Volume III, Issue V, July 2015 – ISSN 2321-7065

Agreement in TaiziYemeni Arabic1: A Corpus-based Analysis

Mustafa Ahmed Al-humari

1. Introduction The aim of this corpus-based study is to examine to what extent Taizi Yemeni (henceforth TYA) might retain morph syntactic properties of its mother language, (henceforth MSA), in terms of the Subject-Verb Agreement phenomena. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 sheds some light on the agreement facts that MSA display. Section 3 points out the research questions and introduces the agreement facts in TYA. Section 4 points out the findings of the study.

Key words: Corpus-based analysis, Subject-Verb Agreement, asymmetry, word order, full agreement, partial agreement.

2. Background and Literature Review In the literature, several works (e.g. Mohammad (1989), Benmamoun (1992), Bahloul and Harbert (1993), FassiFehri (1993), Ouhalla (1994), Ritter (1995), Soltan (2007) among others) have investigated Subject-Verb Agreement in Modern Standard Arabic. They may all come to the same conclusion that there are two asymmetries between the type of agreement and the word order. The first asymmetry is that there is full agreement between a subject and a verb in the SVO word order but when the word order is VSO, the Subject-Verb agreement is only partial. In the case of SVO word order, a verb agrees with the subject with all ф- features i.e. Person, Number, and Gender. But it is not the case in VSO where Number feature on the verb head is lost. 2.1.1 Subject-Verb Agreement in MSA: SVO Word Order In MSA, there is an asymmetry in the SVO word order where there is a full agreement between the subject and the verb. Consider the following examples:

1. a) ʔal-walad-u Kataba ʔal-dars-a (√ Full Agreement +SVO)

1Taizi Yemeni Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken in the north-western area of . It is the mother tongue of the author as well.

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the-boy-nom Wrote.3rd-sg-mas the-lesson-acc ‘The boy wrote the lesson.’

b) ʔal-fatat-u Katabat ʔal-dars-a ( √ Full Agreement +SVO) the-girl-nom wrote.3rd-sg-fem the-lesson-acc ‘ The girl wrote the lesson.’

c) ʔal-walaad-u Katabuu ʔal-dars-a (√Full Agreement +SVO) the-boys-nom Wrote.3rd-pl-mas the-lesson-acc ‘The boys wrote the lesson.’

d) ʔalfatayat-u Katabna ʔal-dars-a (√ Full Agreement +SVO) the-girls-nom Wrote.3rd-pl-fem the-lesson-acc ‘The girls wrote the lesson.’

In all these examples, the features on the verbs fully agree with the features on the subjects. If we take (1a) as an example, a bundle of features [3rd :Person, SG: Number , and Mas: Gender ] on the verbkatab ‘write’ has the same features of Person, Number and Gender on the subject ʔal-walad 'the boy'. This type of full agreement between the subject and the verb can be clearly noticed in the above given examples. 2.1.2 Subject-Verb Agreement in MSA: VSO Word Order Modern Standard Arabic requires the verb to partially agree with the subject in the VSO word order. Consider the following examples:

2. a) Kataba ʔal-walad-u ʔ al-dars-a ( √ Full Agreement +VSO) Wrote.3rdsg mas the-boy-nom the-lesson-acc ‘The boy wrote the lesson.’

b) Katabat ʔal-fatat-u ʔal-dars-a ( √ Full Agreement +VSO) Wrote.3rdsg fem the-girl-nom the-lesson-acc ‘The girl wrote the lesson.’

c) Kataba ʔal-walaad-u ʔal-dars-a (√ Partial Agreement +VSO)

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Wrote.3rdsg mas the-boys-nom the-lesson-acc ‘The boys wrote the lesson.’

d) Katabat ʔalfatayat-u ʔal-dars-a (√ Partial Agreement +VSO) Wrote.3rdsg fem the-girls-nom the-lesson-acc ‘The girls wrote the lesson.’ The examples (2c) and (2d) show that the verbkatab ‘write’ agrees with the subject partially in the VSO word order. The Number feature does not match between the verb and the subject. It is crucial to see that the Number feature which is present on the verb in the SVO is absent in the VSO word order.

3. Design and Procedures 3.1 Research Questions a. How similar is the subject-verb agreement in Modern Standard Arabic to that in Taizi Yemeni Arabic? b. To what extent does asymmetry between word order and agreement play a role in MSA and TYA? 3.2 Hypothesis Taizi Yemeni Arabic, just like MSA, is expected to have a partial agreement in VSO and a full agreement in SVO word order. Moreover, the asymmetries assumed for capturing the agreement in MSA would be extended to its daughter, TYA. 3.3 Nature of Corpus The nature of the corpus in the work is of two types: written language and widely spoken as in Modern Standard Arabic as given in sections (2.1.1) and (2.1.2) and spoken language as in Taizi Yemeni Arabic as given in sections (3.3.1) and (3.3.2). 3.3.1 Subject-Verb Agreement in TYA: SVO Word Order

3. a) ʔas-suba Katab ʔad-dars (√ Full Agreement +SVO) the-boy Wrote.3rd-sg-mas the-lesson ‘The boy wrote the lesson.’

b) ʔab-bint Katabah ʔad-dars (√ Full Agreement +SVO) the-girl Wrote. 3rd-sg-fem the-lesson

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‘ The girl wrote the lesson.’

c) ʔaʕ-ʕayaal Katabuu ʔad-dars (√Full Agreement +SVO) the-boys Wrote.3rd-pl-mas the-lesson ‘The boys wrote the lesson.’

d) ʔab-banaat Katabiin ʔad-dars (√ Full Agreement +SVO) the-girls Wrote.3rd-Pl-fem the-lesson

3.3.2 Subject-Verb Agreement in TYA: VSO Word Order

4. a) Katab ʔas-suba ad-dars (√ Full Agreement +VSO) Wrote.3rdsg mas the-boy the-lesson ‘The boy wrote the lesson.’

b) Katabah ʔab-bint ad-dars (√ Full Agreement +VSO) Wrote.3rdsg fem the-girl the-lesson ‘The girl wrote the lesson.’

c) katabuu ʔaʕiyaal ad-dars (√ Full Agreement +VSO) Wrote.3rd Pl mas the-boys the-lesson ‘The boys wrote the lesson.’

d) katabiin ʔab-banaat ad-dars (√ Full Agreement +VSO) Wrote.3rd Pl fem the-girls the-lesson ‘The girls wrote the lesson.’

3.4 Nature of Data Since the work aims at examining the behavior of subject-verb agreement in both Modern Standard Arabic and Taizi Yemeni Arabic, the data under investigation is of two types: primary and Secondary. The primary data is collected from the native speakers of Taizi Yemeni Arabic, who are pursuing their higher studies in Hyderabad, India, by contacting

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Volume III, Issue V, July 2015 – ISSN 2321-7065 them through e-mailing, chatting, mobile calling. The researcher sends them data on subject- verb agreement of Modern Standard Arabic taken from books and asks them to write the equivalents in their own mother tongue, Taizi Yemeni Arabic. The Secondary data is collected from MSA as described in the reference books (e.g Wright (1859), Haywood &Nahmad (1965)). Modern Standard Arabic is the uniform variety of Arabic which is used all over the Arabic speaking world in contemporary literary works, as well as in the media, viz. magazines, newspapers, radio and television broadcasts, business, personal letters and in some songs.In fact, the comparison between these two kinds of data also makes the work significant.

4. Findings 4.1 Findings in Relation to Literature Review Most, if not all, the previous works dedicated to capture the agreement system in Modern Standard Arabic have given a bigger role for the asymmetry between the word order and the agreement system. It is strictly assumed that the extent of agreement between the subject and the verb is mainly related to the effect of the word orders. When the SVO word order is used, we expect that there would be a full agreement between the verb and the subject but there would be a partial agreement between the verb and the subject when the word order is in VSO. To see how similar the agreement system in TYA and MSA, let us take examples (1a-d) and compare to the examples given in (3a-d). Examples (1a-d) of MSA show SVO word order as it is the case in examples (3a-d) of TYA. Going by the traditional assumption, we expect the verb to have a full agreement with the subject. Similar to the examples of (1a-d), the verb katab‘write’ in the examples (3a-d) agrees with its subject in all phi-features such as Person, Number and Gender. The result may be promising to do further research on this topic. It is found that there is a consistency between the traditional assumption of asymmetry and the data investigated along with the examples mentioned. We may come to the conclusion that the assumption proposed in the literature is valid and promising to account for the other part of the agreement story, where the partial agreement is required in the VSO word order. Looking at the examples given in (2a-d) of Modern Standard Arabic, the assumption still works in the sense that the verb katab 'write' does not have to fully agree with the subject. The verb agrees with the subject only with Gender and Person. No agreement in the feature Number is seen and this is what is predicted to happen. Keeping the assumption in

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Volume III, Issue V, July 2015 – ISSN 2321-7065 mind, let us proceed further. The examples (4a-d) in Taizi Yemeni Arabic are found to have a full agreement between the verb and the subject. That is to say, the verb katab'write' agrees with the subject in all Number, Person, and Gender; and this actually casts some doubts on the applicability of the assumed asymmetry so far. We get some contradictory results as opposed to the prior expectations. By stipulation, in the VSO word order, the verb is not allowed to show full agreement with the subject. If the asymmetry bears in mind, then such an agreement would be illicit. The traditional assumption may be true if we want to describe the behavior of agreement system in MSA on which I based my hypothesis that the distribution of agreement system are similar in MSA and TYA; since, TYA still preserves its alternations of word orders. However, the alternation of word orders is proved to be somewhat misleading and deceptive. Regardless of the word order, TYA necessarily requires the verb to fully agree with the subject in both word orders. The finding is in contrast with the traditional view, that is, in TYA, there must be a full agreement between the verb and the subject in both SVO and VSO; whereas there is an asymmetry between the word order and the agreement system in Modern Standard Arabic. 4.2 Findings in Relation to Hypothesis It is hypothesized that Taizi Yemeni Arabic behaves in a way similar to its mother language, Modern Standard Arabic, in terms of the structure and morphology and that they may differ in their phonological system. The agreement system in MSA is firmly proposed to be captured by an asymmetry between the word order and the agreement. There is a full agreement between the verb and the subject in SVO word order but a partial agreement in VSO word order. The analysis of data reveals that TYA and MSA share the fact that they display word order alternations but they differ in that no asymmetry exists in TYA, unlike MSA as TYA shows a full agreement between the verb and the subject in both word orders. Hence, the account proposed to account for agreement system in MSA cannot be extended to TYA. These findings of the study about TYA may not be the same if a similar study is done in future as language is never constant but it keeps changing.

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