Emirati Arabic
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Emirati Arabic Emirati Arabic: A Comprehensive Grammar offers readers a reference tool for discovering and studying in detail the specific dialect of Arabic spoken in the United Arab Emirates. It covers all major areas of Emirati Arabic grammar, describing in detail its phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic systems. Each grammatical point is illustrated with numerous examples drawn from native Emirati Arabic speakers and is thoroughly discussed providing both accessible and linguistically informed grammatical description. This book is a useful reference for students of Gulf Arabic and/or Modern Standard Arabic or other Arabic dialects with an interest in the dialect spoken in the UAE, researchers interested in Arabic language and linguistics as well as graduate students and scholars interested in Arabic studies. Tommi Tsz- Cheung Leung is Associate Professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the United Arab Emirates University. His research specializes in syntax, phonology, typology, and psycholinguistics. Dimitrios Ntelitheos is Associate Professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the United Arab Emirates University. His research interests include the investigation of morphological and syntactic structures from a theoretical perspective, as well as their cross- linguistic realization and their development in child language. Meera Al Kaabi is Assistant Professor and Chair in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the United Arab Emirates University and a visiting academic at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her research interests include neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language disorders, morphology, and Semitic languages. Routledge Comprehensive Grammars Titles in this series: French Creoles A Comprehensive Grammar Anand Syea Dutch A Comprehensive Grammar, 3rd Edition Bruce Donaldson Finnish A Comprehensive Grammar Fred Karlsson Persian A Comprehensive Grammar Saeed Yousef Norwegian A Comprehensive Grammar Philip Holmes, Hans- Olav Enger Korean A Comprehensive Grammar, 2nd edition Jaehoon Yeon, Lucien Brown Modern Irish A Comprehensive Grammar Nancy Stenson Lithuanian A Comprehensive Grammar Meilutė Ramonienė, Joana Pribušauskaitė, Jogilė Teresa Ramonaitė and Loreta Vilkienė Máku A Comprehensive Grammar Chris Rogers Emirati Arabic A Comprehensive Grammar Tommi Tsz- Cheung Leung, Dimitrios Ntelitheos and Meera Al Kaabi For more information on this series, please visit: www.routledge. com/Routledge- Comprehensive- Grammars/book- series/SE0550 Emirati Arabic A Comprehensive Grammar Tommi Tsz- Cheung Leung, Dimitrios Ntelitheos and Meera Al Kaabi First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Tommi Tsz- Cheung Leung, Dimitrios Ntelitheos and Meera Al Kaabi The right of Tommi Tsz- Cheung Leung, Dimitrios Ntelitheos and Meera Al Kaabi to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 22082- 2 (hbk) ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 22080- 8 (pbk) ISBN: 978- 0- 429- 27316- 2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon & Gill Sans by Apex CoVantage, LLC ‘To my mother Nerissa for her unconditional support, and to Seri, my source of joy and energy.’ —Tommi ‘To Rachel, Alexi, and Lukas and to my friends, colleagues, and students who have inspired me over the years.’ —Dimitrios ‘To my beloved parents, who will never read this book, and to those who inspire it.’ —Meera Contents List of figures xii List of tables xiii Acknowledgements xvii Abbreviations xix Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Emirati Arabic 1 1.2 Triglossia in the UAE 4 1.3 The descriptive approach to Emirati Arabic 5 1.4 Transcription 7 1.5 Glossing 8 1.6 Abbreviations 8 Further reading 9 Chapter 2 The sounds of Emirati Arabic 10 2.1 Consonants 10 2.2 Vowels 15 Further reading 19 Chapter 3 Phonological processes 20 3.1 Feature- level processes 20 3.2 Segment- level processes 28 3.3 Suprasegmental processes and phonotactics 31 Further reading 35 Chapter 4 Morphology and word formation 36 vii 4.1 Non- linear morphological processes 36 4.2 Affixation 37 Contents 4.3 Reduplication 38 4.4 Compounding 42 4.5 Loanwords 44 4.6 Acronyms, abbreviations, and blending 47 4.7 Back formation 47 4.8 Conversion 48 Further reading 48 Chapter 5 Syntactic categories and parts of speech 49 5.1 Nouns 49 5.2 Verbs 63 5.3 Adjectives 91 5.4 Adverbs and adverbial expressions 105 5.5 Prepositions 117 5.6 Quantification: numerals and quantifiers 131 5.7 Complementizers 157 5.8 Pronouns 161 Further reading 174 Chapter 6 The noun phrase 176 6.1 Definiteness 177 6.2 Possession 184 6.3 Appositives 194 6.4 Nominal modifiers 196 6.5 Agreement in the noun phrase 203 6.6 Demonstratives 206 6.7 Word order in the noun phrase 209 Further reading 211 Chapter 7 The verb phrase 212 7.1 The copular structure 212 7.2 State verbs 214 7.3 Experiencer verbs 215 7.4 Unergative verbs 216 7.5 Unaccusative verbs 217 7.6 Ditransitive verbs 217 7.7 Existential and possessive predicates 219 7.8 Raising predicates 220 7.9 Control verbs 223 viii 7.10 Reflexive verbs 225 7.11 Complex predicates 226 7.12 Causative verbs 228 Contents 7.13 Passive verbs 229 7.14 Complement- taking verbs 231 Further reading 233 Chapter 8 Aspect 234 8.1 The perfective aspect 234 8.2 The imperfective aspect 237 8.3 Participles 242 8.4 Lexical aspect 244 8.5 Grammatical aspect 248 Further reading 253 Chapter 9 Mood and modality 254 9.1 Deontic modality 254 9.2 Epistemic modality 260 9.3 Dynamic modality 263 9.4 Modal adverbs 265 9.5 Verbs expressing modality 268 9.6 Evidential modality 270 9.7 Imperatives 271 9.8 Counterfactuals 273 9.9 Hortatives 275 9.10 Optatives 276 Further reading 277 Chapter 10 Negation 278 10.1 Verbal negation 278 10.2 Non- verbal predicate negation 280 laa ‘no’ 283 ﻻ The negative particle 10.3 غير- laa- ‘not’ and -ﻻ The negative prefix 10.4 ɣeer- ‘non- ’ 284 10.5 Negative imperatives 284 10.6 Negative coordination 285 10.7 Negation in ellipsis 286 10.8 Negative polarity items 287 10.9 Negative concord 299 Further reading 305 Chapter 11 Word order 306 ix 11.1 Subject- verb (SV) and verb- subject (VS) 306 Contents 11.2 Subject- verb- object (SVO) 309 11.3 Double- object constructions 310 11.4 Word order permutation 313 Further reading 321 Chapter 12 Relative clauses 322 12.1 Restrictive relative clauses 322 12.2 Nonrestrictive relative clauses 326 12.3 Free relative clauses 326 12.4 Noun complement clauses 330 Further reading 331 Chapter 13 Questions 332 13.1 Yes- no questions 332 13.2 Wh- questions 340 13.3 Echo questions 350 13.4 Embedded questions 353 13.5 Rhetorical questions 356 13.6 Exclamatives 359 Further reading 360 Chapter 14 Subordination 361 14.1 Temporal clauses 361 14.2 Reason clauses 370 14.3 Purpose clauses 371 14.4 Conditional clauses 372 14.5 Concessive clauses 377 14.6 Other subordinators 380 14.7 Parentheticals 380 Further reading 381 Chapter 15 Coordination 382 w- /wa ‘and’ 382 و Conjunction 15.1 15.2 Agreement in coordination 388 w- /wa 389 و Fixed expressions formed by 15.3 w- /wa 393 و Pragmatic uses of 15.4 w- /wa 394 و Informal use of 15.5 bas ‘but’ 395 بس 15.6 wəlla ‘or’ 398 واﻻ Disjunction 15.7 ʔaw ‘or’ 401 أو x 15.8 fa- ‘and then/so’ 402 ﻓ- 15.9 ʔamma ‘as for’ 402 Contents أما Contrastive coordinator 15.10 ʕan ‘than’ 403 عن Comparative coordinator 15.11 mub ‘not’ 404 مب Negative coordinator 15.12 15.13 Correlatives in coordination 405 15.14 Paratactic coordination 408 Further reading 409 Chapter 16 Ellipsis 410 16.1 Gapping 410 16.2 Stripping 411 16.3 NP ellipsis 412 16.4 VP ellipsis 415 16.5 PP ellipsis 417 16.6 Clausal ellipsis 417 16.7 Comparative deletion 418 16.8 Sluicing 420 Further reading 422 Chapter 17 Interjections 423 17.1 Primary interjections 423 17.2 Borrowed interjections 436 17.3 Secondary interjections 437 Further reading 439 Chapter 18 Speech conventions 440 18.1 Politeness 440 18.2 Terms of address 456 18.3 General honorific terms 457 18.4 Trendy language 461 Further reading 464 Glossary of terms 465 References 481 Index 491 xi Figures 1.1 Gulf Arabic and the Arabian Peninsula 3 1.2 Dialects spoken in the United Arab Emirates 4 2.1 Vowels of Emirati Arabic 16 3.1 The pitch pattern for penultimate stress 33 13.1 The intonation pattern for declarative sentences 333 13.2 The intonation pattern for yes- no questions 335 13.3 The intonation pattern for wh- questions 344 xii Tables 1.1 Correspondences between Arabic letters and IPA symbols in transcription 7 2.1 International Phonetic Alphabets (IPA) chart for consonants of Emirati Arabic 11 2.2 Consonants of Emirati Arabic 11 3.1 Place assimilation 21 4.1 Examples of morphological derivations in Emirati Arabic 37 4.2 Forms of verbal inflections