Full Description
The papers in the first section of this volume, 'Variation in Arabic', deal with a wide range of topics: the function of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) vs. dialect variation in political speeches, patterns of variation in concord in Cairene dialect, the extent to which Cairenes 'know' MSA, and the scope of emphaticization in different dialects.
In the section on 'Phonological Perspectives' there are papers dealing with emphasis spread and with gemination/degemination/antigemination in Iraqi Arabic.
The papers in the section on syntax, all focused on MSA and within a GB framework, discuss aspects of Arabic that are problematic for current hypotheses in linguistics, and also more traditional issues such as word order and verbal vs. nominal sentences.
The last two papers represent a historical, comparative Semitic perspective: on the function of energic suffixes, and on the reconstruction of the early Arabic sounds represented by siin and šiin.
Contents
1. Foreword; 2. Introduction; 3. I. Variation in Arabic; 4. The use of variation: A study of the political speeches of Gamal Abd al-Nasir (by Holes, Clive); 5. Knowing standard Arabic: testing Egyptians' MSA abilities (by Parkinson, Dilworth B.); 6. Stability and language variation in Arabic: Cairene and Kuwaiti dialects (by Elgibali, Alaa); 7. The meaning of deflected/strict agreement variation in Cairene Arabic (by Belnap, R. Kirk); 8. Emphasis spread in two Arabic dialects (by Younes, Munther A.); 9. II. Phonological perspectives; 10. Arabic pharyngealization and phonological features (by Davis, Stuart); 11. Gemination and antigemination in Iraqi (by Majdi, Basim); 12. III. Syntactic perspectives; 13. Arabic genitives: A problematic structure for the binding theory (by Kaplan, Tamar); 14. The copula in modern standard Arabic (SA) (by Bahloul, Maher); 15. The position of subjects in modern Standard Arabic (by Plunkett, Bernadette); 16. Case-marking and binding of subject clitics in Arabic complement clauses (by LeTourneau, Mark S.); 17. IV. Historical perspectives; 18. On the development of the Energic suffixes (by Testen, David); 19. Early Arabic siin and siin in light of the proto-semitic fricative-lateral hypothesis (by Churchyard, Henry); 20. Index of subjects
