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- All Subjects: Arabic
- All Subjects: Standard Arabic
- Creators: Adams, Karen
Description
This sociolinguistic study examines the various functions of Arabic-English code switching in the Egyptian talk show ‘Shabab Beek (literally: Young by You; communicatively: The Young Speak)’. In addition, this study investigates the syntactic categories and types of switches to English. The data consist of approximately four hours and forty-five minutes of YouTube videos of the talk show in which code switching to English occurred. The videos are collected from six episodes of the show that were aired in October 2010. The show featured three categories of speakers, show hosts, guests, and callers. The findings show that most of the switches were produced by show hosts and guests while callers produced very few switches due perhaps to the limited number of phone calls received in the selected episodes. The speakers mostly used nouns when they switched to English. Nouns are followed by adjectives and noun phrases. The most prevalent type of switches in the data is tag switches followed by intrasentential and intersentential switches, which occurred rarely. Finally, analysis revealed eight functions of code switching in the data. These are difficulty retrieving an Arabic expression, quotation, euphemism, reiteration, message qualification, academic or technical terms, association with certain domains, and objectivization.
ContributorsHamouda, Abdelhamid (Author) / Adams, Karen (Thesis advisor) / Prior, Matthew T. (Thesis advisor) / Hussein, Lutfi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
ABSTRACT
This dissertation investigates the copular/locative and existential predications in Arabic. The main focus is on the typology and syntax of the existential predications. The negation of such predications reveals interesting results. The Negative Existential Cycle (Croft, 1991) is a model that describes the process by which verbal negators arise from existential negators. I discuss data of existentials and negative existentials from Standard Arabic, Saudi Arabic dialect, and Gulf Pidgin Arabic.
I argue for canonical vs. non-canonical word orders in copular/locative and existential sentences, respectively. I examine the grammaticalization path of the existentials from their locative content in each language form. Then, I investigate the syntactic word order of the copular/locative and existential constructions in each variety.
I investigate the negation of the existential construction in each variety. First, Standard Arabic is shown to be at stage A in the Negative Existential Cycle. The Hijazi and Najdi Arabic spoken by elders show further developments. Hijazi Arabic appears to be at stage B, while Najdi Arabic appears to be at stage B and an intermediate stage B ~ C. Second, I show that in Saudi Arabic the negative existential has been extended to the verbal domain. Saudi Arabic is at stages A, B, and B ~ C, while Qassimi Arabic is at stages A and B. Third, I show that the existential construction in Gulf Pidgin Arabic is only negated by the negative existential predicate, while the verbal sentences are negated by the negative existential and the verbal negator. Therefore, Gulf Pidgin Arabic is at stages B and C in the Negative Existential Cycle.
Finally, I discuss the syntax of copular/locative and existential predications in each variety. I propose a unified syntactic structure. Existential and possessive predications are analyzed as inverse copular sentences (Moro, 1997) as opposed to the canonical copular/locative sentences. The unified structure accounts for the agreement facts, such as partial vs. full agreement in existential and copular/locative predications, respectively.
The data investigated here will contribute to Arabic comparative and historical linguistics. More Arabic dialects’ data is needed to determine their stages in the Negative Existential Cycle.
This dissertation investigates the copular/locative and existential predications in Arabic. The main focus is on the typology and syntax of the existential predications. The negation of such predications reveals interesting results. The Negative Existential Cycle (Croft, 1991) is a model that describes the process by which verbal negators arise from existential negators. I discuss data of existentials and negative existentials from Standard Arabic, Saudi Arabic dialect, and Gulf Pidgin Arabic.
I argue for canonical vs. non-canonical word orders in copular/locative and existential sentences, respectively. I examine the grammaticalization path of the existentials from their locative content in each language form. Then, I investigate the syntactic word order of the copular/locative and existential constructions in each variety.
I investigate the negation of the existential construction in each variety. First, Standard Arabic is shown to be at stage A in the Negative Existential Cycle. The Hijazi and Najdi Arabic spoken by elders show further developments. Hijazi Arabic appears to be at stage B, while Najdi Arabic appears to be at stage B and an intermediate stage B ~ C. Second, I show that in Saudi Arabic the negative existential has been extended to the verbal domain. Saudi Arabic is at stages A, B, and B ~ C, while Qassimi Arabic is at stages A and B. Third, I show that the existential construction in Gulf Pidgin Arabic is only negated by the negative existential predicate, while the verbal sentences are negated by the negative existential and the verbal negator. Therefore, Gulf Pidgin Arabic is at stages B and C in the Negative Existential Cycle.
Finally, I discuss the syntax of copular/locative and existential predications in each variety. I propose a unified syntactic structure. Existential and possessive predications are analyzed as inverse copular sentences (Moro, 1997) as opposed to the canonical copular/locative sentences. The unified structure accounts for the agreement facts, such as partial vs. full agreement in existential and copular/locative predications, respectively.
The data investigated here will contribute to Arabic comparative and historical linguistics. More Arabic dialects’ data is needed to determine their stages in the Negative Existential Cycle.
ContributorsAlsaeedi, Mekhlid (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Committee member) / Veselinova, Ljuba (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Wh-questions have been widely discussed in different languages such as English, Mandarin Chinese, Italian, and Russian, but little attention has been paid to the structure of wh-questions in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Thus, this dissertation attempts to analyze the structure of wh-questions using the current frameworks: Minimalism and Cartography.
In the late 1990s, Chomsky established the Minimalist Program which aims to describe the clause structure in as simple and economic mechanism as possible, and he advanced his famous research program to include phase theory, which aims to restrict the syntactic operations. On the other side, Rizzi (1997, 2001) proposed the Cartographic approach. In this approach, Rizzi attempted to analyze the left periphery domain in detail, and suggested the split CP hypothesis. Following those two approaches, Ginsburg (2009) and Totsuka (2015) unified them into one approach and suggested that ForceP, TopicP, and IntP are phasal domain while FocusP, FinP, and WhP are not. An overview of the Chomskyan model and Rizzi’s approach has been provided in Chapter 2. Also, this dissertation discussed the unified approach by Ginsburg (2009) and Totsuka (2015).
In addition to the overview of the general frameworks, this dissertation discussed the clause structure such as the word order, left periphery domain (i.e., CP), and resumption in MSA. Furthermore, Chapter 2 presented the earlier studies on the wh-questions in MSA and highlighted the major gap which this dissertation attempts to fill. In these studies the structure of wh-questions in MSA were mis-analyzed because the surface structure of the nine wh-questions might look the same, but, in fact, they are not. Therefore, this dissertation attempts to (re)study the structure of wh-questions with taking into consideration the resumption and [definiteness].
In Chapter 3, the methodology and corpus analysis, which is used in collecting the wh-questions in MSA, are discussed. Finally, Chapter 4 analyzed the corpus findings based on the unified approach by Ginsburg (2009) and Totsuka (2015) and showed some evidence that man ‘who’ and ayy ‘which’ questions in MSA are in phasal phrase (i.e., IntP) while the rest of wh-questions are not.
In the late 1990s, Chomsky established the Minimalist Program which aims to describe the clause structure in as simple and economic mechanism as possible, and he advanced his famous research program to include phase theory, which aims to restrict the syntactic operations. On the other side, Rizzi (1997, 2001) proposed the Cartographic approach. In this approach, Rizzi attempted to analyze the left periphery domain in detail, and suggested the split CP hypothesis. Following those two approaches, Ginsburg (2009) and Totsuka (2015) unified them into one approach and suggested that ForceP, TopicP, and IntP are phasal domain while FocusP, FinP, and WhP are not. An overview of the Chomskyan model and Rizzi’s approach has been provided in Chapter 2. Also, this dissertation discussed the unified approach by Ginsburg (2009) and Totsuka (2015).
In addition to the overview of the general frameworks, this dissertation discussed the clause structure such as the word order, left periphery domain (i.e., CP), and resumption in MSA. Furthermore, Chapter 2 presented the earlier studies on the wh-questions in MSA and highlighted the major gap which this dissertation attempts to fill. In these studies the structure of wh-questions in MSA were mis-analyzed because the surface structure of the nine wh-questions might look the same, but, in fact, they are not. Therefore, this dissertation attempts to (re)study the structure of wh-questions with taking into consideration the resumption and [definiteness].
In Chapter 3, the methodology and corpus analysis, which is used in collecting the wh-questions in MSA, are discussed. Finally, Chapter 4 analyzed the corpus findings based on the unified approach by Ginsburg (2009) and Totsuka (2015) and showed some evidence that man ‘who’ and ayy ‘which’ questions in MSA are in phasal phrase (i.e., IntP) while the rest of wh-questions are not.
ContributorsAlsager, Haroon Nasser (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / James, Mark A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The aim in this sociopragmatic study was to identify the linguistic and nonlinguistic types of responses used by Saudi Facebook users in the comments of congratulations on the events of happy news status updates on Facebook. People usually express their feelings and emotions positively to others when they have happy occasions. However, the ways of expressing congratulation may vary because the expressive speech act “congratulations” is not the only way to express happiness and share others their happy news, especially on the new social media such as Facebook. The ways of expressing congratulation have been investigated widely in face-to-face communication in many languages. However, this has not yet been studied on Facebook, which lacks prosodic strategies and facial expressions that help to convey feelings, despite a few contributions on studying various expressive speech acts such as compliment, condolences, and wishing, among others. Therefore, a total of 1,721 comments of congratulation were collected from 61 different occasions and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by using the frame-based approach to understand the construction of politeness of congratulation on Facebook. The results showed 23 verbal types of responses used by the users; however, the use of “congratulations,” “offer of good wishes,” “praise,” and “statements indicating the situation was warranted” were the most frequently used strategies. The results also showed 100 patterns of verbal compound strategies, but the use of “congratulations” with “offer of good wishes” was the most frequently used compound strategy. In addition, 42 types of emojis were found in the comments and categorized into seven different functions. However, the function of expressing endearment was the most frequently used one. Finally, the results showed that the posts received 31 sharings and 3 types of emoji reactions, such as “like” (Thumbs up), “love” (Beating heart), and “wow” (Surprised face), but the use of “like” was the most frequent emoji reaction to the posts. The explored different ways of expressing congratulation and sharing with others their happy news indicated that the linguistic strategies are not the only way to express happiness on Facebook. Therefore, users employed nonlinguistic strategies to express happiness and intensify their congratulations.
ContributorsMahzari, Mohammad (Author) / Adams, Karen (Thesis advisor) / James, Mark (Committee member) / Prior, Matthew (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This dissertation provides an account of evidentiality of a number of selected verbs of perception in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The verbs are divided into three categories: activity, experiential, and source-based, following Viberg (1983). The data shows that the activity P.Vs in MSA are rarely used evidentially whereas the experiential and the source-based ones are commonly used to indicate evidential meaning. It also shows that while the source-based verb is mostly used with an inferred evidential meaning, the evidentiality encoded by the experiential perception verbs is determined by the complementation pattern and the person of the subject (first or third person subject). With the non-finite complement, these verbs indicate a direct evidentiality when having a first person subject, and a reported evidentiality when having a third person subject. With the finite CP complement, they indicate an indirect evidentiality. This corpus-based study also examines the grammaticalization of these verbs when used evidentially. I argue that only the verb ra’aa of the selected experiential verbs is fully grammaticalized, but only when it is in the past tense and followed by a verbal non-finite complement. In this usage, it becomes a light verb. The source-based verb badaa/yabduu when indicating an evidentiality, it is grammaticalized into copulative verb when followed by an adjectival predicate, and modal verb when followed by a finite complement.
ContributorsHarthi, Jaber (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Gebhardt, Lewis (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This thesis investigates the pronominal system in Standard Arabic. It seeks to unravel the correlation between independent and dependent personal pronouns. Although both pronoun groups are treated as distinct parts of the lexicon, I argue that dependent pronouns are reduced forms derived from the strong counterparts. This study examines how these forms (reduced and non-reduced) relate to one another phonologically and syntactically. Various analytical tools are utilized including vowel harmony, syllable structure as well as some principles of Distributed Morphology and Chomsky's 1995 Minimalist Program. With regard to the phonological relations, I argue that dependent subject pronouns are generated from their parallel strong forms by omitting the initial syllable. Dependent object pronouns are formed by omitting the first two syllables. The first person singular and third person plural masculine subject pronouns are suppletive forms completing the paradigm. They are not derived by reduction from their full counterparts. After investigating the distributional properties of both sets of pronouns, I propose a bipartite subcategorization of reduced pronominals into two subclasses: clitics and affixes. Clitics surface in positions in which strong pronouns cannot occur. As for affixes, they are used to mark verb-argument agreement. In light of these positions, I argue that dependent subject pronouns are always affixes while dependent object pronouns are always clitics. Clitics function as syntactically independent units which combine with hosts at the phonological phase as a result of their prosodic deficiency while affixes associate with hosts when features are valued during a sentence derivation.
ContributorsAlbuhayri, Salem (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Major, Roy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013