FINITENESS IN JORDANIAN ARABIC: A SEMANTIC AND MORPHOSYNTACTIC APPROACH By Rania Al-Aqarbeh Submitted to the graduate degree program in Linguistics and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Committee: ________________________________ Dr. Clifton L. Pye Chairperson ______________________________ Dr. Arienne Dwyer Member ________________________________ Dr. Utako Minai Member ________________________________ Dr. Robert Fiorentino Member ________________________________ Dr. Naima Boussofara Member ________________________________ Dr. Susan Kemper Member Date Defended: November 17, 2011 The Dissertation Committee for Rania Al-Aqarbeh certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: FINITENESS IN JORDANIAN ARABIC: A SEMANTIC AND MORPHOSYNTACTIC APPROACH Committee: ________________________________ Dr. Clifton L. Pye Chairperson Date Defended: November 17, 2011 ii Abstract Previous research on finiteness has been dominated by the studies in tensed languages, e.g. English. Consequently, finiteness has been identified with tense. The traditional definition influences the morphological, semantic, and syntactic characterization of finiteness which has also been equated with tense and its realization. The present study investigates finiteness in Jordanian Arabic (JA), a spoken variety of Arabic that lacks tense marking and which marks agreement in all contexts. Such a language presents a challenge to the previous research on finiteness. I adopted a multi-level analytical approach in studying finiteness in JA that corresponds to the multi-faceted nature of the finiteness category. I enumerated the morphological, semantic, and syntactic properties commonly correlated with finiteness in the literature. In order to control for the clausal status of finiteness, I explored finiteness in JA in the context of complement clauses, a context that licenses finite as well non-finite clauses. To meet this goal, I adopted Noonan’s (1985/ 2005) typological classification of complement clauses in which he classified clauses in terms of the matrix complement-taking-predicates. I then examined whether JA exhibits a distinction in regards to the traditional morphological, semantic, and syntactic properties of finiteness. I found that predicates in JA can be classified morphologically in terms of realis marking. Complement clauses encode different semantic interpretations which can also be captured by the realis distinction. Specifically, realis marked predicates encode distinctive aspectual interpretations in the real world. Conversely, realis unmarked predicates encode unrealized events. Nonetheless, the complement clauses are not distinguished syntactically in terms of realis marking. An alternative denominator is whether the clause is a Complementizer Phrase (CP) or iii not. Based on the mismatch between the morphological and semantic distinction, on the one hand, and the syntactic distinction, on the other, I argue that the finiteness notion cannot be extended to JA. This conclusion has significant implications for current linguistic research on finiteness. The study suggests that finiteness is a language-specific unification of morphosyntactic features rather than a core property of Universal Grammar. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation owes a debt of gratitude to far more people and institutions than I can mention in my acknowledgments. I would like to start by thanking Professor Clifton Pye, the chairperson of my committee, for advising me throughout my study at The University of Kansas. I would like to thank him for his continuous support, understanding, and patience all along. In fact, I was fortunate to have Professor Pye not only as an advisor, but also as a friend, who has always been there during the ups and downs of the journey with his encouragement and friendship, and at those times when things got tough, he still kept his confidence in me, and for that I am indebted to him forever. He is truly a genius linguist and a gentleman. I would also like to thank my committee members Professor Dwyer, Professor Minai, Professor Fiorentino, Professor Boussofara, and Professor Kemper, who have contributed enormously in the process of writing this dissertation. They constantly provide me with their feedback which helps me improving the methodology, the argumentation, and analysis of the present study. This dissertation would not be possible without my committee headed by the chairperson. To all of them, I extend my sincere appreciation for their generous gift of their time and perception. My warmest appreciation is reserved for my all family members who sacrificed a great deal to offer me the opportunity to pursue higher education. My special thanks go to my parents, Abd Al-RaHman, Rouwaydah, Ra’ed, Rami, Mohammad, Yousef, Zaid, Tariq, Ahmad, my sisters in law, my nephews: Al-Mothaffar, Hashim, Al-Muthanna, Shahim, Hamzah, and my nieces: Tasnim, Raneem, Shaden, Ayeh, Shayima, Juud. Their endless encouragement, emphasis on learning and unconditional love have enabled me to succeed and get my PhD. To all of them, v I say you mean everything to me in life. When I was here alone physically, you were with me psychologically with you warm words and feelings. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mu’tah University in Jordan for funding my study at the doctoral program for four years. I am deeply thankful for all the people in Mu’tah who support me by their advice. Special thanks are due to Professor Husam Mubaidin, Professor Dhafir Alsarayereh, and Mohammad Al-Majali. During my stay at Lawrence, I was fortunate to meet so many friends and colleagues have inspired me along the way. I would like to tell them that all the sweet memories that we have together will be engraved in my heart. I would remember you forever. I would like to mention some for space limitation only: Mahmoud Al-KofaHi, Khitam AlKofaHi, and their sons Mijali and Khalid, Mujday Abu DalbuH, Maram, Atef Al-Saryereh, Mohammad Al-MalaHmih, Hisham Al-Damin, TamaDur, Hiba, Fahimi, Kelley, Steve, Mukhtar, Khadiijah, Bandar, and May. Finally, I would like to conclude my acknowledgment by apologizing for any friend I might have mistakenly skipped his/ her name. My experience was wonderful and rich because of all the people who endlessly supported me. It goes without saying that I am solely responsible for any mistake or shortcoming in this work. vi Table of Contents List of abbreviations……………………………………………………………………ix List of the phonetic symbols………………………………………………………….xiii Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 Background information of Jordanian Arabic………………………….….…….3 1.2 Methodology………………………………………………….…………....…….3 1.2.1 Language informants………………………………….…….…….……….4 1.2.2 Data collection…………………………………………….…………….…4 1.3 Organization of the dissertation……………………………….…………………5 Chapter Two: Previous studies on finiteness 2.1 Traditional notion of finiteness…………………………………………………..11 2.2 Literature review and theoretical accounts of finiteness…………………………15 2.2.1 The morphological approach to finiteness………………………………….15 2.2.2 The syntactic approach to finiteness…………………………………….….19 2.2.2.1 The syntactic theoretical framework: Agree-based and Phase-based Approaches………………………………………………………...37 2.2.3 The semantic approach to finiteness…………….………………………….41 2.3 Previous studies on finiteness in Arabic…………………………………………48 2.4 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………58 Chapter Three: The inflectional classes in Jordanian Arabic 3.1 Inflectional paradigms………………………………………………….……59 3.1.1 Verbal predicates………………………………………………..……..59 3.1.2 Non-verbal predicates…………………………..………………….…..70 3.2 Factors determining agreement patterns…………….…….…………………76 3.2.1 Verbal predicates………………………………………………………76 3.2.2 Non-verbal predicates………………………………………………….81 3.3 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………..84 Chapter Four: Tense and aspect in Jordanian Arabic 4.1 Tense and aspect……………………………………………………….……..87 4.1.1 Tense……………………………………………………….………….88 4.1.1.1 Absolute tense…………………………………………….…..90 4.1.1.2 Relative tense……………………………………….…….…..91 4.1.2 Aspect………………………………………………………..………...93 4.2 Tense and aspect in Arabic varieties………………………………………..102 4.2.1 Verb forms in JA……………………………………………….…….102 4.2.2 A synopsis of the four perspectives…………………………….….…104 vii 4.3 Conclusion………………………………………………………………118 Chapter Five: Realis distinction in Jordanian Arabic 5.1 The CTP types in JA……………………………………………………..121 5.1.1 CTPs selecting complements with realis marked predicates…..….122 5.1.2 CTPs selecting complements with realis unmarked predicates…...127 5.1.3 CTPs selecting complements with realis marked and unmarked Predicates…………………………………………………………...130 5.2 Modality in JA……………………………………………………………138 5.3 Conclusion………………………………………………………………..141 Chapter Six: Aspectual interpretations and realis marking in Jordanian Arabic 6.1 Temporal and aspectual interpretations in discourse texts……………....145 6.1.1 The Perfective……………………………………………………..146 6.1.2 The Imperfective………………………………………………..…147 6.1.3 The interaction of the Perfective and bi-Imperfective………….…149 6.1.4 The implications for the clause structure in JA……………………151 6.2 Temporal and aspectual interpretations of complement clauses in JA…...163 6.2.1 Set 1 complements………………………………………………....163 6.2.2 Set 2 complements…………………………………………………177 6.2.3 Nominalized complements…………………………………………185 6.3 Conclusions……………………………………………………………….188 Chapter Seven: The syntactic properties of complement clauses in Jordanian Arabic 7.1