Arabic and the case against linearity in historical linguistics / Jonathan Owens.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Owens, Jonathan, author.

Series:

Oxford studies in diachronic and historical linguistics ; 52.

Oxford studies in diachronic and historical linguistics ; 52

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arabic language--History.

Arabic language.

Historical linguistics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (513 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2023.

Summary:

This volume explores nearly 2000 years of the history of the Arabic language, from pre-Islamic Arabic via the Classical era of the Arabic grammarians up to the present day. Jonathan Owens advocates a multiple pathways approach to the development of Arabic, which he shows to be alinear in many respects but multilinear in others.

Contents:

Cover

Title

Copyright Page

Contents

Series preface

Preface

List of figures and maps

Abbreviations and symbols

Six principles

1 Introduction

1.1 Fallacies and metonymies, both unwanted and wanted

1.1.1 Linearity

1.1.2 The written over oral fallacy

1.1.3 The part for whole metonymic fallacy

1.1.4 Historical linguistics via non-linguistic criteria: The "cultural entities are linguistic entities fallacy''

1.1.5 The script is language fallacy

1.2 Non-linearity: An empirical comparative alternative

1.3 Data sources and methodology

1.4 Notes and conventions

1.5 Overview of chapters

Part I: Old Arabic

Part II: Reconstruction

Part III: Contact

Part IV: Stability

Part V: Taxonomy

Putting it all together, Chapters 13 and 14

Part I Old Arabic

2 Arabic and Semitic

2.1 Common Semitic

Segmental phonemes

Verb

2.2 Contrastive, but general: The ancestors of Arabic in trees

2.2.1 The classic arguments

2.2.2 Hetzron's alternative

2.3 Bifurcated features in Arabic

2.3.1 -t "007E-k = 1, 2 perfect verb suffix

2.3.2 Short vowels in open syllables

2.3.3 The nominal feminine suffix -at

2.3.4 -ki "007E-iš 2FSG object

2.3.5 Stammbaum and bifurcation

2.4 Arabic: A composite West Semitic language

3 Arabs, Arabic

3.1 Arabs

3.2 *k → c:25ex: Sibawaih the modernist

3.2.1 The 2FSG object pronoun suffix in Sibawaih

3.2.2 The history of the *k &gt

c-.25ex/c split revisited: Sibawaih and historical linguistics

3.3 The early tradition

3.3.1 The traditional linear approach

3.3.2 Ibn al-Nadim: Classical Arabic as construct

4 Three types of pre- and early Islamic sources: The pre-Sibawaihian setting

4.1 Epigraphy

4.1.1 Taymanitic

4.1.2 Safaitic

4.1.3 Limits of Safaitic for historical reconstruction.

the burden of underspecification

4.1.3.1 Underspecification I: Lack of formal indication of short vowels, gemination

4.1.3.2 Underspecification II: Gaps in paradigms

4.1.4 The contradictions of interpreting underspecification

Orthography and reconstruction

4.1.5 Linearity

4.1.5.1 Link to CA

4.1.5.2 Link to Proto-Semitic

4.1.6 Summary, Safaitic

4.1.7 Aramaic loanword š = Arabic s

4.2 Papyri

4.2.1 Basic overview

4.2.1.1 Phonology

4.2.1.2 Morphology and syntax

4.2.2 A case study, raw data, and deviation from CA

4.2.3 From juridical and cultural koine to Classical Arabic?

4.3 Greek orthography, bilinguals, Greek renditions of Arabic names

4.4 Language change and socio-demographic realism

4.5 An interpretive record

Part II Reconstruction

5 Punctuation and language history: I/I + D, inheritance/innovation, and diffusion

5.1 Basic concepts, basic exemplification: The I/I + D paradigm

5.2 When things get complicated: Diffusion, not parallel independent development

5.2.1 A basis for discussion: The intrusive -n

5.2.2 The intrusive -n and Lass' principle

5.3 Geographically non-contiguous features with a postulated common source

5.3.1 Phonology

5.3.1.1 *j = z-.25ex

5.3.1.2 *k → c-.25ex/

5.3.1.3 *aa → ie imala

5.3.1.4 * → q

5.3.1.5 *θ → s

5.3.1.6 Others

5.3.2 Morphology

5.3.2.1 Invariable -ki `2FSG'

5.3.2.2 -ı-.25ex `my', -nı-.25ex `me'

5.3.2.3 -ha/hin/hum "007E-a/-in/um

5.3.2.4 Imperfect verb: 1SG, 1PL, n-, n-…-u

5.3.2.5 taltala morphemic /a/ vs. /i/

5.3.2.6 b-: future or indicative imperfect prefix

5.3.2.7 b-imperfect: Against parallel independent development

5.3.2.8 Deflected agreement: Plural, singular or plural, singular only

5.3.2.9 The linker -n: The incrementation corollary

independent but not parallel development.

5.4 Lexicon

5.4.1 Reflexes in contemporary dialects

5.5 Creole Arabic: Where Arabic stops

5.6 Exogenous discontinuity

5.7 Summary

6 Four issues in Arabic historical linguistics

6.1 Reconstruction and the Semiticist/Arabicist tradition

6.2 Grammaticalization theory and historical linguistics

6.3 Historical linguistics, reconstruction

6.4 The speech community and the scope of change: How does it help?

6.5 A non-deterministic speech community

6.5.1 City as speech community

6.5.2 Neighborhood as speech community

6.5.3 The household as speech community

6.6 Change doesn't need to happen

6.7 Linguistic stages and contemporaneous speech communities

6.7.1 A diachronic trail across speech communities

6.7.2 Motivation for change

6.8 Non-Arabicists beware: The community of diglossia

Part III Contact

7 Arabic in contact I: Aramaic

7.1 The era of equilibrium: Directed dia-planar diffusion: Aramaic-Arabic contact

7.2 A sample of potential of common Aramaic-Arabic isoglosses

7.2.1 Segmental phonology

Uvular fricatives

Affect on syllable structure

Diphthongs

7.2.2 Syllable structure

7.2.3 Morphophonology

7.2.3.1 Stress protection for short vowels in open syllables

7.2.3.2 1SG stress

7.2.4 The active participle

7.2.4.1 The active participle as verbal predicate

7.2.4.2 Person-marked participle

7.2.4.3 Development of finite conjugation based on active participle in Central Asian Arabic

7.2.5 Differential object marking (DOM)

7.2.6 What didn't happen

7.3 Arabs and Aramaeans: The socio-cultural basis of diffusion

7.4 Dia-planar diffusion

8 Morphosyntax as an adapative mechanism I: Idioms

8.1 Idioms

8.2 Idiomaticity

8.2.1 Idioms and online processing

8.2.2 Two alternative approaches

8.2.2.1 A lexical approach.

8.2.2.2 A psycholinguistic alternative

8.2.3 The case for the lexical basis of idiom interpretation

8.2.3.1 The data, what are idioms?

8.2.3.2 Idiomatic usage is the normal state of affairs for many lexemes

8.2.4 Idioms contain normal words, normal morphemes, normal morphosyntax

8.2.4.1 Idioms are normal words I: Compositionality

8.2.4.2 Idioms are normal words II: Intra-clausal functions

8.3 Idioms are normal words but they produce distributed polysemy

8.3.1 Pronominal reference

8.3.2 Distributed polysemy and thematic roles

8.4 How idioms are different from `normal' constructions: Characterizing idioms

8.5 The discourse semantics of idiomaticity

8.5.1 Prominent part

8.6 The origins of LCA idiomaticity

8.7 LCA, Egyptian, southern Tunisian: Three dialects, two idiom areas

8.8 Are idioms universal?

9 Morphosyntax as an adapative mechanism II: The expansive demonstrative

9.1 Basic history and linguistic background

9.1.1 The data, the corpora

9.2 The role of contact

9.2.1 Referring expressions

9.2.2 Three types of categorical variables

9.3 Descriptive introduction

9.3.1 Definite article

9.3.1.1 Lake Chad area Arabic

9.3.1.2 Egyptian Arabic

9.3.2 Demonstrative, LCA

9.3.2.1 LCA, inherited features

9.3.2.2 Innovative functions

9.3.3 Egyptian Arabic

9.4 Quantitative overview

9.4.1 LCA

9.4.2 Egyptian Arabic demonstratives

9.5 The Lake Chad linguistic area

9.5.1 Kanuri -d (with H tone)

9.5.2 Glavda, Wandala

9.5.3 Bagirmi

9.5.4 Fali

9.6 An overview: Realignment of what?

9.7 Discussion

9.7.1 Areality and contact

9.7.2 The citation of parallel distributions of determiners in LCAL

9.7.3 Diffusion, simplification, irregularity

9.8 Corpora and the comparative method

9.9 Morphosyntax as an adaptive mechanism

Part IV Stability.

10 Language stability I: Three case sketches

10.1 Najdi Arabic

10.2 Lake Chad area Arabic (LCA)

10.2.1 How "unarabic'' is LCA? A discussion of oso-9780192867513-bibliography-1-bibItem-385McWhorter 2007

10.2.2 Continuity or innovation

10.3 Damascus Arabic

10.4 Summary

11 Language stability II: Watching paint dry, or, metrics for measuring language stability

11.1 A basic observation

11.2 Stability in historical linguistics

11.2.1 Looking under the hood of transmission

11.3 Why? The basic issue

11.3.1 Verbal predicates

11.3.2 The other predicates

11.4 A multivariate insight into language stability

11.4.1 The data

11.4.2 The parameters

11.4.3 The statistical tests

11.4.4 Conclusions on the basis of the regression results

11.5 Comparative data

11.5.1 Background: Model trees, linguistic and demographic

11.5.2 Overview of main argument

The linguistic issue

Demographic split

Realization of linguistic phenomenon in speech communities

Comparative perspective: Things don't have to be as they are demonstrated to be

11.5.3 Things can be different, I: Universal language typology, some languages are O, others N/O

11.5.4 Things can be different II: For a reason

11.5.4.1 Differential parsing model

11.5.4.2 Modern Hebrew

11.5.4.3 N/O, O split in Arabic

11.5.5 Support from universal factors

11.6 Stability

11.7 Comparative contemporary corpora and historical linguistic interpretation: The limits of adaptation

11.7.1 Overt transmission

Re-arrangement of overt lexemes, lexemic adjacency, no new structure

Exploitation of clause-internal co- and disjoint reference

11.7.2 Inferential transmission

Part V Taxonomy

12 Toward a typology for historical linguistics

12.1 English

12.1.1 Old English

12.1.2 Middle and early modern English

12.2 Icelandic.

12.3 Icelandic, Old English, Arabic.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2023.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on September 13, 2023).

ISBN:

0-19-195957-X

0-19-269317-4

OCLC:

1396988876