NOUN PLURALITY IN JEBBĀLI By KHALSA AL AGHBARI A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2012 1 © 2012 Khalsa Al Aghbari 2 For Ahmed 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS On one hand, it was a great asset for me to get to do a PhD. On the other hand, it was a real challenge in which I strove to keep my sanity while embarking on the biggest project of my life. As I passed every phase of the PhD program, my eyes had been set on the torch at the end of the tunel, waiting anxiously for the time when I would pass my PhD defense. As I reached there and held the torch tenaciously, I discovered that defending my thesis was not the final destination but a start-off point to leaving my own prints in my passionate field of study, phonology. Now that I hold a PhD, I do not cease to feel tomorrow‟s huge burden of disseminating knowledge, accumulated in precious four years of my lifetime, through teaching at Sultan Qaboos University and doing research. Now that I hold a PhD, I surely savor its sweetness and bitterness, resulting from hard work, patience and determination. Now that I hold a PhD, I do not imagine myself stepping back, standing as a passive observer to the long-neglected Jebbāli‟s linguistic wealth and discontinuing research. I promise to be an effective linguist and researcher. Today and forever I am short for words that would appropriately and justly express my gratitude to my wonderful supervisor, Caroline Wiltshire, who taught me when to slow down and when to speed up. Her challenging exams when she taught me phonology and professional supervision coupled with her insightful comments when she was my supervisor are the most fruitful moments of my life. I cannot choose the right words to tell you how much you have touched me by your sheer humbleness and immense knowledge. I wish I could repay little of what you have done to awaken the research person in me. I promise to follow your path in both teaching and research. 4 I also feel privileged to have learned linguistics from a reputable host of scholars in the Department of Linguistics at University of Florida in general and from my committee members in particular. Diana Boxer, Ratree Wayland and MJ Hardman have enhanced my love for linguistics. I was also honored to have Fiona McLaughlin and Brent Henderson in my committee. I will never forget their moral support and constructive feedback while I was writing my qualifying exams. Last but not least, I thank Raymond Issa, my external examiner, who was accessible during my candidacy exam and PhD defense. I wish to extend special thanks to my language consultants Manal Bait Gharim, Jamila Kashoub and Jamila‟s parents for their willingness to share their language with me and their interest in my project. I wholeheartedly appreciate the time they generously spared me and the enthusiasm they displayed when knowing that I was working on Jebbāli. I dedicate my dissertation with profound love to my family members, especially my beloved grandmother, without whose continuous prayers and phone calls, it would have been impossible to get this work done. Inquiring about my progress and how much time left to graduate was very spirit-elevating. I know you barely understood what I was exactly doing but it was enough for me that you could cunningly and amusingly mimic the tone of Jebbāli speakers when they speak Arabic. Had I not been blessed with an extremely understanding husband and an adorable daughter, the journey of doing a PhD would have been flavorless. My husband‟s constant phone calls and visits were my sole fuel when I was at the end of my tether. My baby‟s laughs kept me going happily and distracted me from my recurring worries. 5 Naively, I thought that being a single mother in the States with the challenge of completing a PhD would disrupt my life and deprive me of enjoying my daughter. However, as I began to enjoy the growing-up of my baby in front of my eyes, I realized that I would not be as successful in my education and life without her. Thank you both for asking me only often when I will be done. It certainly motivated me to finish earlier than expected. Last but not least, I wish to express special thanks to my revered university, Sultan Qaboos University, which generously paid for my education and life expenses for four years. I have never felt financially lacking though I would have appreciated little money for conferences. Since I did not have to work to pay for my education, I have had plenty of time to study and submit my assigned works way before a deadline. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... 11 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 14 Statement of Intent ................................................................................................. 14 Overview of Dissertation ......................................................................................... 18 Description of the Plural Patterns ........................................................................... 20 Suffixation ......................................................................................................... 22 Vb Infixation ...................................................................................................... 26 Attachment of a Suffixal VC Template .............................................................. 28 Ablaut/ Vocalic Opposition ................................................................................ 29 Templatic Plurals .............................................................................................. 30 Plurals derived from geminated singulars .................................................. 30 Plurals with truncation and templatic expansion ........................................ 30 Gender in Singular-Plural Mappings ....................................................................... 34 2 AN OVERVIEW OF JEBBĀLI ................................................................................. 38 Genetic Affiliation .................................................................................................... 41 Dialectal Variations ................................................................................................. 42 Situating Jebbāli Plurals .......................................................................................... 42 Previous Studies on Jebbāli and other Modern South Arabian Languages ............ 43 Introductory Scholarship on Jebbāli ................................................................. 45 Scholarship on the Phonetics and Phonology of Jebbāli .................................. 51 Scholarship on the Nominal Morphology of Jebbāli .......................................... 52 Scholarship on the Verbal Morphology of Jebbāli ............................................ 58 Scholarship on the Syntax of Jebbāli ............................................................... 61 Grammatical Sketch of Jebbāli ............................................................................... 61 Sound Inventory ............................................................................................... 62 Consonants ................................................................................................ 62 Vowels ....................................................................................................... 66 Phonological Processes Pertinent to Consonants ............................................ 67 Devoicing and aspiration ............................................................................ 68 Elision ........................................................................................................ 68 Palatalization .............................................................................................. 68 Insertion ..................................................................................................... 69 Fortition and lenition ................................................................................... 69 Substitution ................................................................................................ 70 7 Metathesis.................................................................................................. 70 Supra-Segmental Inventory .............................................................................. 70 Syllabic structure ........................................................................................ 70 Stress ......................................................................................................... 71 Overview of the Nominal Morphology ..................................................................... 72 Plurality in Jebbāli ................................................................................................... 73 Literature Review on Plurality in Jebbāli ........................................................... 76 Concluding Remarks ........................................................................................ 80 Summary of Chapter