Pausal Forms
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Pausal Forms 1. Introduction 2. Pausal forms in Standard Arabic A pausal form is the form a word has at the end of a sentence or major phrase or before a Pausal forms are derived from the basic, full pause or stop in the speech flow (waqf ), if that forms by (i) deleting final short vowels (so the is different from the form it takes in the begin- pausal form of kataba ‘he wrote’ is katab); (ii) ning or middle of a phrase. In Classical and deleting a final suffix -n (so the pausal form of Modern Standard Arabic, most words have kitàbun ‘book’ is kitàb); (iii) replacing the suffix different pausal and medial forms. Phonetic -at- with -ah (kitàb-at-u-n ‘writing’ becomes pausal phenomena probably occur in all lan- kitàbah). This Standard Arabic morphological guages, although they may differ from language alternation between full and pausal forms is to language, but morphologically conditioned absent from the modern vernacular dialects and pausal changes are much rarer, and they are was lost in the medieval period, if not earlier; the ones most often referred to when discussing the vernacular form of a word is generally pausal forms in Arabic. The morphological derived from the Standard Arabic pausal form, pausal phenomena of Arabic prose are of a not the full form. single general type: the pausal form is produced The deletion of final short vowels is integrally by subtracting from the base form of the word related to the fact that, in both Old Arabic a final short vowel and the final consonant and the modern vernacular dialects, with few of certain suffixes. The pausal form is thus exceptions, the phonemic opposition of vowel shorter than the medial form, and grammatical and consonant quantity is neutralized in pausal features (case and mood) that in a full form are position. (In some modern dialects this applies marked by suffixes consisting of a short vowel only to unstressed vowels.) Thus, the final are absent from the pausal form. Therefore, the consonants of the words yad ‘hand’ and radd medial or context form of a word may be appro- ‘response’ are identical, when not followed by priately called its full form or basic form, in another word (both may be pronounced with that the pausal form can be deduced from it but a longer or a shorter d). The same is true it cannot be derived unambiguously from the with vowels. In the Damascus vernacular, for pausal form. When mentioning an Arabic word example, “If a final vowel is . unaccented, it in isolation, one usually cites the pausal form, varies between long and short depending on for two reasons: a word in isolation is, in effect, the phrasing and intonation. Thus . the i in in pausal position; and the Standard Arabic xëdi [‘take:imper:fem:sg’] is unaccented (i.e. pausal forms are, on the whole, more similar xódi), but is sometimes actually long” (Cowell than the full forms are to the way the words are 1964:19), so the difference in the vowels pronounced in the modern vernacular dialects of between xódi ‘take!’ and xëd\-ha ‘take her!’ Arabic. Thus, if one asks what the Holy Book of is that in xëd\-ha the stressed ì must be long, Islam is called, or how to say ‘city’, the answer but in xódi the unstressed final i may be long is given in the pausal form, al-qur±àn or madìna, or short. Something similar was likely the case not the full form al-qur±ànu or madìnatun. in Old Arabic (although stress is not known The most detailed description of the pausal to have been a factor), and the same is true forms in a Western language is by Fleisch (1990: of Modern Standard Arabic, where the final 172–197). Wright (1898:368–373) gives a con- vowels of ±anti ‘you [fem. sg.]’ and bintì ‘my cise but full statement of the facts, Retsö (1994) daughter’ are pronounced identically. presents a lucid synthesis of them, Birkeland A word that ends in a long vowel is unchanged (1940) focuses on the historical development in pausal position, but when a word that of the system, and Roman (1982:493–554) basically ends in a short vowel appears in pausal attempts to reconstruct the phonetics and position, it either loses that vowel, lengthens phonology behind it. the vowel, or adds h (Retsö 1994). Loss of EEALLALL 33_pausal_pausal forms_1-0.inddforms_1-0.indd 1 88/22/2007/22/2007 8:56:098:56:09 PPMM 2 pausal forms the vowel is the norm for final short vowels form qà∂ì, qà∂, or qà∂i (Carter 1990). Two of that are suffixes or part of suffixes, so the these are problematic: qà∂ is not acknowledged pausal form of al-bayt-u ‘the house [Art-house- by the foremost grammarian, Sìbawayhi, and Nom]’, mu≠allim-ùna ‘teachers [teacher-Nom. probably is not used in oral Modern Standard p]’, bayt-u-ka ‘your house [house-Nom-2ms]’, Arabic; and qà∂i ends in a short vowel, which is daras-a ‘he studied [studied-3ms]’, daras-nà- unexpected in pausal position (where in any case hu ‘we studied it [studied-1p-3ms]’, ≠an-hu it is not phonemically distinct from a long ì). ‘from it’ are al-bayt, mu≠allimùn, baytuk, daras, A special rule applies to the suffix -at-, darasnàh, ≠anh respectively. Lengthening is which marks several different morphosyntactic frequent at the ends of lines in poetry. Final features on nouns and adjectives, most often short vowels that are not part of suffixes are (in feminine gender but also some masculines normative Classical Arabic) followed in pause and plurals. Regardless of function, -at- has by -h (called by the grammarians hà± as-sakt, cf. the pausal form -ah, so for the full forms Fleisch 1990:185–186), so the pausal forms of mu≠allim-at-u-n [teacher-fs-Nom-Abs], xalìf- the jussive yaqi ‘he protects’, the imperative ra at-a-n [caliph-at-Acc-Abs], al-™aràmiyy-at-u ‘see!’, and kayfa ‘how’ are yaqih, rah, kayfah. [Art-thieves-at-Nom], the corresponding pausal The suffix -n, marking the absolute state of forms are mu≠allimah, xalìfah, al-™aràmiyyah. nouns and adjectives or the energetic mood of (This does not apply to the suffix -at which verbs, is also deleted in pause; thus, the pausal marks the 3rd person feminine singular on forms of bayt-u-n ‘a house [house-Nom-Abs]’ is verbs; katab-at ‘she wrote’ is unchanged in bayt. However, for words ending in a-n, the -n pause.) In many dialects, the suffix is -a rather is deleted, but the -a (which may be the marker than -ah, and for this reason the suffix is of accusative case or part of the stem) is not often represented in conventional transcriptions dropped but rather lengthened, so the pausal simply as -a. That the suffix was -ah in Old forms of bayt-a-n ‘a house [house-Acc-Abs]’, Arabic is clear from the facts that some modern fata-n ‘a boy [boy-Abs]’ are baytà, fatà. dialects preserve the h and that in classical Pausal forms are based on the corresponding poetry it rhymes with stems ending in ah, and medial, full forms, and not directly on the not with final à. One might suppose that the abstract underlying form. For example, fatan formation of this pausal -ah from -at- is a two- ‘boy’ is derived from an underlying form /fatay- step process, first deleting the -t specifically in u-n/ [boy-Nom-Abs], via an intermediate stage this suffix and then epenthesizing -h after the fatà-n; if the pausal form were derived directly final short vowel by the general process. This from /fatay-u-n/, deletion of the final -u-n might well have been the historical sequence would yield the incorrect form *fatay (which of events, it this does not account for ™ayàh, is, however, attested in certain ancient dialects, the pausal form of ™ayàtun (™aya-at-u-n) ‘life’, cf. Rabin 1951:116). Rather, the pausal form where deletion of the final t-u-n would leave must be derived from the full form fata-n (or ™ayà, which does not end in a short vowel and an intermediate form fatà-n), yielding fatà. so would not get an epenthetic h. In Modern Similarly, in both the indicative and jussive Standard Arabic, there is an alternative pausal forms of the verb ‘he stands’: yaqùmu and form ™ayàt, a back-formation from suffixed yaqum, the stem vowel is underlyingly long forms like ™ayàt-ì ‘my life’. (indicative /yaqùm-u/, jussive /yaqùm/), but in Arabic orthography does not normally the jussive the /ù/ becomes u by the general indicate the difference between pausal and full rule that shortens vowels in closed syllables. forms. The spelling is based on the pausal The difference of vowel length between the forms rather than full forms, and a word is indicative yaqùmu and the jussive yaqum is spelled identically, whether in medial position maintained in their pausal forms, which are or in pause. To be precise, the basic spelling, respectively yaqùm and yaqum. The vowel in composed of letters of the alphabet, represents the pausal indicative yaqùm does not shorten. A the pausal form, even in medial position, special case concerns words like qà∂i-n [judge- while the optional diacritics that augment the Nom/Gen-Abs], which is derived from /qà∂ì-n/ basic spelling with additional phonological by the same vowel-shortening rule. In pause, information, including short vowels, represent where the -n is deleted, the word may have the the full form, even at the end of a sentence.