticalization of stative-continuous jls

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The verb jls is another stative-continuous that has undergone the process of grammaticalization in Yemeni. Chapter Two explains that this form does not take the participle, which can suggest that it still expresses a stative function, though less stative than gāʻid. We have also mentioned that this form is used in several Peninsular dialects and it coexist with the other stative-continuous gʻd, but we lack reports of the distribution of jls. Thus, we cannot make any claims about the historical reasons of the forms coexistence.

What we can claim here is that this form has gone through a grammaticalization process parallely to the process claimed for gʻd. We also mentioned that this form has not reached the decategorization stage of the grammaticalization process.

4.2.6 Shihry ma-

1. Separate innovation

In Chapter Two, we explain the use of the durative main the Shihry dialect that is spoken in a small part in the southwestern Arabian Peninsula. The form and function of this marker are unique to the surrounding dialects, which have the durative gʻd. This form also has a modal meaning besides the aspectual meaning that it conveys. It is tempting to link this form with the Egypto-Levantine form and speculate for a possibility that the Shihry form became isolated geographically and marginalized socially. However, we do not have any historical evidence that connects this specific dialect with the Levant or Egypt. Any assumptions for such a relation should account for the lack of this form in the surrounding dialects.

Another possibility is that this form is more related to the durative ma- attested in north Yemen, which is given in the literature as a bvn variant.. However, the same problem of the Egypto-Levantine form applies here. The surrounding dialects and the dialects spoken in the areas between the Shihry lands and north Yemen do not show the use of this ma-. Therefore, we cannot argue for retention of the the Yemeni form, nor can we arge for borrowing from the north Yemen since no history of constant contact between Shihry speakers and north Yemen is attested.

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Based on this discussion, this study proposes a separate etymon for the Shihry ma-. However, the development of this form is not clear and cannot be speculated here due to shortage of evidence.

4.2.7 Bukhara Uzbek nāyim/qōyem

1. Contact-induced grammaticalization from Iraqi gʻd

It was explained in Chapter Two that the Bukhara Uzbekistani progressive is m(ī)+imperf.+ nāyim/qōyem while the habitual is m(ī)+imperf. We also explained that mī- resembles in function the Levantine habitual b- that sometimes occurs after the progressive ʻam. This resemblance in function and relatively in form (bilabial m and b) does not mean that we can speculate a link between the Levantine form and the Bukhara one. Indeed, Fischer (1961: 247) suggests two possible origins for the emergence of this form in this dialect: the first being through contact with Tajik, which also has mi-; and the second is possible connection between Uzbekistani mi- and bi- since the latter is still used in Ǧeinau Arabic, which is one of the local Arabic dialects in Uzbekistan. Jastrow (2014) suggests a relationship between this form in Uzbekistani Arabic and Iranian progressive marker m-. He, however, he acknowledges the resemblance between the Uzbekistani form m(ī)- and bi- ~b- in other Arabic dialects.

Although such a claim is made in the literature and the Uzbek m(ī) is given as a cognate of the Levantine b- (EALL “Uzbekistan Arabic”: 617), we refute the link between the two forms. The Uzbek form is certainly an Iranian borrowing, and that fact that the two forms share the same phonetic representation is a mere coincidence. In fact, the Uzbekistani dialects of Arabic show many traits of Iraqi Arabic, which is logical if we consider the geographical location where Uzbekistani and Iraqi are spoken. The linguistic evidence encouraged many researchers to argue that the Islamic raids that led to the Arabization of Uzbekistan were launched from Iraq. This means that the conquerors spoke Iraqi Arabic and consequently spread their language in the newly conquered lands. Iraqi Arabic does not show any traces of durative b-, and therefore, the Uzbekistani prefix cannot be of Arabic source.

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4.3 Discussion

There is some degree of overlap in the distribution and usages of durative markers in Arabic, and these usages correspond with the general trends of durative aspects typologically. The fact that these usages fit within the general theories of the functions of aspectual markers is expected since these theories are universal in their applications. These universal trends are realized in the borrowing and grammaticalization of aspect markers. What is different in the discussion of Arabic that is provided in this study is that the sources from which durative markers develop do not correspond completely with the general theories of the grammaticalization of these markers. These universal theories condition that the etymon has a locative meaning and this meaning has to be manifested diachronically. This suggested locative source for grammaticalized aspect markers is not sufficient to explain all the cases in Arabic, and this study attempts to define other categories that function as the source of the development of aspectual markers in Arabic.

Besides the locative notion, source verbs such as to sit are considered in the literature to be stative verbs (Comrie, 1976). However, the definition of stativity does not agree with the semantic meanings associated with this verb, and following this definition requires assigning semantic meanings that are not closely related to the verb to sit in Arabic. In order to prevent assigning irrelevant semantic properties for source words that results from applying the traditional definition of stativity, we have to keep in mind two points; first, we can think of the different semantic meanings of each lexical source in a way that allows the membership of these words in multiple groups. This means that we do not have to create one single category for all lexical sources and then get in the trouble of dealing with the many exceptions of this rule. This is applied in this study by allowing the verbs of gʻd,jls,nāyim and qōyem in two groups; namely stative and continuous. Thus, these verbs are labeled here as stative-continuous. The second point that we have to keep in mind here is that we do not have to fit all the different source words under a single category. If we follow the single source approach in all cases we will be forced to assign words into categories they do not belong to. This misleading categorization is common in the literature of aspect where many researchers 201

of many languages attempt to categorize their durative markers under the locative meaning only to avoid going against the universal theory of grammaticalization durative markers.

The historical evidence suggests that the durative gʻd forms are grammaticalized and are probably of Iraqi origin and spread under the Abbasid rule when contact with the Iraqi capital was elevated. This form was replaced largely in the Levant by the more urban formʻammāl and only handful Levantine dialects still preserve the use of gʻd either as a durative marker or as an intensifier. It is through the Levant that this form was brought to Egypt and the rest of Africa where it is still used as a durative marker. The preposition in the Tunisian periphrasis qāʻid..fi was compared to the use of the same preposition in several Arabic dialect. The results reveal that the preposition in this structure is another evidence that the durative structure is not locative. Finally, the Maltese durative marker is suggested to have a North African origin.

The marker ʻammāl is used in a relatively smaller contiguous area compared to other durative markers. The source for this marker is proposed to evolve from the highly generalized verb ʻamal ‘to make’ through grammaticalization. The use of the pattern CaCCāC suggests that this form developed as a durative and emphatic marker. The durative function survived in the Levant and the emphatic survived in Cairene Arabic. Another possibility suggests that this form was borrowed and in the Levant from the Hijaz and centuries later it was borrowed in Egyptian form the Levant. Yet, these last proposals were ruled out. The analysis shows that both the Levantine and Egyptian forms were developed through the grammaticalization of the source verbs ʻml.

b- is the most complex aspectual prefix and it has the highest number of proposed emergences. The study proposes two scenarios; one suggests that the source of this form in all the dialects, including the historical Qatabanic, is the same. This one suggests that all forms develop from a preposition that has developed in Yemen and later spread to the Levant. However, historical Qatabanic b- is debated to be either durative or present/future particle, but not preposition. Also, the form of the Yemeni 1st sg durative bvn poses a problem for this proposal. In addition, the historical evidence does not

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support the migration of the Qatabanic form. Thus, the one source hypothesis was ruled out by the form and function of the southern b-.

The other scenario proposes different sources, and these include emphatic markers, prepositions and other forms that are found only in modern Yemeni; i.e. bvn. This scenario also puts forth the possibility for b- to develop from the progressive ʻammāl in a circular manner for the progressive and habitual meanings.

In the discussion of the Najdi b-, this section highlights the importance of studying emphatic marker in conjunction with durative forms. Although the Najdi b- does not show any traces of durativity, the analysis of the emphasis in this form is compared with the possible emphasis in the Qatabanic form.

The form kv- attested in qeltu, Maghrebi and Andalusian dialects is proposed to develop from kwn. The first scenario of one source for all suggests that all the dialect grammaticalized kwn in the same fashion from the root kwn. It is possible that the qeltu form developed from yakūn, Maghrebi from kān and Andalusi from kāʾin. Of all the durative forms in Arabic, kwn forms developed first as a habitual in the past ‘used to’ and was then grammaticalized to the present before they evolved to include the progressive meaning. The other scenario studies the possibilities of borrowing from substrate languages that contain similar forms.

Forms that are attested once in a single dialect are also analyzed in this chapter. Yemeni jls presents a case of grammaticalization for the stative-continuous verb jls. The Bukhara Uzbekistani form nāyim/qōyem developed on the model of the Iraqi gāʻid through contact-induced grammaticalization. Finally the Shihry ma- does not belong to any other group and its source is not clear to us.

It is clear from the distribution of the durative markers that there is a great deal of overlap on many levels. There is the geographical overlap between gʻd and b- in the Levant and Egypt; and there is the social overlap between gʻd and ʻammāl in the Levant and between gʻd and jls in the Peninsula. This overlap could be due to the widespread use of gʻd that makes it competing with other forms. The status and spread of this form could hint to the historical social status of the speakers who transferred it to the rest of 203

the Arabic speaking areas, be them from the Peninsula or Iraq. Yet, this case was reversed in the Levant where gʻd was seen as the less urbanized form and ʻammāl emerged as the urban form.

The current social forces that change the use of markers should not be assumed to reflect the historical social interaction. Nevertheless, they point to the importance of social interaction with the linguistic usage of forms and, therefore, motivate investigating these interactions from a historical point of view.

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Conclusion

The use and development of the aspectual forms in modern Arabic dialects is the focus of this study. The aspectual forms gʻd, ʻammāl, b- and kwn are attested in the majority of modern spoken Arabic dialects. The methodology of this study is based on extracting the actual functions of the aspect forms that are attested in the spoken varieties of Arabic. These functions are elicited by interpreting the semantic meanings provided in context, which entails that the cornerstone of interpreting these meanings is their contexts.

Understanding the functions of the aspectual forms in the modern varieties is important for understanding the development of these forms. The diachronic analysis that this study provides compares the synchronic usages and forms against the historical events that took place in the areas where we have attestations for aspectual forms. Due to the lack of historical documentation, the study puts forward a number of tentative proposals with the justifications that support or refute each proposal, based on available evidence.

The theoretical framework for this research is presented in Chapter One. This chapter starts by putting the sources for the attested durative markers within their cross- linguistic framework. The analysis of the meanings and functions of the Arabic lexical sources against their cross-linguistic counterparts reveals that the Arabic sources develop from verbs that are semantically related to the durative function of the modern markers. This means that the locative function that is claimed in the literature for all source verbs is not proven in Arabic. The chapter attempts to design an approach that facilitates extracting meanings for the source lexemes based on their functions in- context. This approach allows for the multiple-membership of verbs in several semantic meanings so that we can address the variation of markers attested in Arabic. This approach resulted in proposes other meanings for the source lexemes; these are temporal locative prepositions, stative-continuous and emphatic markers. The relevance of emphasis to durativity is not addressed adequately in the literature. This study highlights 205

the relation between the two meanings and points the importance of emphasis in aspect marking. Also, the theories of functional grammar development are presented to lay the groundwork for the discussion of aspect development. The theories that are discussed here are those of grammaticalization, contact-induced borrowing and contact-induced grammaticalization. The discussion of this chapter provided the methodologies that each method adopts in tracing the development of functional forms. The chapter explains how each theory will be tested for the development of aspectual forms attested in Arabic dialects.

In Chapter Two, the inter-dialectal distribution of the aspectual markers is analyzed synchronically. All the dialects that show the use of the same form are compared by examining the aspectual forms. The analysis in this chapter reveals that the form gʻd is the most widespread followed by b-. The forms ʻammāl and kv- are concentrated in smaller areas compared to gʻd and b-. Further research is needed to understand the reasons for the concentrated distribution of ʻammāl and kv-. The form jiss > yijlis is attested in Yemeni and many Peninsular dialects. However, we lack the necessary description of the distribution of this form in the Peninsular dialects, especially whether the form gʻd is also used in these dialects. Another form is attested in one dialect; namely m(ī)+imperf+ nāyim/qōyem in Bukhara Uzbekistan Arabic. Besides their durative function, the aspectual forms in these dialects show functions that range between emphatic, stative, entry into a state and historical present.

Chapter Three introduces the diachronic analysis by reviewing the major historical contact events that took place in the Arabic speaking world. The historical events that led to the interaction between Arabic speakers and others in Mesopotamia and the Levant are explained in a time span that extends from the pre-Islamic era until right after the Islamic conquests. The Arabization of the rest of the Arabic speaking world is reviewed starting from the Islamic conquests. The chapter also reviews minority migrations that took place within the areas where we have attestations for aspectual markers.

Finally the diachronic analysis is provided in Chapter Four. This study suggests the

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following tentative scenarios for all the durative markers as the most likely paths of development.

The durative marker b-:

1. Two different sources

a. Southern b-: possibly has three sources historically.

i. Emphatic/durative *b-.

A. Emphatic in Qatabanic and Najdi

B.Durative in Dhofārī

C. Durative *bvn- in Yemeni

b. Northern b-

i. Grammaticalization of temporal preposition in the Levant preposition *b + imperfective.

ii. Grammaticalization: Circular *ʻammāl in the Levant and Egypt.

The root *kwn is proposed as the source for the durative kv- attested in qeltu dialects in the east and Maghrebi and Andalusī in the west. The study proposes the following paths of grammaticalization for each dialect.

a. qeltu yakūn > kū-

b. Maghrebi kān > ka- kun > ku-

c. Andalusī kāʾin > ki- ~ ka-

The root *gʻd as a progressive marker is proposed to follow one of the following possibilities.

1. Grammaticalizated stative-continuous verb gʻd ‘to sit’ in the Peninsula and spread to the rest of the Arabic speaking world

2. Grammaticalizated stative-continuous verb gʻd ‘to sit’ in Iraq and spread to the

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rest of the Arabic speaking world.

The root *ʻml attested as a progressive/emphatic marker in Syrio-Egyptian dialects. This root is proposed to develop through grammaticalization in Levant and Egypt: ʻml > intensifier/durative ʻammāl >ʻam/mma/ma/ʻa

*jls is the source for the grammaticalized Yemeni durative jls (jss):

Stative-continuous *jls > jālis.

The roots *nwm and *qwm are the sources of the Bukhara Uzbekistan progressive structure m(ī)+imperf + nāyim/qōyem

Stative-continuous *nwm/qwm > nāyim/qōyem through contact-induced grammaticalization on the model of Iraqi *gʻd > gāʻid.

The source for the Shihry durative ma- cannot be proposed in light of the current information we have about this dialect.

The analyses that this study offers can lead to valuable insights about the interaction of many factors in the creation of aspectual forms. The study provides a defined approach of analyzing aspectual functions and forms in a comparative method that operates on two dimensions: synchronic and diachronic. It is hoped that this study provides a glimpse of the diversity of the Arabic language. It is also hoped that this study inspires research on aspect and language change to look beyond the forms and understand the meanings of structures as expressive tools that reflect the complexity of human language.

Further research is needed to understand the distribution of durative markers in dialects of which we have no descriptions. These dialects might refine our understanding of the durative structures in Arabic. Unless we have access to contextualized texts of these dialects it would be difficult to proceed with analyses of aspect in Arabic dialects. An example for the importance of this step is the case of Shihry ma-. Due to our lack of knowledge about the many dialects that are spoken along the Hijaz strip we do not know 208

if this form is used in any other adjacent dialects. Another example comese from the Jewish qa- that is used in Iraq and North Africa. Further research is needed to look for evidence for the use of this form by other communities so that we can we have answers for why qa- exists in the speech of Jews only. Finally, current discoveries about the ancient languages of the Peninsula should also be considered in any future research that discusses the development of Arabic dialects.

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