Word order in Arabic 9173463280

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ORIENTALIA GOTHOBURGENSIA

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v\ Word Order in Arabic by iFCJAHLGI SVEN-OLOFE>AHLGREN

ACTA UNIVERSITATIS GOTHOBURGENSIS

IV-

ORIENTALIA GOTHOBURGENSIA

12

Word Order in Arabic by SVEN-OLOF DAHLGREN

ACTA UNIVERSITATIS GOTHOBURGENSIS

This is a slightly revised version of a doctoral thesis submitted at Goteborg University in 1996.

©Sven-Olof Dahlgren 1998 Distributors: ACTA UNIVERSITATIS GOTHOBURGENSIS Box 222, SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden

ISSN 0078-656X ISBN 91-7346-328-0

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| Printed in Sweden by (J2£!!£)AB C O Ekblad & Co, Vastervik 1998

Acknowledgements I want to express my deep gratitude to my teacher Jan Retso, who originated the present investigation and has uphold it through helpful comments and hints. Without his kind support this work would not have come about. I highly appreciate and admire his way of combining encyclopedic knowledge in Semitic languages and brilliant thinking with modern linguistics and sound methodology. I thank Ferenc Tafferner, the administrative officer at our department, for giving crucial help with the data material and the layout, and also suggesting improvements in the presentation of the material. I am obliged to Mats Andersson for his helpful and skillful assistance with different computer problems. Thanks are due to Jon van Leuven, who undertook the correction of my English and suggested some improvements of the content. I am grateful to imam Muhamad Yacoubi, my colleague, for comments and answers on different issues in Arabic linguistics. I want to extend my thanks to Tommy Johnsson at the Department of Statistics at the The School of Economics and Commercial Law, Goteborg University, for his great assistance in the field of statistics. I want to thank Erland Gadelii at the Department of General Linguistics at the Goteborg University for having given many helpful comments and suggestions to chapter 1 and 2. I am also much obliged to friends who have helped me with the spoken variety of this heavenly language which takes an eternity to learn; among them are, Subhi Boules, Jacob Gebrael, Hanna Grigis, Nayef Hamoushe, Najib Suleyman Hassan, Fuad Hashisho, Cesar Nohra Jbeile, Magdy Shalaby, and Andre' Zeidan. Last, but not least, I thank my father Justus Erland Amandus, BSrje Egfors, and many other dear relatives and friends who have been a marvellous source of encouragement and inspiration.

Abstract Title: Word Order in Arabic Author: Sven-Olof Dahlgren University of Goteborg, Department of Oriental and African Languages, Arabic Section Classical Arabic is generally considered to be a VSO language, whereas Modern Colloquial Arabic (MCA) is reckoned as of SVO order among most Arabists. Our investigation of some of the eastern dialects; Egypt, the Eastern Mediterranean area, Mesopotamia and the Bedouins, shows that all of them except in Anatolia (where SVO dominates) are to be classified as VSO in narrative discourse. Our material from Lower Egypt pointed to VSO in the Eastern Delta area and SVO for Cairo in this century. The investigation also demonstrates how word order is affected by different factors. As in many other languages, word order may vary in MCA according to a speaker's pragmatic options, which on the sentence level most often concern the thematic structure. Besides the basic VSO, SVO and VOS, other orderings of the three elements appear to be very rare (the material of Early Arabic indicates an even more rigid word order). But there is another principle above the sentential level which dominates narrative discourse: the foreground/background distinction. Foreground is considered a more basic category than background. VS(O) order dominates in foreground and SV(O) in background. Other important factors that affect word order in MCA are type of subject (the sequence of existentials, indefinites, definites and anaphoric pronouns means a rising degree of SV order from left to right) and type of verb (perfective aspect means a higher degree of VS order than imperfective aspect). In Early Arabic no important difference in word order between foreground and background can be detected; that distinction is marked instead by the use of the particle fa for foreground and wa for background. SV(O) order dominates in description and dialogue in MCA, but VS(O) is also a common alternative. Key words: Foreground, background, theme, rheme, (new and old) information, discourse, pragmatic level.

Table of contents CHAPTER 1. The problem 1.1 General linguistics 1.2 Arabic 1.3 Aim

11 11 .11 12

2. Some theoretical considerations

15

2.1 Deduction vs. induction 2.2 Theories and models 2.3 Two major linguistic approaches 2.4 Syntax and universals in the 20lh century 2.5 The nature of linguistic concepts 2.6 Summary 3. The functional sentence perspective

15 16 17 19 21 23 25

3.1 Weil 3.2Mathesius 3.3Firbas 3.4 Danes 3.5Halliday 3.5.1 Information structure 3.5.2 Thematic structure 3.5.3 Ingham on Modern Colloquial Arabic 3.6 Dik 3.7 Moutaouakil on pragmatic functions in Modern Standard Arabic 3.7.1 Focus 3.7.2 Topic 3.7.3 Theme 3.7.4 Tail 3.7.5 MSA word order 3.8 Summary 4. "Being Talked about" vs. Known or Obvious Information in a "Functional Text Perspective" 4.1 Definition of discourse 4.2 Monologue

25 26 28 28 30 30 33 34 35 38 38 41 41 42 42 42 45 45 46

4.3 Dialogue 4.4 Spoken vs. written language 4.5 Plain vs. artistic colloquial language 4.6 "Being talked about" in the "Functional Text Perspective" 4.7 Information in human discourse 4.8 Summary 5. Pragmatic Arrangement of Discourse

48 48 49 50 57 59 61

5.1 Foreground and background 5.2 Tense-aspect-modality (TAM) vs. foreground/background 5.3 TAM and foreground/background in Modern Colloquial Arabic 5.4 Peak 5.5 Summary 6. Markedness in Discourse vs. Basic Word Order

61 64 72 82 83 85

6.1 Definition 85 6.2 Distribution of markedness in discourse 86 6.3 Marked constructions 88 6.4 Summary 93 7. Research on Word Order Typology and Universals in Linguistics 95 7.1 Weil 7.2Greenberg 7.3 The OV/VO parameter 7.3.1 Lehmann 7.3.2 Vennemann 7.4 Hawkins 7.5 Hopper 7.6 Dik and Pullum on basic word order 7.7 Is basic word order universal? 7.8 A new typology? 7.9 On general principles for word order 7.10 Summary

95 96 98 98 99 101 102 102 105 105 106 112

8. Views on Basic Word Order in Colloquial Arabic... 115 8.1 Summary

119

9. The Present Investigation of MCA and Early Arabic: The Methodology 121 9.1 Summary of important concepts 9.2 Investigated areas 9.3 The texts 9.4 Scope 9.5 Initial analytic procedure 9.5.1 The subject 9.5.2 The foreground/background distinction 9.5.3 Deviations 9.6 The notation 9.6.1 Sentential categories 9.6.2 Pragmatic categories 9.6.3 Summary of the system 9.7 Some problems in the investigation 9.7.1 Coordination vs. subordination 9.7.2 Foreground vs. background 9.8 Faults and probabilities 10. Results—Narrative Discourse 10.1 Definite subjects 10.2 Relative distribution of independent subjects 10.3 Indefinite subjects 10.4 The Topicality Hierarchy 10.5 Definite subjects with objects 10.6 Indefinite subjects with objects 10.7 The active participle 10.8 Punctual aspect 10.9 Ingressive aspect 10.10 Comments on the deviations from the explicit general pattern 10.11 Beginning 10.12 Negative declaratives 10.13 Left-dislocation 10.14 A model of narrative discourse in MCA 10.15 Summary

11. Results—Dialogue & Description 11.1 Definite subjects 11.2 Indefinite subjects 11.3 The Topicality Hierarchy

121 122 127 130 130 130 135 139 144 144 151 152 154 154 158 162 167 167 170 171 172 173 177 179 180 182 183 187 187 188 188 189

193 193 195 195

11.4 Definite subjects with objects 11.5 Objects with indefinite subjects 11.6 Negative declaratives 11.7 Summary

12. Results—Early Arabic

196 200 201 205

207

12.1 Affirmatives in Classical Arabic 12.2 Negatives in Early Arabic 12.3 Summary

207 212 216

13. Summary and Conclusions

219

13.1 Findings 13.1.1 Narrative discourse 13.1.2 Dialogue and description 13.2 Further research 13.3 Methodology

219 219 222 223 225

Supplement

227

Tables 5A-25

229

Abbreviations & Transcription

253

Bibliography

255

Index

267

10

CHAPTER 1 The Problem 1.1 General linguistics Ever since Joseph Greenberg's pioneering study in 1961, "Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements", word order in languages as a language type indicator has received substantial interest among linguists.1 One of his three main criteria for doing language typology was the relative order of verb (V), subject (S) and object (O). Through his sample of thirty languages, which he thought represented the main types of the world's languages, he could show that only three of the six possible combinations are common as basic word orders: VSO, SVO and SOV. The other orders, VOS, OVS and OSV, are excessively rare—if they exist at all. Once the basic word orders were determined, Greenberg found that some implicational statements ("if q, then p") could be established. His third universal, for example, said that "languages with dominant VSO orders are always prepositional". Besides language typology, the aim and hope of the continual research in this field has been to find many such statements of universal character, "language universals", to be incorporated into broader theories on language. 1.2 Arabic Basic word order did not constitute a problem to the early Arab grammarians. A verbal clause was simply defined as a clause which opens with a verb; if a noun preceded the verb, it was called a compound nominal clause.2 Classical Arabic and the fairly closely related Modern Standard Arabic have, among Western Arabists, generally been considered a verb-initial language.3 They

'Greenberg, Universals, Preface ii. The report was delivered at the Conference on Language Universals in New York in April 1961 and published 1963. 2 Wright, Grammar I, 255. ^To quote some of the authorities, Wright (Grammar, 255) states that the subject must always follow the predicate or verb in verbal sentences. If the subject stands first in a clause it is reckoned as a compound nominal clause. The latter

11

have an option, however, for SV-ordering, and the alternation between these two possibilities has been commented upon by A. F. L. Beeston (1970) as "the most baffling problem" in connection with word order.4 According to B. Ingham (1994) "the question of whether Arabic is essentially an SVO or a VSO language has interested Arabists since the beginning of the Chomskian era. Classical Arabic is often considered to be VSO while some modern dialects are classed as SVO."5 1.3 A i m This study aims at contributing to both general linguistics and Arabic linguistics. The main objective will be to determine basic word order in the eastern dialects of modern, spoken Arabic.

construction is only used for relating a contrast: zaydun mata wa Tumaru hayya. "Zayd is dead, but Omar is alive." Brockelmann (Grammatik, 117-118) states that when the subject is a noun (and not a pronoun, which is included in the verb) it follows the verb, and if a free object appears it follows the subject (VSO). Even Fischer (Grammatik, 163-164, 169-170) states that the subject noun follows the verb in verbal clauses. He follows the Arab grammarians by treating clauses with preposed subjects like other types of clauses. Fischer labels the latter category as "Kopulativsatz," of which there are several types. Blachere & Gaudefroy-Demombynes state that the subject can either follow or precede the verb, but "L'arabe pr6fere mettre le verbe en tete de phrase sans doute parce que, de tous les termes, il est le plus riche de contenu". When an independent object is present word order is generally VSO or SVO, but VOS is also often met with (Grammaire 392-393). Reckendorf states that the verbal clause generally has predicate-subject order. Inversion may appear "wenn das Subj. lebhaft hervortritt": al-maliku yadfuka "der Konig raft dich" (Syntax, 10). Concerning Modern Standard Arabic, which is beyond the scope of our study, Agius has pointed to the widespread use of VOS order. He did not, however, present a quantitative study of the relative frequencies of different orders (Precedence, 43). Parkinson made for the same type of Arabic a quantitative study where he registered all instances of VSO and SVO. He presented the following interesting results: %SVO

%SVO headlines political speeches editorials short stories 4 5

92 48 39 39

linguistics dissertations magazines scholarly journals, political science news articles

Beeston, Language, 108. Ingham, Najdi Arabic, 38.

12

34 30 27 8(VSO to SVO, 28

Having done that, we will also compare with the earliest, written Arabic to find out in what respects there is a fundamental difference in word order of these two types of Arabic, and hopefully also why they differ—if they differ.

13

CHAPTER 2 Some Theoretical Considerations 2.1 Deduction vs. induction In science there are two main methods which are often considered to be opposites. The deductive method means the use of axioms or postulates without any obvious linking to the surrounding world to reach conclusions by way of logical reasoning.6 The inductive method, on the other hand, includes the observation of surroundings and the drawing of conclusions from particular cases. According to Popkin, practically all our scientific and practical knowledge is based on induction.7 A lot of research is, however, based on some theoretical assumptions of deductive character. From our field we may mention that Greenberg's study on word order was based on two presuppositions that were not logically necessary or observed facts: "(a) all languages have a basic word order; (b) in the syntactic structure of a clause in any language, the categories subject, object and verb are relevant."8 The conclusions based on observations and facts in the inductive method need not, however, be correct. A child, for example, who lives in a community where everyone speaks English, easily reaches the conclusion that everyone in the world speaks English. This shows us that even when the premises are right conclusions may be wrong.9 They may be checked by the use of proper empirical investigations, which eliminate as much as possible the false conclusions. Much of the discussion and writing on word order in Arabic in recent times has been based on the assumption that Arabic has developed from a VSO to an SVO language in its modern spoken variants. That is a typical deductive conclusion based, in turn, on the assumption that the loss of case markings in earlier times precipitated the latter order in order to avoid ambiguity in the syntax. Some inductive observations have contributed to make this an unquestioned fact among Arabists in general.10

'Meserve, Grolier, "Deduction". 7 Popkin, Grolier, "Induction". 8 Comrie, Language, 35. 'Popkin, Grolier, "Induction". 10 Cfr. Chapter 8.

15

Traditional claims on statistical presentations are reliability and validity. They must be reliable in the sense that, under unchanged conditions, they should show the same results (approximately) whenever they are repeated, and that the investigation is carried out in such a way that systematic faults do not occur. For us it means that every text of similar type and origin should show the same result or trend. The statistics also need to be valid, i. e. they measure what we set out to measure. Two factors, e.g. coffee-drinking and bad health, may show a high degree of correlation, but it does not have to be of causal nature. A third factor, e.g. smoking, may be the real cause. One could probably say that the scientific success of the West is based on these three cornerstones in felicitous combinations: deduction, induction and empirical investigations. All three are as necessary as the corners in a triangle:

empiricism

induction

deduction

Diagram 1 Triangle on scientific approaches Many phenomena in language are open to empirical investigations, e.g. within syntax and phonology, since they occur with certain regularities that can be detected through empirical investigations. Semantics is one field that is generally not analysable through empiricism. According to Sampson, who follows such philosophers as K. Popper, W. Quine and L. Wittgenstein, the semantic structure of a language cannot be analysed scientifically.11

2.2 Theories and models According to the American linguist T. Giv6n, in the scientific field there is a complex interaction between data, formal models and explanation. None of them constitutes in itself a theory, but a viable theory must encompass all of them.12

"Sampson, Schools, 156-157. One wonders if it would not be better to say that one has recourse to other non-empiric scientific methods. It seems that Sampson equates science with empiricism, which we believe is to go too far in estimating the value of empiricism. 12 Giv6n, Understanding, 1-3.

16

Givon considers the formal model as an old and useful tool in science. When a formal model is developed one must strive for the greatest correspondence between the model and the data. In doing so, one should be constrained by the twin-edged golden rules of Leibnitz and Occam: I

The formal model should be powerful enough to accommodate all the data (principium rationis sufficentis). II It should not make too powerful claims which are not supported by the data (Occam's razor).13

2.3 Two major linguistic approaches Today there are two main approaches, or paradigms, in the linguistic field that roughly correspond to the distinction deduction/induction. The first one is largely connected with the name of Chomsky and his so called transformational-generative (TG) grammar. In view of the preceding section we could say that it is characterized by a high degree of deduction, a low degree of induction, and still lesser empiricism. To begin with, it relies heavily on aprioristic argumentation based upon principles, which, given the present state of research, is not open to falsification by empirical tests. The generative principles are, for example, thought to be innate in every new-born child; it does not have to learn them, but only has to apply them as it learns the language of its speech-community with astounding facility. Further, there are different levels of syntactic structures. They range from abstract structures to more concrete levels, but it cannot be shown what is innate and "pre-programmed" on these levels, nor the means of interaction between the levels, or whether they are innate as well.14 Besides the innate principles, the chomskyan grammar assumes that there also exists an innate set of parameters, pertaining to case marking and word order. These parameters are few and they have a limited number of options for languages to choose. The choice between them is usually binary. The parameters interact so that "seemingly unrelated" phenomena are explained in a unified way, e.g.: verb movement, postverbal subjects and pro-drop are all consequences of the single "pro-drop" parameter. Cf. also the chomskyan habit of talking about "Chinese-type languages", "Romance-type languages", etc. Since many constraints are furthermore of a universal nature, the number of "possible languages" is considerably reduced. Taken to the extreme, this ap-

13 14

Giv6n, Understanding, 5. Comrie, Language, 1-5.

17

proach says that it is enough to study one language in order to unveil the principles of Universal grammar.15 The second approach is largely associated with the name of J. Greenberg.16 His study on word order, which we referred to earlier, was the starting-point for a new direction in the linguistic field. From then on it became important for a great number of linguists to study as many languages as possible in order to find language universals and do language typology. The research earlier in this century by linguists in Eastern Europe, known as the "Prague School" of linguistics, also belongs to this paradigm to some extent, since statistics was one of the tools in their research. Statistics would reveal how a phenomenon was reflected at the performance level, to be distinguished from the competence level.17 This paradigm is characterized by a low degree of deduction, but a high degree of induction and empiricism. According to Mallinson and Blake the research within this paradigm involves collection of facts on a wide ranging basis and from there the moulding of theories on languages. In doing so, they say, one should avoid two extremes and dangers: to work according to an advanced and intricate model, which, however, guides the interpretation of the data in an excessive way; or just planless listing of various facts. Mallinson and Blake state that freedom from any linkage to a specific theoretical school characterizes most published works in "this field.18 The approaches can be referred to as the "deductive paradigm" of linguistics, and the second as the "inductive paradigm". Other labels have been the "Greenbergian approach" and the "Chomskyan approach", and the "functionaltypological approach" for the former.19 Although seemingly diametrically opposed to each other there also exist several fundamental characteristics that the two approaches share. Both approaches start with the analysis of language structure, although the Greenbergian is connected with explanations in terms of function, whereas the Chomskyan seeks "formal" explanations that harmonize with the autonomy of language hypothesis. The question "What is a possible human language" is also central to both approaches, and assume that there are universal constraints belonging to this matter. As accounted for above the two approaches differ through recoursing either to an inductive or an deductive method to reach a conclusion. Further, both approaches aim at finding abstract patterns; the Greenbergian

15

Erland Gadelii, personal communication. Comrie, Language, 2. "Uhlirova, Role, 208. 18 Mallinson & Blake, Language, 35. 19 Croft, Typology, 2-3. 16

18

approach through studies across languages, the Chomskyan from within languages.20 The two streams of research began to interact in the beginning of the 1970s through exchange of thoughts and papers at congresses, and through the. Cologne project, where contributions from both sides were used in the research on language universals.21

2.4 Syntax and universals in the 20th century The role of syntax, which is the domain including our object of study, and the appropriate method for studying it have varied considerably in different linguistic schools during this century. To Ferdinand de Saussure, whose most well-known contribution to linguistics was his posthumous work Course de linguistique generate (1916), and who was the leading figure of structuralism in linguistics, the construction of sentences - syntax - did not belong to his chief object of study. It belonged to parole, i. e. what individual speakers produced on certain occasions and which consisted of physically observable phenomena. Saussure's main interest, however, was the langue, i. e. the general system of a certain language, which was exemplified by the concrete data of parole, but was not itself an observable physical phenomenon. It existed only in the "collective mind" of the people. Saussure had, according to Sampson, probably more influence in Europe than in America, and as a consequence European linguistics have tended to ignore or de-emphasize syntax and favoured the study of paradigmatic relations, i.e. the relationship between elements that can replace one another in the same "slot" in a linguistic structure; at variance with American linguistics, which concentrated on syntagmatic relations, i.e. the ways in which linguistic units can be combined into longer constructions.22 This distinction between paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations was one important contribution by Saussure to the field of syntax.23 In America a very different type of synchronic linguistics developed in the beginning of this century under the leadership of the anthropologist F. Boas; later on it was more connected with the name of L. Bloomfield. The school Boas initiated is referred to as the Descriptivists by Sampson. They were to a large degree occupied with describing Indian languages on the verge of extinction. One of the characteristics of this school was its complete relativism; t, Typology, 3. Ferguson, Background, 19-21. "Sampson, Schools, 36, 46-49. 2l

^Erland Gadelii, personal communication.

19

they believed that there was no ideal type of language. Human languages were endlessly diverse, they asserted, and features in a language of a primitive tribe that appeared "arbitrary" and irrational to a European were no more so than what other features in European languages would appear to members of the same primitive tribe. And for the Descriptivists the true theory of language was that there did not exist a theory of language, nor any linguistic universals.24 One great merit of the works of Chomsky was that he put the study of syntax on the agenda. He claimed that there are linguistic universals in the domain of syntax and developed his hypothesis of syntactic universals into a theory of considerable richness and depth. He was able to show that an infinite number of sentences could be well-defined by a limited and relatively small number of equations or rules. What was less felicitous in his theory, however, according to Sampson, was his view of the method for gathering data. Although basically a rationalist Chomsky introduced a curious empiristic trait in his theory. He regarded a person's own mind as the highest authoritative source on at least his own "dialect", and thus a legitimate way of data gathering. This view was the complete opposite of Bloomfield's linguistic behaviorism; to refer to such introspection in any decisive way was inconceivable to the Descriptivists. As a consequence of favouring introspection before fieldwork, the Chomskian school has traditionally concentrated on English and a few closely related European languages. This policy considerably reduces the chances of successfully developing a theory of linguistic universals, according to Sampson. But the solution to the problem is fairly simple, Sampson says: linguists should stop writing grammars to generate the strings they feel to be grammatical and instead write their grammars on the basis of what they observe from live speech and/or writing.25 In contrast to the Descriptivists and the Chomskians, the early members of the Prague School did not pay much attention to methodology or underlying philosophical motivations. A leading figure such as Mathesius would probably, according to Sampson, have perceived his work as more akin to that of a historian than of a physicist. Later developments of linguists with their roots in the Prague School have, however, been "fairly clearly scientific in nature".26 Giv6n, who favours the inductive paradigm, has described the previous 50 years in American linguistics as "awash with acrimonious name-calling, sterile arguments, and the rhythmic rise and fall of pseudotheories and trumpedup issues whose relation to the facts of human language is tenuous at best." ^Sampson, Schools, 57-59, 62, 69-70, 131. "Sampson, Schools, 131-134, 150-153. 26C

Sampson, Schools, 112.

20

During those years the foundations of linguistics as a coming empirical science had been undermined. He thinks it likely that the crisis initially was due partly to the impact of the mechanistic views of the physical sciences on Saussure, partly to the impact of behaviorist psychology on Bloomfield. And the "structuralist dogma" that followed had, according to Givon, three major characteristics: I

a priori and arbitrary curtailment of the data base relevant to the investigation II The rise offormalism as 'theory' HI The neglect or devaluation of the notion explanation." The transformational-generative grammar, which was presented for the first time in 1957 by N. Chomsky in his famous "Syntactic Structures", brought at the beginning great expectations in each and every one of the three areas, according to Givon. But he asserts that "the cumulative experience of the past twenty years in linguistics suggests that in all fundamental ways the transformative-generative revolution has remained at the dead center of structuralist methodology".27 Givon further criticizes the transformational-generative grammar for its lack of diachronic perspective. Any synchronic picture of a language has in its landscape a wealth of ancient relics from the phonological, morphological and syntactic fields, which results in many irregularities and complex structures. Having this in mind it is absurd to give an exclusively synchronic description of a language, constantly resorting to complex deep structures - like the description of the English phonological system by Chomsky and Halle (1968).28

2.5 The nature of linguistic concepts There exist not only grammatical universals but also semantic ones. Relevant to our investigation are concepts with hazy borders. That many concepts in language have diffuse borders was evident already to the sophists in ancient Greek. Concerning the concept "baldness" they drew the example of a fictitious man with normal hair. Then pluck hair after hair, said the sophist, and tell when he becomes bald. In the end he would stand there bald and complete-

27

Giv6n, Understanding, 1-3. ^ n , Understanding, 13.

21

ly hairless, without anyone having been able to tell exactly at what moment he became bald.29 A well-known study by Berlin and Kay on colour terms in different languages went along the same lines. It was previously observed that colour perception involves three parameters: hue (correlation with wave length), brightness and saturation. Traditional study of colour terms had failed in accounting for a universal classification of colours in different languages. All one could say was that colour systems were ordered very differently along the three parameters. Instead of looking for boundaries Berlin and Kay looked for foci and were soon able to give a classification in the form of a series of implicational universals, given the following hierarchy with the eleven basic colour terms they had found:

M < |sr]

purple pink orange grey

Diagram 2 Colour universals The rule was formulated as follows: "for distinct colour categories (a, b ), the expression a < b signifies that a is present in every language in which b is present and also in some language in which b is not present".30 Thus, if a language has a word for green, it also has words for white, black, and red; but if it has a word for red one cannot infer from that whether it has a word for blue or not. Even a well-known linguistic term such as "subject" is without clearly defined borders. Linguists have been at a loss to give it a conclusive, comprehensive and unambiguous definition. According to Halliday three main definitions have emerged, and it is only when all these three coincide that one can definitely speak of it as subject: I

That which is the concern of the message. ("Psychological Subject") II That of which something is predicated (i.e. on which rests the truth of the argument). ("Grammatical Subject") HI The doer of the action. ("Logical Subject").

In the duke gave my aunt this teapot, one can say that "the duke" is the subject in all three senses. But in this teapot my aunt was given by the duke, the "Wolff, Origines, 53. ^Berlin & Kay, Color Terms, 2-5. Comrie, Language Universals, 36-38.

22

message (i) is about the teapot, the claim for truth (i) is vested in my aunt, and the duke (ii) is the doer of the action.31 In the present study the reader will meet many concepts with hazy borders, e.g. in chapter three and four theme, rheme, topic, focus, new and old information, and in chapter five foreground, background, and peak. All of these have clear, unambiguous centres, but hazy borders. Because of that the results will be presented as probabilistic tendencies, the meaning of which, hopefully, will be as clear as the centres of the concepts.

2.6 Summary Scientific success is most often to be explained by a fruitful use and combination of three cornerstones: deductive and inductive thinking, and empirical investigations. The latter ones are commonly expected to be reliable and valid in order to be accepted. On the basis of the three cornerstones scientific theories can be developed. A viable theory should contain data, formal model and explanation. In the 1960s the inductive paradigm was emphasized and strengthened considerably through the paper on language universals by Greenberg. That paradigm favoured inductive thinking, empirical investigations and the study of languages on a broad basis. It collided with previous thinking of Chomsky and his followers, who tended to resort to deductive thinking and the study of a very limited range of languages; often English was the object of study. The view of syntax and the methods for studying it have varied considerably during this century. The century started in Europe with the structuralism of Saussure. He put less interest in the study of syntax, and his view influenced subsequent European linguistic thinking to the degree that paradigmatic relations were the chief interest, to the detriment of the study of syntax and syntagmatic relations. In America Boas and Bloomfield were the leading figures of the Descriptivist school. It was characterized by relativistic thinking which emphasized the diversity of languages and the view that there was no ideal language, nor should any language be judged by reference to another. Their approach was a very atheoretical one; no comprehensive theory on language, nor any language universals, could be expected to emerge as a result of their efforts. One

31

Halliday, Introduction, 30-32. The "psychological subject" corresponds to the more common, modern terms "theme" and "topic" (expounded in chapter three and four in the present investigation). Concerning the "grammatical subject" it is commenly considered the element in the sentence that determines the agreement of the verb.

23

great merit of this school was that it took pains to register data as they appeared in live speech and/or writing, without resorting to introspective thinking. The transformational-generative school of Chomsky was based on nearly the opposite presuppositions. Introspection was allowed and favoured, and linguistic universals, were to be found from the study of one or a few languages. He put the study of syntax highest on the agenda, but by the acknowledgement of introspective judgments its status as a scientific discipline was severely hampered, according to the inductivists Givon and Sampson. The Prague School adherents did not pay any great attention to methodology and meta-theoretical questions, but in the course of time a more scientific (empirical) approach emerged. Linguistic concepts are often not clear-cut; they have hazy borders. It is generally easy to define what is central to the concept, but to draw borderlines is a much more tricky business. That these concepts are no less useful was, however, demonstrated brilliantly by Berlin and Kay, when they reduced all the thousands of color combinations in the world's languages to a few basic colours with clear colour centra but fuzzy borders. Concerning basic word order in Arabic no comprehensive empiric investigation has been undertaken yet. Received opinion based on deductive reasoning and some inductive observations states that modern dialects have developed from VSO to SVO. But as long as that is not verified by empiric support we should be sceptical. We consider it to be of urgent importance that a proper investigation is carried out on such a fundamental issue as basic word order in Arabic. As possibly can be deduced from this chapter, we consider the inductive paradigm and framework of such modern linguists as Greenberg, Givon and Hopper as the most promising approach of such an undertaking; especially since there is a dearth of such investigations in Arabic linguistics in this specific area.

24

CHAPTER 3 The Functional Sentence Perspective 3.1 Weil Weil (1844) was the first to propose that the different constituents in a sentence may be ordered along other principles than the usual grammatical or syntactic ones. He observed that there was a difference between the movement of ideas and the syntactic movement. The former is expressed by the order of words, while the latter is expressed by terminations. Each sentence is built up by a point of departure, an initial notion, and a goal of discourse. The point of departure is common to both the speaker and the listener, whereas the goal of discourse contains the new information the speaker wants to impart to the listener. He presents the following examples, which have been told in three different fictitious contexts. Ex. 1 A. Idem Romulus Romam condidit. "This same Romulus built Rome." himself Romulus Rome built B. Hanc urbem condidit Romulus "This town was built by Romulus." this town built Romulus C. Condidit Romam Romulus. The building of Rome was by Romulus." built Rome Romulus Weil points out that in all cases the syntax is the same; the subject is one and the same, "Romulus"; the attribute (in Weil's words) is "founded", and the direct object is "Rome". (He defines the subject as the being from which the action proceeds; hence, the logical subject.) Nevertheless, three different things are stated. And the point of departure is different in each case; in the first it is Romulus, in the second Rome, and in the third the idea of founding. The goal of the discourse, the information that is to be imparted, is also different. The facts, however, are all the same throughout, which is the reason why the syntax is the same. Syntax relates to the exterior, to things, whereas the succession of the words relates to the speaking subject, to the mind. He

25

refers to the latter as the subjective movement, whereas he refers to the syntactic relations as the objective movement.32 The point of departure may be a more general and indefinite notion, as when we begin a story by saying "one day", "somewhere". But sometimes the point of departure is dependent on what is known and unknown, as in He killed himself to extricate himself from an unfortunate predicament. The speaker is here treating of suicide, which accordingly is the thing known. But when he says In order to get out of his embarrassment, he slew himself, the speaker wants to impart how a certain person extricated himself out of his well-known predicament.33 Weil distinguished between the ordinary order, which puts the point of departure first with the goal following, and the pathetic order, which reverses the two elements of the sentence. The former reflects the movement of the human mind itself. The pathetic order is used "when the imagination is vividly impressed, or when the sensibilities of the soul are deeply stirred"; the emotion of the soul causes this order. European languages, like French, German, and English, are often hampered by fixed word order to reflect the pathetic order. He considers Greek the most perfect language of all, since, paradoxically enough, it is unrestricted by any rules in this area, "it allows the mind complete liberty to choose what can best express all the delicate shades of its thought".34

3.2 Mathesius In the last quarter of the last century some German scholars introduced the terms "psychological subject" and "psychological predicate", working on somewhat the same lines as Weil. It was, however, to the merit of V. Mathesius (1882-1945) that the new perspective, which Weil had opened, was studied intensively in Czechoslovakia in the period between the two wars.35 He became the senior founder of the famous Prague School of linguistics, which came into being in the middle of the twenties, when R. Jacobson and other younger linguists joined his efforts. The school presented important contributions to linguistics in the fields of phonology, morphology, semantics and syntax. It emphasized the synchronic study of a language, and the understanding of a language as a system, where the parts are subordinated to the whole. In the field of syntax the direction of the Prague School became known as the Functional Sentence Perspective; the language is a functioning system, with a 32

Weil, Order, 24-30. Weil, Order, 32. 34 Weil, Order, 43-47 . 35 Firbas, Aspects, 11-12. 33

26

specific communicative role. The research that was introduced by these linguists aimed at clarifying the function in the sentence of each element in that role.3* Mathesius showed that the functional sentence perspective (FSP) is important with regard to word order. He used the terms theme and rheme, which were introduced by the German Amman in 1928, and transition, for which he offered two different sets of definitions. In 1939 Mathesius defined the "starting point of the utterance (vychodisko)", i.e the theme, as "that which is known or at least obvious in the given situation and from which the speaker proceeds", whereas "the core of the utterance (jadro)", i. e. the rheme, is "what the speaker states about, or in regard to, the starting point of the utterance." But in 1942 he presents another definition: "The foundation (or the theme) of the utterance (zaklad, tema)" is something "that is being spoken about in the sentence", and the core (jadro) is what the speaker says about this theme.37 "Transition" actually belongs to the rheme, but occurs in its periphery, and serves more as intermediary between the theme and rheme.38 FSP plays a significant role in determining the order of words, according to Mathesius. Word order is controlled by a hierarchy of word order principles. For the Czech system of word order he found that the principle of FSP was the leading one: the theme-transition-rheme sequence renders the word order non-emotive, unmarked ("ordinary"), while the marked, emotive order is manifested through the order rheme-transition-theme. There are, however, other word order principles: the rhythmical principle, the grammatical principle, and the principle of coherence of sentence elements. In Czech they merely play a secondary role, states Mathesius.39 For English he later (1942) came to the conclusion that the grammatical principle was primary in explaining word order, while the FSP was only of secondary importance. The order in English was strictly theme-transition-rheme, which did not give any option for the requirements of the FSP, in terms of word order.40

^Luelsdorff, Introduction, 1-2, Hajicova, Topic/Focus, 245-246. 37

Danes, Sentence Perspective, 106. ^Firbas, Aspects, 13. 39 Firbas, Aspects, 13. The three principles are unfortunately not elaborated on in the account by Firbas. 40

Firbas, Aspects, 17.

27

3.3 Firbas Firbas noted that the two rival conceptions of the theme may not coincide, which becomes obvious from a sentence like: An unknown man has asked him the way to the railway station. Here an unknown man is a theme in the sense of being talked about, although it conveys neither known nor obvious information. In 1966 Firbas introduced the notion communicative dynamism (CD), through which he meant to have escaped the inconsistency of the definitions of the theme. He meant that every sentence element has a certain degree of communicative dynamism. The degree of CD he defines as "the extent to which the element contributes towards the development of the communication". The magnitude of the communicative dynamism of such an element depends on the extent to which it contributes to the development of the communication, to push the communication forward. Elements that convey new, unknown information have higher CD than elements that do not add new information. Concerning the example he stated that a verb will carry a lower degree of CD than the object, but a higher degree than the subject. The reason is that a known or unknown agent appears to be less important—from the communication perspective—than an unknown action and its unknown effect or result.41

3.4 Danes Reflecting over the findings of the research on Functional Sentence Perspective, Danes (1966) concluded that there are different levels of linguistic nature in each sentence, which are important to distinguish when a sentence is analysed: I The level of the grammatical structure of the sentence II The level of the semantic structure of the sentence IE The level of the organization of the utterance.42 The first level is autonomous; it is not dependent on the semantic content. As a consequence grammatical categories such as subject etc. are based only on the syntactic form (e.g. case endings and/or agreement). The most important syntactic relation is that of dependence. It may be rendered by means of morphological devices, such as agreement, government and adjunction, and word order. The fact that this level may be organized so differently among the languages of the world, whereas the semantic structure seems to be nearly universal, supports the view that these two levels are autonomous, although 41

Firbas, Aspects, 18-20. Firbas, Defining, 270. Danes, Approach, 225.

42

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related by a "close or distant affinity". On the second level the sentence structure is based on relations derived from nature and society; they are sometimes called "logical" relations. To this category belong such concepts as actor and action; the bearer of a quality or of a state and the state itself; action and an object resulting from the action or touched by it; causal and final relations. We may turn to Comrie to get an elucidation of the concepts on this level. He uses the term semantic roles. They include such conceptions as agent, patient and recipient. They specify the roles which the referents of the nominal phrases play within the proposition. In, for example, the sentences John opened the door with the key, the key opened the door, the door opened the subjects "John", "the key", "the door" have different semantic roles: agent, instrument and patient respectively.43 Concerning the third level, Danes lets Firbas explain it briefly: "(the third level) makes it possible to understand how the semantic and the grammatical structures function in the very act of communication, i. e. at the very moment they are called upon to convey some extra-linguistic reality reflected by thought and are to appear in an adequate kind of perspective."44 To this level belong all extra-grammatical means for communication, such as rhythm, intonation, (marked) order(s) of words and of clauses, lexical devices, etc. Some of them operate on the grammatical level as well. An utterance on this level 43

Comrie, Language Universals, 58. Most of the world's languages have their syntax based mainly on grammatical relations (nominative-accusative languages); but there are many languages with case marking based on semantic roles in large areas of their syntax (ergative languages). Some have ergativity, for instance, in past tenses, while a nominative-accusative system is reserved for present tenses. In an ergative language the intransitive subject and the patient (which usually corresponds to the object) get the same coding: absolutive, the agent another one: ergative. An example from Kermanji (northern Kurdish) shows us how ergativity works in that language. It is nominative-accusative in present tenses, but ergative in past tenses. accusative or oblique nominative case: (absolutive) (ergative) Personal pronouns Ei Min 1 pers. sing. Te 2 pers. sing. Tu Present tense: Ez te dibinim. I see you. ("Present") Tu min dibint. You see me. Past tense: Min tu diti. I saw you. ( Verb agreement with the object.) ("Preterit") Te ez ditim. You saw me. but intransitive: Ez hatim. I came. ( From Khan & Lescot, Grammaire, 107, 176-177.) ""Danes, Approach, 227.

29

reflects "the functional perspective", which Danes refers to as the principle that the elements of an utterance "follow each other according to the amount (degree) of communicative dynamism they convey, starting with the lowest and gradually passing on to the highest" (quoting Firbas). The utterance can be divided into two parts: the theme conveys known (given) elements, and the rheme (or comment) conveys the unknown (not given) elements. The functional perspective operates with different devices in different languages; in Slavonic languages, for example, it is mainly through word order and intonation.45 3.5 Halliday Halliday (1967) built upon the work by the members of the Prague School. He used the term "theme" as a cover term for phenomena related especially to the third level of Danes, but also for "what is being spoken about".46 He made a distinction between information structure and thematic structure, which corresponded to the rival definitions of theme and rheme in the work of Mathesius. The former concerns the division of a discourse into information units, where each unit has an optional segment of old or "given" information and an obligatory unit of new information; with the latter he refers to the division of a clause into theme and rheme in the sense of "being talked about" and "what the speaker says about the theme". 3.5.1 Information structure Halliday wrote about information structure in English, but the principles certainly are valid for languages in general. We will relate his findings at some length since it is a crucial concept in the study of narrative discourse. The given/new structure is not itself realized by the sequence of elements, and the focus of information may fall everywhere within the information unit. It is realized phonologically by "tonality", which means the distribution of the text into tone groups. One information unit corresponds to one tone group. Usually one tone group is equivalent to one clause as in Ex. 2 //John saw the play yesterday//. But other organizations of the information structure are also met with; the clauses may be part of one information unit, have two or three information

45

Danes, Approach, 228. ^Halliday, Notes, 199-215.

30

units, or have one information unit and be part of another. These combinations are shown below; they are all possible variants of the written clause John saw the play yesterday. Other variants are also possible. Ex. 3 //John//saw the play yesterday.// //John//saw the play//yesterday.// //John saw the play yesterday but said nothing about it.// //John//saw the play yesterday and is seeing it again today.// The average number of information units lies between 1 and 2 per clause. The information units represents the speaker's "blocking out of the message into quanta of information, or message blocks." The information focus indicates what new information is being contributed. It is a distinct option within the information unit; the speaker assigns the information focus through a certain pitch of the tone. Thus for example (using bold type to indicate information focus) Ex. 4 A. // Mary// always goes to town on Saturdays//, contrasts with B. // Mary// always goes to town on Saturdays// Each information unit has one primary point of information focus, or one primary followed by one secondary. The choice is reflected in the phonological structure, by the marking of the tonic (tonic nucleus) in the tone group. The tone group consists of one obligatory component, the "tonic segment", and one optional, the "pretonic segment". Each segment has a specific set of tones typical for the segment in question. The tonic segment is either simple or compound. In the former case it has one tonic component; in the latter, two. Thus in Ex. 5 //John//saw the / play / yesterday//47 there are two information units. The first has only one element: the tonic segment with focus John. The second has three components, a compound segment with primary focus on "play" and secondary on "yesterday", and pre

47

Two slashes indicate, as before, one tone group boundary; one slash indicates a foot boundary and bold type the tonic syllable.

31

tonic "saw the". An information unit can have only one or two points of information focus; either one primary focus, or one primary focus and one secondary focus.48 Information focus reflects the speaker's decision as to where the main point of the message lies. It is "new" information; not in the sense that it cannot have been previously mentioned, but in the sense that the speaker presents it as not being recoverable from the preceding discourse. Halliday uses the term given to label what is not "new" and points out that the system of information focus assigns to the information unit a structure in terms of the two functions "given" and "new". The functions "given" and "new" are not the same as those of "theme" and "rheme". But there is a relationship between them; the focus of information will usually fall within the rheme, though not necessarily extending over the whole of it. As already noted, the given/new structure is not itself realized by the sequence of elements, and the focus of information may fall everywhere within the information unit. So although there is a general tendency for given to precede new information, it is not obligatory, as is evident from the following example: Ex. 6 // all the/ G C E / papers have to be / marked out of / two / hundred. The accented item always falls within the domain of focus, which Halliday defines as "the highest rank constituent within which the syllable that is tonic is the last accented syllable". The following is an illustration of this somewhat abstruse definition: Ex. 7 //I'm/

looking for the / caretaker who / looks after / this /block.//

^Prosody is, however, according to Bolinger (1992), not linked to the information structure per se, but to affect. But since a highly informative element is "an exciting event in the speech stream" there is a high likelihood that the pitch will be high on that element. This type of accent Bolinger calls accent of interest. Another type of prominent intonation is the accent of power, which is characterized by a high pitch on old information, stemming from the speaker's affect. An example best describes best this type of accent: A. Aren't you going to try to stop him? B. What's the use? TIME and again I've told him to be careful. He pays no attention. (Bolinger, Role, 267, 269-271)

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The domain of the focus here is the whole of the clause constituent the caretaker who looks after this block, but only the final accented syllable is within the tonic segment. The information focus assigns the function "new" to what is within its domain. What lies outside that domain can be said to have the function "given". What will be assigned as new depends on the discourse context, which is often evident from implied questions. Thus Ex. 8 A. //John painted the shed yesterday// implies a question such as "Who painted the shed yesterday?" (or "Did Mary paint the shed yesterday?"), whereas B. //John painted the shed yesterday// implies "What did John do to the shed yesterday?" or "Did John mend?", and C. //John painted the shed yesterday// implies "When did John paint the shed?" or "Did John paint the shed this morning?", but D. But //John painted the shed yesterday// does not necessarily imply "What did John paint yesterday?" or "Did John paint the wall..?". It ("D") may simply answer "what happened?", since its location of the tonic on the final accented item can be regarded as ordinary, and accordingly does not necessarily imply contrastivity as in the other three examples. Whether the meaning is contrastive or general is indicated by different tones.49 3.5.2 Thematic structure Under "thematization" Halliday treats the other comprehension of the theme/ rheme structure, i.e. the theme is "what is being spoken about in the sentence" and the rheme "what the speaker says about this theme". Its domain is that of the clause; each clause is divided into a theme and a rheme. In the unmarked, basic, case (i.e. if the information structure is unmarked) there is an association of the theme with the given, but the two are nevertheless independent options. In English the theme is generally what comes first in the clause. Everything that follows is the rheme. The speaker has, within certain limits, the option of selecting any element in the clause as thematic. Thus in John saw the play yesterday, yesterday John saw the play and the play John saw yes49

Halliday, Notes, 199-211.

33

terday (as a complete clause) the themes are, respectively, John, yesterday and the play. Even in this area there is a difference between marked and unmarked constructions. In the declarative clauses (which are our sole interest in terms of sentence types; we will leave question clauses and imperative clauses aside in this investigation, since they are not basic sentence types) the subject is the unmarked theme.50 3.5.3 Ingham on Modern Colloquial Arabic From his studies of the dialect of Kawawila, an Arabic-speaking gypsy community in Ahwaz in Khuzistan in Iran, Ingham (1991) divided Arabic sentences into two main types: Uninodal and Binodal.51 The classification was made from the viewpoint of given/new information. A Uninodal type is characterized by the new information coming first in the sentence followed by optional given information, whereas in the Binodal type the given information must precede the new information. A Uninodal type, then, may consist only of new information as in the following example: Ex. 9 (ykun) iddinya *gem.$1 "The weather was misty." A sentence like this would appear as a response to a question like "Why didn't you come?". As a Uninodal sentence with the given information following the new information, Ingham gives the following example: Ex. 10 taggat *cela tind if°tayfa "There was an explosion (of excitement) in the tribe." i{tayfa has been mentioned in the preceding and is, hence, given information. The new information may also be a nominal phrase, a prepositional phrase or a particle, which has been brought to the beginning of the sentence. These are all characterized by heavy stress and prominent intonation, and they function either to give contrastive meaning or to render amplification of a particular unit with the sentence, as in the following examples.53 50

Halliday, Notes, 211-213. Ingham, Sentence Structure, 714-724. S2 The "*"-sign marks "low fall", "#" marks "the high head", "A" marks "high fall" and "°" marks "tail". These terms are explained in Intonation of Colloquial English by O'Connor and Arnold, p. 7-25. (.Sentence Structure, 716) s3 Ingham, Sentence Structure, 715-721. 51

3,4

Ex. 11

,

A. si*blb y°gillah. "It was Shabib who said this to him." B. *hada agdar. "This, I can do."

t

,

• > ' • • •

With the Binodal type some element is moved to the beginning of the sentence, and referred to later in the sentence by a resumptive pronoun. The element in question, the topic, may consist of a noun phrase, a pronoun, the second part of a genitive construct, or a prepositional phrase. When the topic is the subject of the verb, the resumptive pronoun is included in the verb, as in the following example with the resumptive pronoun indicated in square brackets. Ex. 12 bird h#lal rhal[at] *sab? isnln.54 "The Bani Hilal [they] wandered for seven years." In the next two examples the topic is the object of the verb and second part of a genitive construct. Ex. 13 A. iWhilim, a?ad[ah] *?ala uJ "The dream, he related [it] to his brother." B. #tubba? ?ajld[hum] si*blb "Tubba?, [their] leader (was) Shabib." The latter construction is, according to Ingham, common in the first sentence of a narrative, because of the preference for starting the tale with a character.55 3.6 Dik Dik developed a model (1968-78) for presenting a comprehensive grammar with the Functional Sentence Perspective incorporated.56 He operated with four different pragmatic functions; two were considered to be outside a predication. The latter were:

54

Ingham uses square brackets to mark referential pronouns (Sentence Structure, 723). 5S Ingham, Sentence Structure, 722-724. 5" is here used in another (opposite!) meaning than in the preceding hierarchies. 94 Giv6n, Syntax II, 899. 95 Van Dijk, Studies, 177-193. 93

51

Ex. 43 The one who went to Prague is Eva. where "Eva" is a comment to the preceding phrase, which is the topic. Sometimes, however, two or more elements in a sentence may refer to the previous discourse, as in the following sentence: Ex. 44 She didn't want to miss it. Both "she" and "it" refer to previous expressions and, hence, are possible topics. The solution here would be to follow a sequence of sentences in the precedeing discourse; then we would know which one of the two (or possibly both) should be regarded as the topic. Van Dijk presents the following example text: Ex. 45 Eva awoke at five o'clock that morning. Today she had to start with her new job in Prague. She hurriedly took a shower and had some breakfast. The train would leave at 6:15 and she did not want to come late the first day. She was too nervous to read the newspaper in the train. Just before eight the train finally arrived in Prague. The office where she had found the job was only five minutes' walk from the station

This sequence obviously has one main theme, something like "Eva went to Prague". It may be dressed in different words, but the propositional content must be similar to the suggested phrase. To say that it is about "Eva", "Prague", or "the train", will not do in this context, according to van Dijk. He labels this type of topic as discourse topic or text topic ; it is to be distinguished from the previous topic in the discussion, which he calls sentence topic. As we saw, discourse topic appears as a proposition, at variance with sentence topic, which can be elements like "Eva" or "Prague". A discourse topic indicates how information in a text is organized on an overall basis, or "globally organized" in van Dijk's words, whereas sentence topic tells how it is structured on the sentence level. The notion of discourse topic gives us, besides the general rule, one other possibility to determine what is the topic. So in Ex. 45 with two coreferential expressions "Eva" would be the discourse topic rather than "the

52

train".96 Brown & Yule, however, point out that no formal means are given by van Dijk for identifying the discourse topic. Van Dijk, they say, does just what schoolchildren are frequently asked to do by their English teacher, namely to give a sentence summary for a certain text. And that is an exercise which is easier for some passages than others. So what is put forward is not the topic of a discourse, but a possible topic among several possible topics in the discourse under consideration.97 Dik also uses the notion "Discourse Topic" (D-topic) in the later version of his "Functional Grammar".98 To him it is a concept with hierarchic character; different discourse topics can be determined for different levels of a discourse, such as book, chapter, section, paragraph and clause. Taking his book as an example, he says it is "about" Functional Grammar, the present chapter being "about" pragmatic functions. Normally several, or many, D topics will be introduced gradually in a discourse; some will be short-lived, others more pervasive and alive all through the discourse. It is evident that, above clause level, the notion "D-topic" corresponds to that of van Dijk's, and is therefore affected by the same weakness as was pointed out by Brown & Yule. There is obviously a confusion between the notion of topic as the (usually) nominal entity about which something is being said in a sentence, and another use of "topic", namely "what is the subject of a discussion", which corresponds more to a proposition than a nominal entity. It appears preferable to use the term "D-topic" only for recurrent topics in a discourse, topics that generally also are the main participants and important in the discourse. A topic has to be introduced at a certain point in a discourse. It is then called a new topic by Dik. There are different constructions for entering new topics into a discourse. Sometimes it is done very explicitly in a metalinguistic manner: Ex. 47 I'm going to tell you a story about an elephant called Jumbo. Another way is to present the new topic by way of an object in a sentence: Ex. 48 In the circus we saw an elephant called Jumbo.

"Van Dijk, Studies, 178-191. "Brown & Yule, Analysis, 110. 98 Dik, Theory, 267.

53

If introduced as a subject it, is often presented by a so-called existential construction: Ex. 49

Once upon a time there was an elephant called Jumbo. In the preceding examples the new topic has been indefinite. Sometimes, however, the new topic is known from before by the listener, although not mentioned before in the actual discourse. A definite term may then be used by the introduction of the new topic: Ex. 50 Yesterday in the pub I met your sister Mary. New topics are both focal and topical. They are topical since they introduce a topical entity, and focal since it is a new entity that is brought forward. These are special cases, where an overlap of the two usually mutually exclusive dimensions topicality and focality takes place, as is indicated below. Topicality Focality Diagram 5 Topicality-focality relations The new topics have a strong tendency to be placed late or in the last position in a sentence: Ex. 51 A.The man [was ] in the house. B. In the house [was ] a man. Once a new topic is introduced it is called given topic. A given topic may also constitute a source for other new topics. These are topics that are easily derived from the given topic. In the sentence John gave a party last week, but the music was awful, the newly introduced D-topic "party" permits the topic "music" to be introduced "as i f it were a given topic. Such topics are referred to as sub-topics by Dik. Finally, a resumed topic is a given topic that has been absent for a while in the discourse, but then "revived" again in the discourse."

"Dik, Theory, 266-269.

54

•••••i!

Arguing along similar lines, Givon asserts that the notion of topic at clause level is quite a meaningless concept.100 Thematic coherence means continuity among the subelements of coherence, of which the referents/topics are most important. So the topic is "talked about" only if it remains "talked about" during a multi-clause chain. The topic, then, should display both of the following aspects. _L Referential accessibility: in terms of the preceding ('anaphoric') discourse context. 2± Thematic importance: in terms of the subsequent ('cataphoric') discourse context.101 Concerning the thematic importance, we need to distinguish between indefinite and definite referents, which will be accounted for in the following.

Indefinite referents In cognitive and information-processing terms, the grammatical marker "INDEF" indicates that no search is needed—either in the episodic memory of the current text, or in a situation-based file, or in a generic-based file. In most languages, the indefinite reference marker also signals whether an indefinite referent is thematically important or not. In colloquial American English it is coded with 'a' and 'this': a) Unimportant indefinite: ... He passes a bum, then two prostitutes, and some highschool kids ... b) Important indefinite: ...So next he passed this bum and boy, the guy was real ragged, [0] was not even begging, just [0] sitting there102 In the Eastern Mediterranean Arabic dialect area, hada "this" is often used as a device for marking important participants. This concerns both definite and indefinite referents, as will be evident from the following example from Hama: Ex. 52 ?al kan hada wahed bestani. Man sagt, es war einmal ein Gartner.103

100

A whole volume, Topic Continuity in Discourse, edited by T. Giv6n, was devoted to this subject. The Introduction by Giv6n (pp. 5-35) gives the theoretical foundation. 101 Giv6n, Syntax II, 740. 102 Giv6n, Syntax II, 921. 103 Lewin, Texte, 110-111. Table 5 B in the end of the book gives statistical support for this observation.

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Statistically there is a strong association in spoken American English discourse between the use of the indefinite 'this' and the topic persistence of the referent. The 'this'-subject had 6.95 TP (which refers to the number of times a referent occurs in the 10 subsequent clauses), but the 'a'-subject only 2.40. This shows that referents who are coded as important will continue to be "talked about". In cognitive terms, as in terms of mental processing instructions, the grammatical signal DvIPORTANT-INDEF instructs the hearer to open and activate a file for the referent. This new file will start to store new information about the new referent, until another file is activated or a new one is opened again for another referent—since only one file at a time can be activated. An UNIMPORTANT-INDEF, on the other hand, means that the current active file remains active and that the new referent is stored in it as just new information.104

Definite referents Definite full NPs are more likely to code important referents than unimportant ones. Some languages use specific morphology to code even important definites. In American English, for instance, 'that' seems to code important definites. 'That' and 'the' would then parallel the 'this' and 'a' coding for indefinites. Many languages also use word order as the main device to code definite (and indefinite) important referents. The more important referents are then fronted.105 This is evident in many languages, where the more topical direct object precedes the indirect object. Even in this case an UNIMPORTANT referent would mean, in mental processing instruction terms, continuation of the current active file, while an IMPORTANT one would call for the opening of another already existing file. That file will be retrieved from one of the (already mentioned above) following three sources: the situational ('deictic') source, the generic ('cultural') permanent memory, and the textual ('discourse') episodic memory. Once retrieved, the file will be re-activated for filing incoming information.106 It is not perfectly clear whether Givon means that "topic" concerns only the main participants of a discourse. If so, one will lose the connection between topic and given information. His analysis of topics as main participants seems nevertheless important. We saw from English and Arabic that they are real discourse phenomena. A distinction between "main topics", i.e. topics 104

Giv6n, Syntax II, 921-922. I myself got that impression from the texts on Modern Colloquial Arabic; e.g. words like ?allah, al-fjallfah, al-wazlr seem to generate SV-syntax more than other, less important topics. 106 Giv6n, Syntax II, 923-924. 105

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that are main participants, and other topics that may be picked from the given information, should relieve the tension. (As pointed out above in this section the term "discourse topic" can be used for such topics as the "main topics".)

4.7 Information in human discourse Human discourse is mainly informative.107 The basic unit in information processing in human language is the proposition. A proposition is a thought about a state or event, and usually appears in the discourse as a sentence or clause. Sometimes it comes to the surface as one single word, but then it represents more than a word. This is illustrated by the following example: Ex. 53 Question: Who did it? Answer: The butler. So we see that a proposition is bigger than a single word. Separate words usually carry meaning but no information.108

The concept of old and new information The concept of old and new information is important since it is closely connected with the Functional Sentence Perspective and the pragmatic roles of topic and focus. Chafe suggests that old (or given) information does not concern all that the listener knows, but only what can be considered old in the speech situation. Old information then refers to topics that have been "activated" through the ongoing discourse. So in the sentence / saw your father yesterday , "your father" is new information, since it is introduced for the first time in the actual discourse.109 Sanford & Garrod (1981) widen the scope for old information through their notion of scenario. Through the establishment of a scenario, for example a courtroom, several new participants can be introduced through a definite NP-phrase, because they have been "given" through the scenario. Hence, through mentioning a courtroom you would then be able to speak about "the lawyer", without a previous presentation of him.110 Prince (1981) goes a step further and provides a taxonomy for information. She talks about new, inferable and evoked information. New information is of two types. Brand new entities are completely unknown before to I07

Giv6n, Syntax I, 246. Giv6n, Syntax I, 239. 109 Chafe, Givenness, 30. 110 Sanford & Garrod, Understanding, 110-113. 108

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the listener, while unused (new) entities are known before but are not in the consciousness of the listener at the time of speaking (like "your father" in the preceding example). The second class, inferable information, is used about topics being inferred from the discourse. For instance, mentioning a car makes it natural to speak even of the driver. In the third class there are two types as well. In situational evoked entities, topics are inferred from the speech situation without having been mentioned before: "you" and "me" for instance. There are also textual evoked entities, which correspond to Chafe's "given" entities. These can be either current or displaced. Current textual evoked entities are introduced as "new" immediately before actual use, while displaced entities appear again after a time of absence.111 Givon (1990) asserts that there are three main contextual sources for the topics, i.e. the old information in the data base from which topics can be chosen: a) the deictically shared context, or speech situation; b) the generically shared context, or cultural knowledge; c) the textually shared context, or preceding discourse. Pronouns such as T and 'you' are examples of topics derived from the deictically shared context, while the generically shared context is the world view among the members of the same culture. Hence, it would be possible to speak about 'the sun' and 'the president' in our culture the first time they appear in the discourse: A) The sun came out all of a sudden. B) The president fired his chief of staff.112

Distribution at sentence level Studies have shown that a majority of sentences/clauses in connected discourse only have one chunk of new information. This chunk may be nominal, predicate (verb, adjective) or adverbial word/phrase. The other elements in the clause tend to be topical, background or presupposed old information.113 Since the nouns are the most temporally stable and perceptually salient entities, they are most commonly used as what can be described as the file-labels of old information to ground the new information. Human discourse seems to be, basically, about such nominal entities or topics. They tend to surface as

ln

Prince, Taxonomy, 235-236. Giv6n, Syntax II, 903-904. 113 Giv6n, Syntax I, 258. 1I2

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the grammatical subjects and objects of clauses.114 This means that for intransitive clauses the new information, i.e. the focus, tends to be invested in the verb. In transitive clauses either the object or the verb is usually new information115

4.8 Summary In the 1970s the study of discourse and its overall structure became an important field in linguistics. By that time it was obvious to many linguists that the analyses of isolated sentences were not relevant. Each sentence has to be understood from a given context, from which it derives its meaning. Discourse analysis can be divided into dialogue and monologue. The latter was divided into eight subtypes by Longacre through three different parameters, of which the most important are contingent succession and agent orientation. A dialogue has three pairs of basic utterances: question-answer, proposal-response and remark-evaluation. A speaker may use paralinguistic expressions, such as "voice quality" effects, facial expressions, postural and gestural adaptations; these are generally denied to a writer. A writer has an advantage compared to a speaker in terms of access to time while producing a message unit. Spoken language exhibits less complicated sentences, less subordination and more active verb forms in comparison with written language. Spoken language may be divided into plain and artistic colloquial. This is an important distinction, according to Labov & Waletzky, who emphasized the study of the former type in order to uncover the basic structures of language. Several hierarchic relations of topicality were presented. They show that a topic tends to be human, definite, a more involved participant, a speaker and a subject. Concerning the topicality of the subject, another hierarchy suggested that the degree of topicality increases in the following order: existential, indefinite, definite and anaphoric pronoun. The confused treatment of the topic was demonstrated by the notion "discourse topic", where we suggested that this term should be reserved for recurrent, important or main topics in a discourse. Besides "discourse topic" Dik also used the notions of new, given, resumed and sub-topics. Using data-metaphor language, Givon demonstrates how important and un-important definites and indefinites are handled in language. In English, for example, an unimportant indefinite referent is coded by the indefinite article a, whereas an important indefinite receives the dem. pr. this, which also signals 114

Giv6n, Syntax II, 899. Giv6n, Syntax I, 259.

115

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the opening of a new file in which one is to store the new information about the new important referent. For definites, "that" and "the" parallel the "this" and "a" coding for indefinites. In the last twenty years the notions of new and old information have been dealt with fairly extensively. Sanford & Garrod introduced the notion of scenario, which demonstrated that new topics can be introduced as definites through other topics that have established a scenario. Prince distinguishes between new, inferable and evoked information. Givon gave three main contextual sources for the topics: the speech situation, cultural knowledge and the preceding discourse. A majority of the sentences/clauses in discourse have only one chunk of new information. This chunk may be nominal, verbal, adjectival or adverbial, whereas the old information tends to be nouns. These nouns are most commonly used as "file-labels" of old information to ground the new information. In that function they are also topics, which appear firstly as subjects, secondly as objects in a sentence/clause.

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CHAPTER 5 Pragmatic Arrangement of Discourse 5.1 Foreground and background Labov and Waletzky (1967), from their studies on plain English colloquial, distinguished between narrative clauses and free clauses. The former maintain strict temporal sequence in a narrative, whereas the free clause is unbounded by the narrative sequence.116 A similar view appears in the subsequent, more elaborated foreground/-background distinction presented by Hopper. Hopper (1979) asserts that there is a universal tendency in narrative discourse to make a distinction between the main story line in a narrative and what may be described as supportive material, with its sidetrips and amplifying information.117 The main story line is characterized by events that come in sequence, one after the other, to give the skeleton of the narrative. This is designated foreground. The supportive material is not in sequence with the main story line; it may be concurrent or located at any other point of the time axis. The supportive material is referred to as background. Hopper presents a good example from Swahili, which is also a good example of the foreground/background distinction in general. We present the paragraph in a chart, where the vertical arrows relate the chronological, sequential order, i.e. what happens after the preceding event, whereas horizontal arrows convey what happens out of sequence: it may be concurrent, have happened earlier or be out of sequence in the future.

J^Labov & Waletzky, Analysis, 22. 117 Hopper, Aspect, 213.

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Foreground, ka- verbs

Background, ki- verbs

We went back to the camp

i and ran away during the night

i we journeyed several days

—»we passed through a few villages ->and in all of them there was no tri bute to pay

Diagram 6 Foreground-background in Swahili We notice that the phrases in the right column are expansions of the phrase we journeyed several days. In English the sentences could be rendered with a nonfinite verb form: Ex. 54 We journeyed for several days, passing through a few villages."8 Hopper shows that languages realize the foreground/background distinction in different ways. It may be through morphology, as in Swahili, with the distinction between ka- and ki-verbs. Many languages have special verb morphology that marks foreground and background. In French (written language) "passe simple" is connected with foreground and "imparfait" (imperfect) with background. Even Early Biblical Hebrew used special morphology to designate foregrounded events; the conjunction wa "and" preceding "imperfect", i.e. the wayyiqtol form, has this function.119 Another way is to show the foregro-

118

Hopper, Aspect, 213-215. Giv6n, Drift, 199. Niccacci, Syntax, 20. That it is a consecutive form is important and should not be overlooked. One recent Bible translation (New International Version) translates this verb form with pluperfect in Gen 2:1819, which of course is not permitted by this type of verb: 18. wayyo'mcer YHWH Tlohim lo'-tob h"yol haidd&m Ibaddo ?ceVs'ce-lo ?ezcer kncegdo. 19. wayyiscer YHWH Tlohim min-hdT'ddmda kal-hayyat hass&4ce w?ei kdl-?op hassdmayim wayydbe' ?cel-hd?dddm lirfol ma-yyiqrd'16 wkol ?"scer yiqrd'-lo hd?dddm ncepas hayyda hu' smo. The Lord God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable to him." 19. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought

119

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und/-background distinction through word order. From his studies of old English, Hopper found that VS- and OV-clauses were connected with foreground and the SV type with background. This second characteristic, of course, indicates that the foregroundAbackground distinction may be useful for our purposes. A third way was to realize the distinction in question through the voice of the verb, i.e. through the alternation of active and passive clauses. In Malay he found that active clauses were linked to the background, and the passive to foreground. The usage of what is called "active-passive" in Malay is, however, different from that of English. "Passive" is used in Malay for events that are perfective, active, foregrounded and realis.120 Fleischman (1990) points out that "foreground" often also means what is important in the narration, and then shows that the criteria of "importance" and "sequentiality" do not always coincide. In our study, however, "foreground" refers only to sequentiality.121 Given the available material it would probably be impossible to make an empirical study with a parameter such as "importance". Having noticed in Biblical Hebrew that the typical verb form which is used in foreground, wayyiqtol, is sometimes employed for events that do not follow in strict sequential order, Buth suggests a more pragmatic, "subjective", definition, instead of a strictly semantic definition, which does not allow any deviations from the sequentiality principle.122 The pragmatic definition implies some freedom for the story-teller to present events as foregrothem to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name (New International Version). The translation of the New American Standard Bible is preferable for the verse in question: Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." 19. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 120 Hopper, Aspect, 215-228. 121 Fleischman, Tense, 172. 122 He presents Jon 1:16-17 as one example. Here we find the following clauses (with wayyiqlol forms in italics ): and they sacrificed a sacrifice to the LORD, and they vowed vows, and the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. The appointing of the fish constitutes the next "mainline" event in the story. But it could well have happened before the sacrifices and the vows, and the ambiguous temporal relationship can be translated as "Meanwhile, the LORD (had) appointed a big fish". In any way. Another, more obvious example, is found in Jud 11:1-2, where the birth of Yiftah is mentioned with wayyiqtol form after the introduction of him. (Buth, Grammar, 86-87.)

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unded, although they do not imply strict sequentiality (see the preceding footnote). One disadvantage with a pragmatic definition is that one cannot point categorically to a certain event and refer to it as either foreground or background based singularly on the referential nature of the event itself. The disadvantage with having a definition without any objective means to distinguish between foreground and background is outweighed by the fact that it corresponds to real language data, according to Buth. "If languages develop structures that are subjectively used, then we must make room for that in our grammar. Nothing else would be scientific."123 5.2 Tense-aspect-modality (TAM) vs. foreground/background The three notions tense, aspect and modality (TAM) interact in a very intricate way in most languages. The way they interact is closely interconnected with the foregroundAbackground distinction. We shall not relate all the features of the aspects, tenses and modalities here, but the ones we consider important and noteworthy for the present investigation will be dealt with.

Tense One important difference between tense and aspect is that tense is a deictic category, whereas aspect is non-deictic. Tense relates the time of a certain situation to some other time, which makes it a deictic category. The "other time" is usually the moment of speaking. Tenses with that reference point ate referred to as absolute tenses. The most common types of tenses, the present, past and future, are absolute tenses. The future tense is, however, less common - outside the Indo-European family there is only a relatively small number of languages in the world with a future tense - and when it exists it is partly temporal and partly modal, since it does not relate situations that have happened, but ones that are going to happen with more or less certainty. The so-called present tense, on the other hand, is common, but often it is better referred to as non-past tense, according to Lyons (1977). From the English He works hard, for instance, we understand that the "present tense" here does not necessarily imply contemporaneity with the time of utterance. This distinction between past and non-past tense is the most basic distinction in the vast majority of the world's languages.124 Mitchell & al-Hassan declares for Arabic that tense is expressed relative to the time of speaking.125 There may, however, also exist a relative time reference, according to Comrie. The non-finite participles in English, for instance, exemplify that. Compare 123

Buth, Grammar, 86-88. Comrie, Aspect, 1-2. Lyons, Semantics II, 677-8, 687. 125 Mitchell & al-Hassan, Modality, 65, 73. 124

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when walking down the road, I often meet Harry with when walking down the road, I often met Harry. We notice that "walking" in both cases receives its time point by reference to the main verb.126

Aspect According to Lyons aspect is far more commonly to be found among the languages of the world than tense. There are tense-less languages—Lyons mentions Chinese, Malay and Classical Hebrew—but very few, if any, lack aspect.127 Comrie defines aspect as follows: "aspects are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation" (without reference to any time point). This means that one and the same situation may be expressed by different aspects, as the French il regna trente ans and // regnait trente ans represent two different ways of expressing the same situation. The term "aspect" is, according to Lyons, a translation of the Russian "vid", which refers to the opposition of perfective and imperfective in the Slavonic languages. It has later been used to refer to a variety of other oppositions, which are based on duration, instantaneity, frequency, completion etc. In his treatise on aspect Comrie starts out with the opposition of perfective and imperfective. The former sees a situation as a single whole, without any attention to separate phases that constitute the situation, whereas the latter gives information about the internal structure of the situation, but with no information about the beginning or end of the situation in question. It views the situation "from within". Perfective is often applied to situations of short duration, but this is by no means necessarily so. The French il regna trente ans, for example, is a sentence with perfective aspect. The perfective denotes a complete situation, with beginning, middle and end, all rolled into one single whole. No certain emphasis on any of these is implied in the meaning of perfective; the emphasis is on the situation as a whole, clearly delimited in time. Quite similar to perfective aspect is that of punctual aspect. But punctuality expresses the situation as having no durativity at all; it is the opposite of durativity. A punctual situation is represented as having no internal structure and no durativity, which a situation with perfective aspect may have.128 Many languages have one single category to express imperfectivity; others may have more. The most common subdivisions are firstly of imperfectivity

126

Comrie, Aspect, 1-2. It should be evident from this chapter that we do not agree concerning Hebrew. Classical or Biblical Hebrew is better exlpained as a relative tense-system; just like the verbal system of the Sinai Beduins, for example, which is outlined in the following. 128 Comrie, Aspect, 3-4, 16-17, 41-42.

127

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into habitual and continuous, and then of continuous aspect into progressive and non-progressive. The following diagram by Comrie visualizes these relations.

I Perfective

I Imperfective

I

I

Habitual

I Continous I

I Non-progressive

Progressive

Diagram 7 Classification of (some) aspectual oppositions English has a separate habitual aspect, expressed by used to. It also has progressive, as in John was working (when I entered ). Comrie sets out by defining habitual aspect, and then defines continuousness as imperfectivity that is not habituality. He first states that habituality is not the same as iterativity; you may cough five times, but that does not render it habitual. In fact, there may be no iterativity at all, as in the Temple of Diana used to stand at Ephesus. Having clarified the difference between habituality and iterativity, Comrie turns to the definition of habituality. He states that the decisive feature of habituals is that they "describe a situation which is characteristic of an extended period of time, so extended in fact that the situation referred to is... a characteristic feature of a whole period." As we have learnt, continuousness is imperfectivity that lacks habituality. Concerning the two subdivisions of continuousness, progressive aspect refer to verbs that do not denote states, such as to know, love, live etc. (one cannot say: * / am seeing you there under the table ).129 The perfect is different from the preceding aspect in not telling anything directly about the situation itself; it rather relates some state to a previous situation. It indicates the present relevance of a past situation. The sentences / have lost (perfect) my penknife and / lost (non-perfect) my penknife illustrate

129

Comrie, Aspect, 24-28, 35. Lyons, Semantics II, 687, 705.

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the use of perfect. In the first sentence it is implied that the knife is still lost, but in the second there is no such implication, according to Comrie.130 The narrative present refers to the use of the present tense with reference to a past situation. When that is done in French, for example, the aspectual distinctions of the past tenses are lost: Ex. 55 A. Un homme s'amenait sur la route, il conduisait trois moutons. II aperc,ut l'ane charge et dit (past definite)... B. Un homme s'amene sur la route, il conduit trois moutons. II aperc,oit l'ane charge et dit... 131 Lyons gives us an overview of different kinds of aspects that are found to be grammaticized in different languages. He starts by defining some important concepts: firstly the distinction between events, states and processes, and secondly the distinction between acts and activities. Events are non-extended dynamic situations that occur momentarily in time; processes are extended dynamic situations that last through time; states are like processes in that they too last through time, but they differ from processes by being homogeneous as long as they last. Acts are agent-controlled events, and activities are agent-controlled processes. By taking into account the notion of markedness Lyons presents the following binary distinctions:132 I II El IV V VI

stative vs. non-stative dynamic vs. non-dynamic stative vs. dynamic durative vs. non-durative punctual vs. non-punctual durative vs. punctual

The distinction progressive/non-progressive, which we dealt with above, cannot be identified with any of the six, since progressivity involves both dynamicity (unlike (iv)) and durativity (unlike i). So Lyons lets the distinction in question constitute a seventh opposition, where events and states are contrasted with processes. VII progressive vs. non-progressive. 130

Comrie, Aspect, 52.

131

Comrie, Aspect, 13-14. The concept of markedness and the difference between marked and unmarked constructions are treated in sec. 6.1.-6.2.

132

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All but (ii) and (vi) are privative oppositions, for which the phenomenon of markedness is relevant, (iv), (v) and (vi) are quite common. English has (vi) and French (iv) in the past. Russian exemplifies (v), where the so-called perfective represents a situation as an event, at variance with the imperfective.133

Written Arabic Classical and Modern Standard Arabic have two sets of forms, traditionally referred to variously as aspects, tenses or states, and usually called perfect and imperfect: terms which we will continue to use here, although rather awkward and incorrect. According to Comrie they express both tense and aspect. Consider the following examples. Ex. 56 A. galasu ?ala l-babi. "They sat down at the door." B. ?allahu yaTlamu bi-ma ta?maluna. "God knows what you are doing." The perfect expresses past tense and perfective aspect in A, whereas the imperfect in B has present tense and imperfective aspect. Ex. 57 fa—llahu yahkumu baynahum yawma l—qiyamah. "But God will judge between them on the day of Resurrection." This sentence expresses future tense, but the aspect is perfective, which shows that the difference between the two Arabic verb forms cannot be regarded as purely one of aspect. A further complication is manifested sometimes in connection with subordinate clauses, as in the following example: Ex. 58 ?agl?uka ?ida hmarra l-busru. "I shall come to you when the unripe date ripens (shall ripen)."134 The example is one of relative time reference; it indicates that the ripening of the dates will precede my coming (?agl?uka). Another example with relative time reference is provided by Comrie:

133

Lyons, Semantics II, 707-8. Still better would be has ripened.

134

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Ex. 59 wa-ttabafu ma tatlu s-sayatlnu ?ala mulki sulaymana. "And they followed what the demons used to recite ("recited") in Solomon's reign." In this case the imperfect {tatlu) is used with past time reference, since its reference point is set (ttabafu) by the preceding verb in perfect. One condition for the use of imperfect in this sense is that it also has imperfective meaning, states Comrie. Summarizing the uses of the imperfective and perfective, Comrie asserts that perfective indicates both perfective and relative past time reference, while the imperfective indicates everything else, i.e. either imperfective meaning or relative non-past tense.135

Modern Colloquial Arabic The Arabic modern dialects have grammaticized some types of aspects through special morphology, so-called aspectualizers.136 These are the punctual aspect, ingressive, durative, progressive and repetitive. For emphasizing the punctual aspect in the foreground, verbs that denote an event with punctual aspect are preposed asyndetically (more seldom syndetically) to the main verb, which has the same tense as the aspectualizer. There are many different verbs used with this function, for example qam "to stand", zee "to come", fcezz "to jump". This use is very common. An example from Soukhne in Syria illustrates the point: Ex. 60 kaltilha: "yammi habbabti gula Tamtocel sbayy zgayyert". kamet hadiyani limrayyi rahet fazza?at clranha, dl-ialam, hakatilham la hannas w-til?u ?ala limrayyi, hal-, dlgula. "Sie sagte zu ihr: 'Mutter, meine Grossmutter, ist eine Gula, die einen kleinen Bub auffriBt!'. Da ging dieses Weib her und alarmierte ihre Nachbarn, die Leute, erzahlte (es) diesen Leuten, und sie liefen dem Weib hin, zu der Gula."137 If the main verb has imperfect and the aspectualizer perfect, it usually means ingressive aspect, i.e. an event that has a beginning but no specified endpoint, as in this example from Iraq:

l35

Comrie, Aspect, 78-80. ^ h e designation is taken from Eisele, Auxiliaries, 163. 137 Behnstedt, Dialekt, 210-21'1.

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Ex. 61 yom imn il—?ayyam uscfia min iz-zeman inhadar is—seh Hamad il— ehmud li-bgadad uwiyyah mlten hayyal uhadda ila l-hirr. gabat issamis u gamat timtir ed-dinya "Vor Zeiten zog eines Tages der Sleh Hamad il-Ehmud mit 200 Reitern nach Bagdad; seine Absicht war nach el-hirr (zu reisen). Die Sonne ging unter, und es begann zu regnen."138 This use with gam/qam appears to be the most common syntagm for expressing ingressive in Mesopotamia.139 In Eastern Mediterranean Arabic, ingressive is usually formed by the aspectualizer sar "to become" in perfect or imperfect, with the following main verb in imperfect. The following example is from Palestine. Ex. 62 ahadha ?ad-daktor. fahasha d-daktor. ku.ll ma yhutt faleha s-sammafa hcen, tsir titzagzag, tsir tidhak, yhutt es-sammafa hen, tsir tidhak. "Er brachte sie zum Doktor. Der Doktor untersuchte sie. Jedesmal wenn er das Horrohr hierher auf sie tat, begann es sie zu kitzeln, begann sie zu Iachen, (jedesmal) wenn er das Horrohr hierher tat, begann sie zu Iachen."140 Duration is also expressed by different aspectualizers, among which the most common are dall, baqa, tamm, fidil, all with the meaning of "to continue", "to keep on". Even the word qa?ada "to sit", may be used in this function. An example from Jordan illustrates this type of viewpoint. Ex. 63 hada r-razzal ga?ad yi?idd bihin inhar b-inhar ?ibir rasld gam aTtah gol saraf w-a?tah kalam ?inni ma ?azi wala ?atharrak ger lamannak idzib inyagak. dall yfiidd bihin Mr rasid lama wisl il—Tisrln yom yom wisl il-?isrln yom tiharrak ibirrasld — —?ala l-gom w—hadahum. "Now Ibn Rasld started counting the time day by day. He had given him word of honour, he had promised him and said, 'I'll not come, set out before you've fetched your she-camels.' Ibn Rasld was coun

138

WeiBbach, Beitrage, 1. Cfr. Abu-Haidar, Arabic, 92. 140 Salonen, Dialekt von Gaza I, 16, 34. 139

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ting the days until the twentieth day had come. When the twentieth day had come, Ibn Rasid set out against the Bedouin and plundered them."141 As we saw in the beginning of this example (gafad ytfidd) qa?ad/ga?ad can even be used for ingressive. It is a quite special case, stemming from the word's double aspectual character. In one case the lexical morpheme "to sit down" has become the grammatical morpheme "to start to do something"; in the other case the lexical morpheme "to be sitting" has become the grammatical morpheme "to keep on doing something". Progressive aspect is expressed by such particles as Mammal (Egypt) and famftan (Eastern Mediterranean) followed by b - or y - imperfect: Ex. 64 w-rikbu hadul, lamma rikbu w-misyu ?ala z-zi s, il-?alam ?ammtitfarraz ya?ni mitl il—falam rayha ?ala l-?urs, ?amm ?ala siy hafli. "They mounted, and when they marched off toward the army, the crowds were looking on as though they were attending a wedding or some celebration."142 Repetition is expressed in the Eastern Mediterranean area by such aspectualizers as rdle? (mainly Lebanon), radd (mainly Syria), Tawid (mainly Palestine (?)), all with the (basic) meaning of "return". Ex. 65 talit yom Iwalad bfiawid bigayyir hala wbirgi? Taleha bidukk Ibab, btiftahla Igula, ba?id ma btis?ala ida hu Hi sarak ddahab willa ggaga bikullha la?.

"The next day he changed his appearance again and went back up to the ghoul's place and knocked on the door. She let him in after asking if he was the one who stole the gold and the chicken. He told her no."143

Modality Modality has to do with the notion of reality: whether something has "factual existence at some real time" ("true"), "existence at no real time" ("false"), or "potential existence at some "yet-to-be time" ("possible"). Here 141

Palva, Colloquial, 47. Blanc, Studies, 85, 93. 143 Obler, Reflexes, 168,171.

142

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we can distinguish between realis-assertion and irrealis-assertion. A "realis-assertion" can be either affirmative (something strongly asserted as true) or negative (strongly asserted as false). An "irrealis-assertion" means something that is weakly asserted as possibly true. Among the tenses, present and past are clearly realis, while future is irrealis.144

Correlations with foreground/background Some of the correlations between the TAM categories and the foregroun^ackground distinction are shown in the following table. We must be aware that they are probabilistic correlations, like many other phenomena in language, and not absolutes.145

feature

foreground

background

tense sequentiality durativity perfectivity modality (activeness) (syntax)

past in-sequence compact/punctual perfective/completive realis (action/event) (main clauses)

present, future, habitual out-of-sequence, anterior durative/continuous imperfective/incompletivei irrealis (state) (subordinate clause)

Table 1 Discourse foreground/background correlations of tense-aspectmodality Fleischman points out that even subordinate clauses can be temporally ordered and be part of the main narrative line.146

5.3 TAM and foreground/background in Modern Colloquial Arabic Denz and a modern Iraqi verbal system Denz(1971) has probably written the most thorough treatise in recent years on the verbal system of any modern Arabic dialect, namely the Iraqi village dialect of Kwayris, in the vicinity of the ruins of Babylon.147 In the following we will relate what we consider to be the most relevant in connection with narrative discourse, which is the chief object of our study. 144

Giv6n, Syntax I, 272, 284-285. Giv6n, Syntax I, 288. l46 Fleischman, Tense, 171. 145

147

Denz, Verbalsyntax, 52.

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Denz declares that the verbal system in question is composited of eleven elements: kitab, can ktibat, yiktib, can yiktib, can tiktib, gay tiktib, ga?id yiktib, katib, can katib, ?iktib and maktub. We have found the following elements to merit a little closer study.

kitab: Denotes Vorzeitigkeit in relation to a certain time value. The latter is generally: I The present time of the speaker, which gives past tense. II Another time value indicated by a governing verb, which gives pluperfect tense. These are the two main functions for narrative discourse of kitab. For the latter we provide the following example. Ex. 66 w-tala?it min il-?arab illi hifnaha "und ich verlieB die Araber, die wir beraubt hatten."148 can ktibat: This construction is, with one exception, used only in counter-fact conditional clauses. Further, can does not agree in person or number. (In Classical Arabic, MSA and some modern dialects, e.g. Eastern Mediterranean dialects, this construction gives pluperfect tense.) Ex. 67 Id haddak zen can ?inta ?ahaditha "wenn dein Geschick dir giinstig gewesen ware, hattest du sie selbst ge-nommen."149

yiktib: Denotes both Gleichzeitigkeit and Nachzeitigkeit. Concerning the former, the following uses for the past deserve mention for our purposes: a) in connection with a conjunction, such as luniman, benama, "until", "while"; b) after a governing verb of "geistig-sinnlichen Wahrnehmung", as in

148

Denz, Verbalsyntax, 54-55, 100. Denz, Verbalsyntax, 61, 101.

149

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Ex. 68 liget ?ahali ynuhun w-yibcun "Ich fand meine Gefahrten klagend und weinend";150 c) in "satzstrukturelle Kennzeichnung" (not further explained), in sentences like Ex. 69 sahli, ya hamad il-ihmud. w-huwwa yimsi w-ani ?amsi warah "Derriefmir: 'Hamad il-IHmud', wahrend er ging und ich hinter ihm herging";151 d) "ein umfassenderes Verbum", which modifies the time value of yiktib, as in Ex. 70 ?ihna gena ninisi "Wir kamen gegangen".152 can yiktib: Appears in two functions: individual and general "Sachverhalte" for denoting the past. The former occurs in sentences like Ex. 71 yafildn mitilma cinit ?asufak inta ham tisufni "du so und so, wie ich dich sah, so siehst du mich auch". We find general "Sachverhalte" in Ex. 72 bil?awwal canaw ysarnmiln iddira? tob "friiher pflegte man den Hemd zu nennen".153 katib: May function just like ordinary finite verb forms. It may denote perfect (aspect): I50

Denz, Denz, 152 Denz, 153 Denz, 151

Verbalsyntax, 63-64, 102. Verbalsyntax, 68. Verbalsyntax, 64. Verbalsyntax, 80, 108.

74

Ex.

7 3

r

,

,

..,

• . - . . • •

-,:

.••*, ;-.

lakin gilli sinhu Hi sayir bik "sage mir was dir widerfahren ist". But when the expressed "Zustand" is simultaneous with the past, it denotes pluperfect: Ex. 74 baSad dalik ?iga ila farid mukan mazru? wumsawwin izzara? icdus "hierauf gelangte er an ein Getreidefeld, wo man das Getreide zu Haufen vereinigt hatte."154 katib may also refer to the future: Ex. 75 ?inti ?ixti biktab alia wtammin ibhalgasur "du bist hiermit meine gemaB dem Buche Gottes und wir bleiben in diesem SchloBe".155 The system of Denz is mainly a tense system—he has relatively few references to aspectual phenomena. The reference point of time is generally that of the speaker, but he also accounts for other possibilities.156 From our material it seems that narrative discourse, in at least some varieties of Modern Colloquial Arabic, uses two different reference points for time in a consistent way. It also seems to be connected with the foreground/background distinction. The following simple scheme illustrates this (see also Ex. 77— 81).

Location on time-axis

foreground

background

deictic centre for time, "now" : time of narrator, A. time of foreground, B. Diagram 8: Deictic centres for time For foreground, then, the reference point for time is one and the same all through the discourse, since it is the time of the narrator; but for the backgro154

Denz, Verbalsyntax, 112-113. Denz, Verbalsyntax, 114-115. 156 Mitchell and al-Hassan obviously take another position: "Arabic has two tenses, which refer only tenuously to temporal distinctions" (Modality, 13.) 155

75

und it moves along together with the course of the story, since the reference point is in the narrative itself. In a time diagram this means that it will constantly move to the right along with the advancement of the story. The following time diagram will give a graphic description of this system. The time-axis here is the time of the narrator, who tells a story about something that happened in the past, i.e. to the left on the time-axis.157 B A C K G R 0

i

Y (events) 4

h

U N a D

c

b

P

A

t(0)

t(0)

t(0)

c

B

NT(0) X (time)

FOREGROUND Events in foreground: A, B, C Events in background: a, b, c NT(0): narratoi 's time

Diagram 9 Foreground/background in relation to time • • •

Event a is pluperfect in English, but perfect in this system, since its reference point is in A. Event b (located at t(0)) is past tense in English, but present time in this system, since it's reference point is in B. Event c is past future in English, but simple future here, since it's reference point is in C.

As a result of the different reference points, foreground is usually expressed with the perfect forms of the verb, and background imperfect (or perfect if

157.

'The diagram is developed after personal communication with J. Retso.

76

pluperfect is intended). A short paragraph from Egypt illustrates this further. (Bold type is foreground.) Ex. 76 fi-yom gih hal Taliyya l-bet (A) wi-?al-laha (B) nna-ha hatistagal (cl). "One day Aliyya's uncle came to her home, and told her that she was ('is') going to work." huwwa la?a-lha suglana (a). "He had ('has') found a job for her." hiyya ha-tistagal (c2)'haddama Tande ?ela kablra, "She was ("is") going to work as a servant-maid for a noble family, Tande wahid mudarris... for a teacher... wi-fiis ?and il-mudarris ma?a mratu w-ibn-u s-sugayyar and live with the teacher and his wife, and their son."158 In this paragraph the event ?al (called A) in foreground is the reference point for time of the three background clauses cl, a and c2, as is illustrated by the diagram below. B A C K G R 0 U N D

Y (events) A

cl c2

a

ton

t(0), A '

B

h

' NTYO) X (time)

FOREGROUND Events in foreground: A, B Events in background: a, c 1,c2 NT(0): narrator's time

Diagram 10 Relative tens*; in Egyptian Arabic 158

Hassan, Aghrab, 36.

77

,

This system is reflected especially consistently in the texts of the Sinai Bedouins. There you rarely find the elsewhere common syntagma for pluperfect in Classical Arabic and Modern Colloquial Arabic: kan(a) fa?al(a), and the reason is explained by the strict adherence to the system just presented. In many other dialects of modern Arabic, kan would more readily been used. Thus instead they would have said: huwwa kan la?a-lha suglana and hiyya kanet ha-tistagil159

159

The system outlined above also dominates, as it appears, in at least one other Semitic language: Biblical Hebrew. Even there pluperfect is expressed by the ordinary perfect verb form and SV-order (since it is background). The widespread absence of the Hebrew correspondence to kana, the Arabic tenseindicator, haya "he was", in nominal clauses is another indication. In Early Biblical Hebrew the consecutive verb form "wayyiqtol" is used for foreground, whereas "waw-x-qaral" and "waw-x-yiqtol" is used in background clauses. According to Niccacci these appear with tense shifts between foreground and background clauses, which obviously corresponds to the different reference points for time outlined above. (Niccacci, Syntax, 29-34, 111-122, Eskhult, Studies, 35-36, 43) Two background examples from the book of Exodus illustrate the usage in Hebrew: 1. 17. wayyose' mosce ?cei-hd?dm liqra't hd?"lohim min-hammalfntS and brought out Moses the people to meet God from the camp wayyityassbd btahtlt hdhdr whar sinay ?dsan kullo mippne and they stood at the bottom of the mountain and Mount Sinai was smoking all of it (or: so that they stood) Tscerydrad falayw YHWH bd?es. because (had) descended on it the Lord in fire. "17. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood (i.e. 'gathered') at the foot of the mountain. 18. Now Mount Sinai was ("is") all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire." (Ex. 19:17-18, New American Standard Bible (NASB)) 2. (After God had spoken the words of the Ten Commandments:) wkol-hd?dm roTun ?cet-haqqolot w?cet-hallappidim w?et qol has— and all the people see the sounds and the lightnings and the sound of the sopdr w?cei hd-hdr Tdsen. horn and the mountain smoking "And all the people perceived ("perceive") the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking;..." (Ex. 20:18, NASB)

78

The Sinai Bedouins The following examples will elucidate some of the main points in the tenseaspect system of the Sinai Bedouins. We use the term "perfect" for the Arabic suffix conjugation, and "imperfect" for the Arabic "prefix" conjugation. In this system the oppositions are tense oppositions rather than aspect oppositions; they stand basically for past and present tense, which, of course, often also implies, for instance, punctual and durative aspect. The different reference points will then determine how they are to be expressed in, for instance, the English tense-aspect system. "Ptc. I" refers to the active participle when it denotes present tense. "Ptc. II" refers to the active participle when it denotes perfect, i.e. an event that has been completed, but the result of the action is still in effect, as in ?ana akil, "I have eaten". As in Diagram 8 "A" refers to when the reference point of time is equal to the time of the narrator, "B" when the reference point is the foreground.

Foreground i) A + perfect: preterite (punctual). Ex. 77 ?ld rawwah giddam—giddam salim, ?a-al-ahuh (sic!), hadak dall bysawwir, w—hadak- miss ?aleh al—ka?ab w-gawtir bah. ?ld hatt ?ind hada gabl ai-taniy - gabl salim ga salim. yominnih ga salim, gal "ana badiy Talek, ya ?atiyyih.m '"ad went ahead, before Salim, to the brother. That one stayed behind to photograph. And that one: 'brush the heel along it!' (i.e.he gave his male camel a tap with his heels to urge it to gallop. Narrative imperative.) and trotted off. ?ld unloaded at that one['s place], before the other one [arrived], before Salim. Salim arrived. When Salim had arrived, he said: 'I want to make a case against you, Atiyyih.'" (Our transl.) ii) B + imperfect: present tense (punctual). This category would probably best correspond to what Comrie calls "narrative present tense". It constitutes a marked used of tense since the reference point in the unmarked use is that of the narrator in foreground. In background, on the other hand, the use of imperfect with past meaning is unmarked since the reference point is in the foreground. It is likely that in this context the aspect of the verb generally is perfective, as in the following example, rather than imperfective, which should invalidate the condition stipulated by Comrie for using imperfect with past meaning. 160

'Stewart, Texts II, 101-102.

79

Ex. 78 gal "es gal lak ibin-sai'ad? wda?it min yungul al-wda?ih, al-harg kullih ma? ibin-sa?ad." [...] gult, "wallah, ibin-sa?ad Ijatt lay dabl." w-hu yubruk Va-rkebatih. "ashad l-allah, ashad l-allah, in hediy al-?adalih.m "He said: 'What did Ibin-Sa?ad tell you? The deposit is for the one who carries the deposit (i.e. Let everyone who wants be witness), the whole negotiation is to be with Ibin-SaTad.' I said: 'Ibin-Sa?ad mentioned Dabl to me as a judge.'He rose to a kneeling position. 'As God is my witness, this means justice'". (Our transl.) Background i) B + ptc. I: past tense (durative). Ex. 79 gal, "ta?al, hallna ntigahwa hniyani. [...]162 hallna nogid narna, ntigahwa hniy." w—mar yogid an-ndr, w-mar yhutt al-barrad f-an-nar. whum ga?din, kid'iy, w-hu gafid ziyy magfadak kidiyaniy, ?a-ganb al-barrad. mafatan gayr w-al-katlfih. hudha w-dugha. tnenhum}61 '"Come on,' he said to them. 'Let's have a cup of tea here. Let us ignite our tea, we drink tea here.' So he lit the fire and put the pot on the fire. They were ("are") sitting there, and he was ("is") sitting just like you are, beside the pot. And the next thing he knew was that he was beaten up. A fight broke out (Lit.: Take it (a wound) and taste it (a wound)!. The two of them [beat him]". (Our transl.) ii) B + perf.: pluperfect (punctual). Ex. 80 ?ugb al-fal hada [...] w-ilinnhum mdawwyinih ?alena. w-ihna gotarna hnuh nag?, w-ana ahadt igazih, w-lihigt al-?arab hnuh. ?arabl ma? ?arab nislbi w-bnahi, w-hedlk al-lelih ?indina Ina fadw, w-kan nadbahah. w-al-fadw ?indl ana. w-ilinn hummah [...] mdawwylnih ?alena - mdawwyln salim — ?ld w—ibin sa?ad hada.lM

161

Stewart, Texts II, 134. These types of brackets indicate material that has been omitted by Stewart in the transcription. '"Stewart, Texts II, 104. ""Stewart, Texts II, 113. I62

80

"After this journey... they brought him to us. We had gone there for

the spring pasture. I had taken a break from my job, and had followed the Tarab there. An Tarabi together with [his] ?arab [people], my father-in-law and my nephew. That night we had a feast in our camp; we had slaughtered a goat [as a sacrifice]. The feast was at my place. And they... had brought him to us in the evening - they had brought Salim, ?ld and this Ibin Sa?ad." (Our transl.) iii) B + ptc. II: pluperfect. Ex. 81 gotriy w-marrhiy ft betih, gotir ya mhammad, w-marrahna ?awguhna. (ft ma sallayt ?a-an-nibiy.) s-subh [...] zmalti rayhih. 16S "So off she went and spent the night in Hwemil's tent, and Mhammad went off, and we went to sleep without having any dinner ("on our fa-

ces"). In the morning... My riding camel had wandered away." (Our transl.) iv) B. + imperfect: past (durative). Ex. 82 w-as—subh gibt al-bakrah, w-saddayt faleha, w-kattayt l-amm siftd, badawwir lay ?a-bakrah tanyih [...]wallah, w-al-hurmah tsawwiy Ihum bag-al-laham alliy dall; w-hu gafidfi dillit al-kiskih, fi dill addaha, hu w-wladih.m "In the morning I brought the young she-camel, saddled her, and went down to Amm SiTld; I was ("am") looking for another shecamel... (That same morning in my absence) By God, the woman (my wife) prepared for them the rest of the meat that remained. He was ("is") sitting in the shade of the hut, in mid-morning shade, he and his sons."

This account of the Sinai Bedouin verbal system is fairly similar to that of Denz. His "satzstrukturelle Kennzeichnung" corresponds to a large degree to our foregrounaV-background distinction. Some of his other categories under yiktib can probably be brought under the same heading.

'"Stewart, Texts II, 181. "'Stewart, Texts II, 62.

81

5.4 Peak There are, however, occasions when this integrated system breaks down. Longacre describes the peak phenomenon. When a narrator reaches the peak or climax of his story he tends to underline it through changing the ordinary narrative technique. Accordingly, aberrations in the TAM system may occur; forms and constructions not normally used in foregrounding appear. Other characteristics are the use of extra words; parallelism, paraphrases and tautologies; and the gathering of all participants in one crowded stage to emphasize the turbulent peak zone.167 The following Biblical Hebrew text from the book of Esther seems to be a good illustration of this phenomenon, since there occurs unexpected SV syntax in foreground, a context where VS is fairly strictly followed.168 We choose a Hebrew text, since this phenomenon is harder to demonstrate from Modern Colloquial Arabic, where preposing of a subject is fairly common for other pragmatic reasons, and, hence, problematic to distinguish from peak (but see Ex. 151). Bold script indicates foreground with SV-order.

Haman falls into disgrace 7:5 wayyo'mcer hammcelcek. Thasweros wayyo'mcer tfcester said the king Ahasuerus and said to Esther hammalkdd mi hu' zee w?e-zce M' ?scer-mld?6 libbo la?"sot the queen who he, this one, and where he that filled his heart to do ken 6: watto'mcer-2'aster ?is sar w?6yeb hdmdn hard? hazzce so said Esther man foe and enemy Haman wicked this whdmdn nib?at (SV!) millipne hammcelcek whammalkda: Haman became terrified before the king and the queen 7. whammcelcek qdm (SV!) bafimdtd mimmiste hayyayin ?cel-ginnat and the king arose in his anger frm drinking the wine into the garden of habbitdn whdmdn ?dmad Ibaqqes ?al-napso me?cester hammalkdd the palace but Haman stayed to beg for his life from Esther the queen ki rd?da ki-kdltda ?eldyw hard?da me?ei hammcelcek: for he saw that been determined against him the harm from the king 8. whammcelcek sab (SV!) migginnai habbitan ?cel-bet miste the king returned from the garden of the palace to the house of drinking hayyayin whdmdn nopel ?al-hammiftda Tscer ?cester ?alceh& wine and Haman falling on the bed which Ester on it wayyo'mcer hammalceh. h"gam likbos ?cet-hammalka3 Timmi babbdyit and said the king also to assault "ace" the queen with me in the house? 167

Longacre, Grammar, 25-28. Esther, 7:5-8.

168

82

hadddbdr ydsd' mippi hammcelcek u^rie hdmdn hdgu. the word went out from the mouth the king face of Haman they covered. 7:5. Then King Ahasuerus asked Queen Esther, "Who is he and where is he, who would presume to do thus?" 6. And Esther said: "A foe and an enemy, is this wicked Haman!" Then Hainan became terrified before the king and the queen. 7. And the king arose in his anger from drinking wine and went169 into the palace garden; but Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that harm had been determined against him by the king. 8. Now when the king returned from the palace garden into the place where they were drinking wine, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was. Then the king said, "Will he even assault the queen with me in the house?" As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Hainan's face.170

5.5 Summary This chapter demonstrates what an intricate system of different parts a narrative discourse is made up of. That the foreground/background system is related to the TAM system is a fairly recent observation. Foreground refers to events that come in chronological sequence; background refers to all types of events that do not follow in such sequence. In foreground past tense, punctual and perfective aspect and realis mood dominate, whereas in background we are more likely to find present, future and habitual tense, durative and imperfective aspect and irrealis mood. In Modern Colloquial Arabic aspect distinctions may be expressed through aspectualizers; these are verbs, or particles which originated from verbs, that have lost their original meaning, and only serve to emphasize a certain aspectual distinction. In the Modern Colloquial Arabic of the Eastern Mediterranean area punctual aspect, ingressive, durative, progressive and repetitive are expressed through such aspectualizers. The view that the Classical Arabic verbal system is based on aspect oppositions was rejected in the account of that system by Comrie. According to him both tense and aspect oppositions are involved; often a relative tense reference is at hand, i.e. the time reference is another than that of the narrator. The verbal system of a modern Iraqi village dialect has been described by Denz as being basically a tense system. For the Modern Colloquial Arabic of the 169

Cursive writing means that the words do not appear literally in the original; they are derived from the context. 170 Translation from the New American Standard Bible.

83

Sinai Bedouins we proposed a relative tense system, where the reference point for time is the foreground or narrative itself for background sentences, whereas in foreground time reference is connected with the time of the narrator, which is the most common reference point for time. This system is probably as able to express important tense and aspect distinctions as any other "developed" language. In the peak, or the climax, of a story, aberrations, such as unexpected forms, parallelisms and tautologies, may occur in the integrated verbal system, which includes both TAM relations and the foreground/background distinction. These are pragmatic devices to increase the dramatic effects in the turbulent peak zone of a story.

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CHAPTER 6 Markedness in Discourse vs. Basic Word Order Hopper (1985) suggests the following definition of the most basic sentence type: "The Basic Sentence Type in a language is that in which the Subject is old or topical, and the focus of new information falls on the Predicate."171 This chapter will present a more thorough analysis of the nature of the basic sentence type.

6.1 Definition Markedness is an important concept in discourse analysis. It was first introduced in the field of phonology by the Prague School phonologists Nicolai Trubetzkoy and Roman Jakobson. The concept presupposes the opposition between two or more members (e.g., PFV/IPFV aspect), where one of the members is often felt to be the normal one, i.e. the unmarked one, and the other(s) marked. Markedness basically refers to any deviation from what is considered the neutral or unmarked pattern in a specific linguistic context. The specific context is important, since one and the same construction may be marked in one context, but unmarked in another. Passive clauses, for instance, are considered marked in "everyday oral communication", but not in the context "scientific discourse".172 C. S. Smith has succinctly formulated the meaning of markedness: "We distinguish as unmarked the standard, conventional choices that speakers make; unusual choices are marked. If we think of the conventional associations as rules, then marked associations involve a violation of the rules. It is an important fact about such conventions that they can be meaningfully violated. When one violates a conventional standard, one conveys a special meaning or emphasis. These conventional principles are like discourse principles generally in that they can be violated with significance."173 Givon presents three major criteria for distinguishing the marked from the unmarked category. First, there is structural complexity. A marked structure is often more complex—or larger—than the unmarked one. Secondly, in terms of frequency distribution, the marked category tends to be less frequent Hopper, Discourse Function, 124. Giv6n, Syntax II, 946. '"Smith, Parameter, 16-17. 172

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than the unmarked one. Finally, the marked category is often characterized by more cognitive complexity; it may be in terms of attention, mental effort or processing time. 174

6.2 Distribution of markedness in discourse Regarding the difference between conversation and narrative/procedural discourse Givon is not able to decide which one is unmarked. In terms of continuative coherence, narrative is to be considered unmarked; but in terms of complexity and frequency, conversation seems to be more basic.175 There are differences in markedness with respect to oral versus written discourse. The following table describes this, according to Givon.176

parameter

oral-informal

written-formal

syntactic complexity grammatical morphology word order

(unmarked) conjoined sparse flexible, pragmatic

(marked) embedded abundant rigid, grammatical

Table 2 Properties of oral vs. written discourse There is also a difference in markedness between different types of clauses, which Givon summarizes in the following way.

unmarked

marked

main/conjoined declarative affirmative active continuative

subordinate manipulative negative passive disruptive

Table 3 Markedness status of clause-types That the main, declarative, affirmative, and active clause is the privileged unmarked clause type has traditionally been a matter of consent in lin-

174,

'Giv6n, Markedness, 336-337. Giv6n, Markedness, 340. 176 Giv6n, Markedness, 338.

175

86

guistics.177. In the table Givon adds the contrast between continuative and disruptive clause-types. We find the disruptive clauses in the beginning or end of a longer chain of coherent discourse. When the discourse is continuous the important referents are unmarked - usually coded as zero or anaphoric pronoun - but in a discontinuous context the important topics belong to the marked category and, hence, require marked devices for its referent-coding. This may be through either a definite full NP (searching for an existing file), or an indefinite full NP (opening a new file). The following example illustrates the different coding in the beginning, middle and end of a complete sequence of clauses. It also shows the tendency for chain-medial clauses to contain less finite verb forms.178 Ex. 82 a. She was writing to her parents, b. telling them about her new flat, c. describing the furniture d. and poking fun at the neighbours. more animate

other animate

>

inanimate less animate

More specifically the following relations for some NPs in English had been found. As in the preceding, the degree of animateness decreases toward the right: Ex. 108 woman > monkey > dog > spider > bacteria > grass > dust > rock > tortilla > vase. Reduced animateness means a reduced capability of independent or dynamic activity. Animateness was also found to be related to another hierarchy based on semantic roles: Ex. 109 Agent > Instrumental > Benefactive/Dative > Patient In the prototypical case a human agent is more likely to affect a less animate referent than vice versa. The last two hierarchies were collapsed into one, which Tomlin called The Animatedness Hierarchy: Ex. 110 human > other animate > inanimate agent > benefactive/dative> patient more animated > less animated. The hierarchy permits inanimate agents to precede animate patients. According to Tomlin it seems to be the case that semantic role takes precedence

110

when a conflict arises between animation and semantic role. Consequently in the following sentence "the wind" is more animated than "my brother".232 Ex.

Ill The wind knocked my brother over.

Tomlin then studied to what extent the different principles were reflected in the different basic word orders. That should explain the differences in frequency among the world's languages. His own investigation in this respect with a sample of 402 languages had given the following results:233

% nr.

SOV 44.78 180

SVO 41.79 168

VSO 9.20 37

vos 2.99 12

OVS 1.24 5

osv 0.00 0

First, he considered verb-final orders in relation to his three principles—the Theme First Principle (TFP), the principle of Verb-Object Bonding (VOB) and the Animated First Principle (AFP): Ex. 112 TFP SOV YES osv NO

AFP YES NO

VOB YES NO

For OSV Verb-Object Bonding (VOB) is not realized since the subject intervenes between the verb and the object. The differences in adherence to the principles correspond to the differences in frequency. Verb-medial orders gave the following results. Ex. 113 SVO OVS

TFP YES NO

AFP YES NO

VOB YES YES

OVS has only one of the three principles realized, but it is enough to allow for some languages with that order. Verb-initial was noted as follows:

232

Tomlin, Word Order, 4-5, 102-107. Tomlin, Word Order, 19-22.

233

Ill

Ex. 114

vso ovs

TFP YES NO

AFP YES NO

VOB NO YES

Tomlin considers the TFP to be realized for VSO since the subject precedes the object.234 Tomlin's classification of VSO as a theme-first order must be regarded as very doubtful, if not wrong. It is by far more common to have clauses without direct objects than with direct objects. In such cases the most common clause is where the new information is vested in the verb, and the old in the definite subjects, which then also are themes.235 And in cases where the object occurs it is often definite and, hence, known, which means that the verb must contain the new information. Of 190 objects in perfect in narrative discourse in Eastern Mediterranean Modern Arabic, for example, only 35 were indefinite.The AFP principle also seems less justified in this area. First, it does not deviate from the TFP in one single case. Secondly, it predicts more about what types of subjects will surface in different contexts, not so much about the relative ordering of our main constituents: verb, subject and object. 7.10 Summary The language classifications by Weil some 150 years ago were to a strikingly high degree carried out on the same basis as that of Greenberg in the early 1960s. Among Greenberg's results was the observation that only SOV, VSO and SVO were common orders. His work was of truly seminal character; it spawned many writings and investigations in the area of language typology and universals. In the research on basic word order, the writings of Lehmann, Vennemann and Hawkins have been most prominent. Lehmann emphasized the OYfVO parameter and its correlation with other syntactic categories, such as verbal modifiers, e.g. causatives, negatives, interrogatives; and nominal modifiers, e.g. relative, adjectival and genitival expressions. Vennemann built upon the works of Lehmann and asserted that all languages serialize many different nominal and verbal modifiers in a specific way, according to an "operator-operand relationship" that was characteristic for OV and VO languages respectively.

""Tomlin, Word Order, 123-125. ^Compare our results in sec. 10.5, where it is shown that only with independent subjects also had direct objects.

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' of the clauses

Hawkins reviewed the previous works on basic word order and found flaws in each of them. Instead of Greenberg's unilateral universals ("if p then q") and Vennemann's bilateral ones ("if p then q" and vice versa), he introduced multitermed universals ("if p and q then r") to avoid the statistical universals of Greenberg and Vennemann, and to present universals without any exceptions. He found 23 such universals, but the rather disappointing conclusion of his efforts was that the best type indicator is the division between pre- and postpositions. Hopper, however, emphasizes the importance of the verb being present in such typologies, since the verb forms a "crucial link between discourse function and clause structure". Dik's scheme of basic word order ruled out the three Object-Subject orders as basic word orders. Pullum accepts this view concerning OVS and OSV; the languages alleged to have such orders did not stand a closer scrutiny, but he asserts that VOS is definitely attested. Mithun asserts that there are at least three languages which lack any basic word order. Except questionnaires she does not have any empirical support for her claims. Li & Thompson propose a classification of languages according to presence or absence of subject and topic prominence. Only a few languages have been studied yet along these parameters and more research is needed. The more recent trend, however, has been to classify typologically particular constructions and not languages as a whole. Several attempts have been made to present a set of principles that explain the variations in basic word order. Of the three principles that were presented by Mallinson and Blake only the first one, which stated that more topical material tends to come first or near the beginning in the clause, seems to be useful in explaining basic word order. Krupa suggested three principles: sentence depth, which favours SOV and SVO; the cognitive factor, which is best reflected as SVO; and, thirdly, the relative structural independence, which will cause VSO in the first place. Tomlin found that the principles were not well motivated and had too much of an ad hoc character. Pullum predicted the three most common orders by the use of a hierarchy of grammatical relations. Since he also maintained that VOS exists, that order was explained by a second principle, which allowed a subject to be assigned final position. This principle was explained by a universal preference for themes to occupy clause-peripheral position. Tomlin, however, rejected the last principle as being of ad hoc character, motivated only for legitimizing the VOS order. Tomlin put forward three principles that affected basic word order: the Theme First Principle (TFP), the principle of Verb-Object Bonding (VOB),

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and the Animated First Principle (AFP). In our opinion the AFP is not well justified, and the VOB principle is only possible, whereas the TFP is known and accepted since earlier. It can be concluded that no convincing set of principles which explains different basic word orders in languages is found among the ones we have surveyed.

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CHAPTER 8 Views on Basic Word Order in Colloquial Arabic Although no proper study has yet been made of basic word order in modern Arabic dialects, there is no lack of statements on word order in those dialects. Spitta-Bey (1880) claims in his work on the Egyptic dialect (he lets Cairene apply for the whole of Egypt) that in a language without case endings (as in modern Egyptian) the subject has to be separated from the object by means of word order. The natural position of the subject is therefore in the front, before the predicate and the object. This order is, however, disrupted to a great extent in narrative style by another principle: when the verb carries the story further ahead, it tends to occupy the front position.236 For Palestine, Driver (1925) notices that the subject is usually preposed in a clause, but VS syntax is almost as common.237 Feghali (1928) asserts that Lebanese speakers to a very great extent differ from Classical Arabic through putting the subject before the verb. They share this feature with other modern Arabic dialects. They have undergone the same process as many modern languages, such as French; the subject is placed more and more before the verb until it is normally placed before it.238 Cowell (1964) concludes, concerning Syrian Arabic, that basic word order is usually VS when the subject is indefinite. For emphasis, however, even an indefinite noun may be preposed. If the subject is definite, word order is either VS or SV.239 Blau (1965) points to the breakdown in the case system in CA, as a decisive factor that affected word order in the Middle Arabic texts. The collapse was caused by the falling away of the short final vowels. As a consequence, a marked tendency to separate the subject and the object by means of fixed word order took place; the subject moved to a pre-verbal position, whereas the object followed. The classical VS order was, however, retained generally, except in "living speech" (I presume he refers to direct speech or dialogue). Blau mentions the widespread use of SV order with imperfect in wishes and curses 236

Spitta-Bey, Grammatik, ix, 400-401. Driver, Grammar, 169-170. 238 Feghali, Syntaxe, 116-117. 239 Cowell, Reference, 407-409. 237

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as a confirmation of the word-order change in living speech. There exist other indications "that a preverbal position has become a regular feature in JudaeoArabic". He declares that circumstantial clauses have been replaced by temporal clauses to some extent, and that this was due to the growing use of SV syntax, which meant that the differences between main and circumstantial clauses became blurred.240 Later (1982) he asserts that the preverbal position seems to be more common than the postverbal one in Middle Arabic.241 Blau stresses the importance of Middle Arabic as a link between Classical Arabic and modern Arabic.242 In that perspective it is easy to understand that these reflections by Blau, who is one of the leading Arabists, have been important in moulding the general opinion among Arabists concerning basic word order in the modern dialects. Having been informed about an increasing use of SV syntax in the Middle Arabic, one easily reaches the conclusion or agrees with the opinion that this change continued until a more dominating SV order had been established. Grotzfeld (1965) reckons VS to be the normal word order in Damascus Arabic. The subject comes first only for emphasis ("besonders hervorgehoben"). But when both the verb and the object are independent, word order is SVO.243 Abu-Haidar (1979) finds, for the Lebanese Baskinta dialect, SVO to be the normal order when both the subject and the object are independent, but V(O)S if the subject is independent and the object pronominal, as in Ex. 115 safu ?ibni. "My son saw him." Independent subject pronouns are used only for the purpose of stress; preposing of the subject means heaviest stress, according to Abu-Haidar: Ex. 116

A. ?iltilha. "I said to her."

B.?iltilha ?ana. "I said to her".

Blau, Emergence, 78-80. "'Blau, Neuarabisch, 102. M2

Blau, Emergence, 115. ^Grotzfeld, Grammatik, 95, 98.

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C. ?ana

"It was I who said to her.244

Parkinson (1981) says that all colloquials he is familiar with have an SVO basic word order (he does not specify which dialects he refers to). Word order is also relatively fixed.245 Versteegh (1984) mentions SVO in the modern dialects as one of the most important common deviations from the VSO order in Classical Arabic, as a result of a pidginization process he assumes took place, when all the new Muslims had to learn Arabic as a foreign language during the first Islamic era of rapid expansion. This pidginization process affected all modern dialects except Bedouin dialects.246 Versteegh (1984-88) also made a study of Uzbekistani Arabic. From a sample of 141 sentences with nominal subjects and objects, and verbs, he found SOV to be by far the most common ordering, and reckoned it as the basic word order. This was due to influence from the adstratal or substratal languages Uzbek and Tajik, and had evolved during a long period of time, where SVO probably was an intermediary stage in the process.247 Holes (1990) regards SVO as the normal word order in Educated Gulf Arabic.248 Jankowski (1991) studied the texts of McCarthy/Raffouli from Baghdad Arabic. He concluded that Iraqi Arabic has SVO in transitive sentences and SV in intransitive sentences as main word order. He refers to VS as an alternative to the intransitive SV order, but does not mention explicitly any alternative to SVO. He did not deliver any statistical support for his conclusion.249 Watson (1993) asserts that the indefinite subject generally follows the verb in SanTani. She follows traditional Arabic grammatical analysis in calling the clause with preposed subject a nominal clause, and a verbal clause when the subject follows the verb. She accounts for both variants in regard to definite subjects, but does not specify their relative frequency. Verbal clauses, however, often occur within narratives and tend to emphasize the sequentiality

244

Abu-Haidar, Study, 126. Parkinson, VSO to SVO, 25. 24 *Versteegh, Pidginization, 21, 79. 247 Versteegh, Word Order, 446-447, 452. 248 Holes, Gulf Arabic, 107. 249 Jankowski, Word Order, 109,112. We may mention that for the texts in question we found for the most basic sentence types in narrative discourse, i.e. instances in foreground with verbs in perfect and definite nouns as subjects, 50% with VS order and 50% with SV order in a sample of 207 instances. 245

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of events, while a nominal clause has the effect of detracting from the sequentiality of events, according to Watson.250 Ingham (1991 and 1994) points out that his data from Najd, Southern Iraq, Khuzistan and Qatar have not conclusively shown that any of those dialects is either VSO or SVO. But the VSO structure is definitely alive.251 Holes (1994) seems to have modified his position from the one in 1990. He asserts that there are word-order differences from one dialect to another. The word-order system of the Bedouin dialects of the eastern Arab world is more akin to that of CA: VSO is commonly employed where the predicate is "event-stating", but SVO tends to be used when the subject is definite and the predicate is descriptive of a state or circumstance. The usage concerns especially uneducated speakers. It occurs in all contexts, but in narratives "par excellence". In contrast with the Bedouin dialects, the urban dialects of the Levant (and elsewhere in the eastern Arab World where educated speakers influence the language) word order depends on a combination of syntactic, rhythmic and semantic factors. For Damascus, which he considers "not untypical" of the Levant region as a whole, Holes notes three factors that determine word order. In descending order they "seem to be": I Definiteness. VSO is the norm when S is indefinite. II Predicate type, transitivity and aspect. If the subject is a definite nominal and the verb describes an action rather than a state and is in perfect tense, then VSO order is more likely. But if V describes a state, or a habitual or continuing action, SVO is more likely to surface. HI Weight of S. Following Cowell, Holes regards "heavy subjects", whether definite or not, as tending to precede the verb. The "heaviness" consists in the length of the subject phrase, but if the object has only one lexical item, two may be enough for the subject to be regarded as "heavy" as in the following example. Ex. 117 laz?a barde bathaffef 'l-waza?. "A cold compress will relieve the pain". 252

250

Watson, Syntax, 97, 114-115, 118-119. Ingham, Khuzistani Arabic, 715. Ingham, Najdi Arabic, 38. 252 Holes, Arabic, 210-211. Cowell, Grammar, 409-410.

251

118

Holes also states that "urban" dialects, such as Cairene and Damascene, have SVCOMP (SVO) as the "normal order for all types of messages".253

8.1 Summary The statements that have been reviewed here are to a great extent conflicting. Most of them favors SVO as basic word order. Dialectologists, however, seem to be more open to VS as, at least, an ordering as common as SV. All statements are, however, built on impressions. Since neither any work with questionnaires, nor an empirical investigation, has been done yet on such a crucial subject as basic word order, we find it of urgent importance for Arabic linguistics that a proper investigation will be performed in this field.

253

Holes, Arabic, p. 210-211

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CHAPTER 9.

The Present Investigation of MCA and Early Arabic The Methodology 9.1 Summary of important concepts The concept of language as a tool for communication is an important one. This is reflected on the third level in the syntax of a language, according to the scheme that was put forward by Danes (sec. 3.4). On this level the speaker makes his pragmatic choices through controlling the flow of given ("old") and new information, guided by the aim of delivering the message - or information - in the most efficient way. By sometimes changing the flow, i.e. making marked constructions, one aims at heightening the attention of the listener, in order that no essential pieces of information will escape him. The key elements on the third level are the topic, focus, theme and rheme. "Topic" belongs to the given information: what is known before from the actual discourse, or the discourse context, or the culturally shared general information (the "generic" information). The "focus " in a sentence will be where the crucial, or most important, piece of new information about the topic is vested (sec. 3.5.1). "Theme" is the element about which something is said in the sentence, the starting-point for making a proposition. "Rheme" is what the speaker says about the theme (sec. 3.2). Most of the concepts in this area have unfortunately been used with different meanings. We recall that already Mathesius provided a twofold definition of the theme. The work of Halliday was helpful in that respect. He pointed to the difference between information structure and thematic structure. To the former concept belongs the distinction between new and old information; to the latter, the distinction between what is spoken about in a sentence ("theme" in Mathesius' wording) and what is said about that element ("comment"). It appears appropriate to employ the terms theme and rheme for the thematic structure, and topic and focus for the information structure. A term like "discourse topic" would then more accurately be referred to as discourse theme. By "thematization" we will refer to the moving of a definite constituent, which most often is a subject or object, from its ordinary place

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in the sentence to a place where its function as theme and starting-point for making a proposition is more emphasized. It is also important to differentiate between marked and unmarked uses. Every language probably has an unmarked, or "ordinary", most common way of reflecting the thematic and the information structures. In the same way probably every language has a marked, less common way of expressing the structures. These are grammatically correct constructions, which a speaker (or writer) is free to employ whenever he wants to heighten the attention of the listener or reader, and mark for the receiver what he should not fail to notice. They are language-specific constructions, which have to be determined for each language. The difference between marked and unmarked constructions is also crucial when one is to specify the basic word order of a language. We saw that there is a universal tendency, according to Hopper, to arrange a narrative discourse into foreground and background information. Foreground refers to information that comes in sequence: what chronologically comes next after the preceding foreground information or the initial information in a discourse. Background refers to all other cases: events and states that are concurrent with the actual foreground, preceding it or occurring out of sequence in the future. Sometimes, at the height or climax of the story, the peak phenomenon takes place. Then the ordinary arrangement of the discourse is distorted, and there may occur aberrations in the ordinary syntax and the TAM system. Repetitions and prolonged descriptions are other devices for marking the peak.

9.2 Investigated areas The material for this investigation will be most of the texts that are available on Modern Colloquial Arabic (MCA), with an emphasis on modern publications, and one important classic text.254 The ambition is not necessarily to cover all the texts, but to use corpuses that are big enough to make acceptable statistical claims. How big such a corpus would need to be was of course hard to specify from the outset, but at least a few hundred pages were considered to be a minimum prerequisite. That condition excluded many areas where MCA is spoken today, e.g. North Africa, Sudan, Uzbekistarii Arabic and Yemeni Arabic. Maltese has a wealth of written material, which reflects its speech fairly well. However, we have refrained from studying it, partly since its type is quite different from the other dialects that were chosen, partly since we realized it would take us beyond the scope of our time limit. For modern Arabic we have considered it feasible to study the following areas:

254

A more detailed account of the material will follow later on.

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1. i)255 Eastern Mediterranean The Eastern Mediterranean area includes Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria; in the following we will refer to this area as EMMA (Eastern Mediterranean Modern Arabic). The dialects in this group are all of the Hadari type, i.e. sedentary dialects, the dialects of the villages and the towns. From Jordan, Palestine and Syria texts of Bedouin speech have been studied, but these have been assigned to a separate group. 2. Mesopotamia Blanc defines the Mesopotamian dialect area as the area that stretches from the Persian Gulf along and between the Tigris and the Euphrates nearly up to the very sources of the two rivers on the Anatolian plateau. Within this area two main dialect types are to be found: gilit and qdltu dialects. The former are spoken by sedentary and non-sedentary Muslims of Lower Iraq, and by nonsedentaries in the rest of the area. The latter dialect group is represented by the non-Muslim population of Lower Iraq and the sedentary Muslim and nonMuslim of the rest of the area. The situation can be summarized as follows:256

Lower Iraq Upper Iraq Anatolia

Muslim (non-sed.) gilit gilit gilit

Non-Muslim (sed.) gilit qdltu qdltu

qdltu qdltu qdltu

The Mesopotamian area has been divided in our investigation into the following three areas:

ii) Anatolia Besides the south-eastern part of Turkey this area also includes Upper Iraq. The criteria for delimiting this area have been areas where other languages (mainly Kurdish) are likely to affect the spoken Arabic language. So the southern limit for this area is where the Kurdish-dominated territory in Iraq leaves place for a predominant Arabic one.

255

The Roman figures refer to the division of the material in our investigation, which is the basis for presenting the results in the tables. 256 Blanc, Dialects, 5-6.

123

iii) Qaltu This group concerns the Qaltu dialects south of Anatolia. Blanc thinks it likely that dialects of the Qaltu type are spoken by old sedentary populations only: Muslims and non-Muslims in Upper Iraq and Anatolia, and only nonMuslims in Lower Iraq. Both the Jewish and Christian Baghdadi dialects are probably direct descendants of dialects spoken by the urban Muslim and nonMuslim population of Abbasid Iraq. It is problematic, however, if the two dialects in question continue older dialects of Baghdad itself, or if influence from the north has spread down to Baghdad. Blanc considers the latter possible for Christians because of the immigration of Christians from the north, but there are no indications of northern influence on the Jewish Baghdadi dialect.257

iv) Gilit According to Blanc gilit dialects are spoken by semi-sedentary and recently sedentarized populations in the whole area; in Lower Iraq also by Muslim sedentaries.258 3. v) Egypt The texts from Egypt are surprisingly sparse. We have restricted our study on this dialect area to Lower Egypt, with some Cairene texts and some from the eastern Delta area. The Delta area may actually be considered to constitute the border area between Eastern and Western Arabic dialects, a division that concerns both sedentary and Bedouin dialects. The division is reflected in the different forms of the first person singular and first person plural of the imperfect in the Delta dialects: ?aktib-niktib, ?aktib-niktibu and niktib-niktibu, where the former is typically eastern and the latter typically western.259 In our investigation all the texts represent Eastern Arabic; the Cairene material represents the extreme eastern end. The texts from Egypt have been divided into three groups: three modern literary Cairene texts (i), one older, dictated, Cairene text (ii) and one modern text from the eastern Delta area (iii). 4. vi) Bedouins One important and accepted classification of Arabic dialects is that refeerring to nomads and sedentaries, according to Rosenhouse. According to Versteegh, in his hypothesis on pidginization of Arabic in the early days of Islam, all modern Arabic dialects, except the Bedouin dialects, have undergone changes 257

Blanc, Dialects, 160, 166-167. Blanc, Dialects, 160. 259 Rosenhouse, Dialects, 6. 258

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due to influence from other contact languages.260 In our investigation we have treated Bedouin Arabic from Sinai to Khuzistan (including the Arabian Peninsula) as one entity. This means that only the Eastern type of Bedouin speech is dealt with. The Bedouin dialects of the Arabian Peninsula have been divided into four major dialect groups according to the present linguistic situation: (i) North Arabian; (ii) Higazi; (iii) South-West Arabian (Yemen, ?Aden, Hadramawt and Dofar); (iv) ?Oman. Only texts from North Arabian have been studied in our investigation, since there is too little up-to-date material from the other groups. For North Arabian, Rosenhouse (following Cantineau) gives the following classification: (A) TAnaze dialects; (B) Shammar dialects (these two groups mainly rear camels); (C) Syro-Mesopotamian dialects (mainly sheep-herders).261 The dialects of the Sinai-Negev area are possibly to be regarded as a subgroup midway between Eastern and Western Bedouin Arabic. That type is, according Rosenhouse, entirely different from the other Eastern dialects; they do not, for instance, have the affrication of Classical Arabic kafand qaf.262

5. vii) Early Arabic For early written Arabic we have chosen the biography of the Prophet by Ibn Ishaq. The choice has been directed by the aim of using a corpus which reflects a language that is unaffected by that normative system which is called Classical Arabic. Under such conditions a writer would be more unrestrained in making pragmatic variations. We have considered the biography of the Prophet by Muhammad Ibn Ishaq to be useful, with regard to both its size and the fact that it belongs to the pre-classic period. The standardized language clearly appears in texts written in the second half of the eighth century AD. The biography of Ibn Ishaq (d. 151/768) contains many pre-classic traits, whereas very few can be found in the prose of Abu Mihnaf (d. 157/774). It is noteworthy that the oldest comprehensive grammar was Kitab, "book", by the Persian Slbawaih (d. 177/793), which probably appeared after the book of Ibn Ishaq.263 Ibn Ishaq's original is unfortunately lost. It is referred to by Arabic authors as "The Book of Campaigns", or "The Book of the Campaigns and (the Prophet's) Biography", or "The Book of Biography and the Beginning and the Campaigns".264 Ibn Ishaq composed his biography for the second ?Abbasid

260

Versteegh, Pidginization, 79. Rosenhouse, Dialects, 1-5. 262 Rosenhouse, Dialects, 5,7. ^Fischer, Altarabische, 37-38, 44. ^Guillaume, Life, xvii. 261

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Caliph, Abu Ja?far al-Mansur, whom Ibn Ishaq met in al-Hlra.265 The perished original had three divisions: ancient legends, Muhammad's early life and mission, and his wars. The first part, the Mubtada?, starts with the Creation, and continues with the history from Adam to Jesus, for which Ibn Ishaq had Jewish and Christian informants, and the South Arabian historian Abu TAbdullah Wahb b. Munabbih (d. probably either 110/728 or 11.4/732, according to Khoury), who wrote Qisasu l-?Anbiya?, known as K. al-Mubtada? and also al-lsra?iliyat. From the latter work Ibn Ishaq also retained some South Arabian legends. The reason for that was probably his southern origin, which he shared with the other Ansar in Medina, and, accordingly, his desire to boost the prestige of the southerners in the face of the northerners' claim to superiority. The second section, often called al-Mab?at, begins with the birth of the Prophet and ends when the first fighting in Medina takes place. The stories in this section give the impression of hazy memories, and the language lacks its original freshness with vivid and dramatic details, which otherwise characterize the Magazi stories. This section contains many legends and stories of miraculous events which inevitably undermine the modern reader's confidence in the history of this period as a whole. The third section deals with the following Medinan period to the death of the Prophet. In contrast with the second period the events during the Medinan period are well documented, and the material is chronologically arranged.266 The book is to be regarded as one of the authorities on the life of the Prophet, and has been the most influential.267 No single work contains the complete biography of Ibn Ishaq. There are twelve different writers from which parts of the original can be recovered. The first part is found in the Tafsir and the History of Tabarl, who is by far the most important of the twelve. Most of the work is, however, found in Slrat Muhammad Rasul Allah by Ibn Hisam (d. 218/833). In his recension of Ishaq's biography, he added some explanatory notes. He also left out the stories from the period before Abraham, and started with Abraham, the presumed ancestor of Muhammad. Even for the latter periods there are sections not included in the edition of Ibn Hisam, but it has not been clarified whether he 265

Dunlop, Civilization, 72. Guillaume, Life, xvii-xix. Khoury, Wahb, 198. 67 Dunlop, Civilization, 72. Apart from the Qur?an itself and the voluminous Hadlt literature, the writings of al-Waqidl (d. 207/823) and especially that of his pupil Ibn SaTd (d. 230/845) represent another important strand of traditions about the life of the Prophet and the early days of Islam. From the former the Kitab al-Magazl (Book of the Raids) has survived. It offers an account of the military expeditions of Muhammad, and is an important complement for that period to the work of Ibn Ishaq (ibid. 73).

266

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is responsible for the omissions. As a man of southern descent he retained some of the stories of the old South Arabian kings.268 An edition where all the parts from the original that can be recovered are included is still wanting. The edition of Wustenfeld (1858-60) has been considered the most convenient to use for our purposes. It is an edition of Ibn Hisam's Sirah.

9.3 The texts Our investigation includes the following texts for the study of Modern Colloquial Arabic.269

Year

Geographical origin of publ.

Abu-Haidar: Baskinta Aro: Zreriyye Fleisch: Etudes Jiha: Bismizzin

1979 1978 1974 1964

Lebanon, Village Lebanon, Village Lebanon, Village Lebanon, Village

Syria Behnstedt: Soukhne270 Bloch/Grotzfeld: Damaszenisch Grotzfeld: Syrisch-arabisch Jastrow/Kazzarah: Aleppinisch I Jastrow/Kazzarah: Aleppinisch II Lewin: Hama Lewin: Cabali Sabuni: Aleppo

1994 1964 1965 1980 1984 1966 1969 1980

Syria, Syria, Syria, Syria, Syria, Syria, Syria, Syria,

Abbreviated title A. Eastern Mediterranean Lebanon

268

Town. Town. Town. Town. Town. Town. Village. Town.

Guillaume, Life, xvii-xviii, xxxi. Watt, Muhammad, xii. For a more detailed classification into composed, dictated and recorded texts, see Retso, Voice, 13-18. 27U Only pp. 242-376, since I got his works in the end of the investigation, and since the corpus from Syria already was large.

269

127

Abbreviated title

Year

Geographical origin of publ.

1953 1922 1975 1965 1979-80

Palestine, Druze. Palestine.Town.(Dictated)271 Palestine, Village. Palestine, Village. Palestine, Town.

1960 1969 1969 1970 1992

Transjordan, Transjordan, Transjordan, Transjordan, Transjordan,

1973 1975 1981 1990 1993 1971

Anatolia, Village. Anatolia, Village. Anatolia, Town/Village. Iraq North, Town. Iraq North, Village. Anatolia, Village(s).

1991 1992 1979 1981 1991

Baghdad, Christian. Syria East, Village. Iraq North, Town. Syria East, Town. Baghdad, Jewish.

Palestine Blanc: North Palestinian Littman: Jager und Prinzessin Obler: Reflexes Palva: Lower Galilean Salonen: Gaza 1-2

Jordan Czapkiewicz: Madaba Palva: Balgawi 1 - Madaba Palva: Balgawi 2 - Yigul-group Palva: Balgawi 3 - Safut Palva: Artistic colloquial272

Village. Village. Village. Village. Village.

B. Anatolia Jastrow: Daragbzii Jastrow: Schatz ... Mhallamlye Jastrow, Qaltu Jastrow: TAqra und Arbll Jastrow: Sandor Sasse: Mhallamiye

C. Qaltu Abu-Haidar, Baghdad Behnstedt, Qaltu in Ost-Syrien Jastrow: Mossul Jastrow: Qaltu II - Der iz-Zor Mansour: Judaeo-Arabic

271,

This text, which is from Jerusalem, was chosen only because the material from Palestine was sparse compared to that of Lebanon and Syria. 272 This book contains a collection of Bedouin poems and narratives that give the background to the stories. Since the material is presented by a Christian villager we gather that the narrative parts basically are retold in the local dialect, whereas the memorized poetry is of more genuine Bedouin character. The accounts of Palva of the linguistic traits in the different types of discourses corroborates this conclusion (cfr. Colloquial, 7-10, 114-135, 147-148).

128

Abbreviated title

Year

Geographical origin of publ.

1966 1965 1906 1980 1930

Iraq South, Village. Town. Baghdad, Moslem.273 Iraq South, Village. (Diet.) Iraq, Town. Iraq South, Village. (Diet.)

D. Gilit Denz/Edzard, Iraq-arabische McCarthy/Raffouli: Baghdad II Meissner: Neuarabisch Salonen: Sirqat WeiBbach, Beitrage

E. Egypt i) Hassan : In-nas wal-malik Hassan: ?Agrab fi-balad-hum Nakano: Folktales ii) Spitta: Grammatik iii) Abul-Fadl: Sarqiyya

1971 1981 1982 1880 1961

Cairo. (Probably composed) Cairo. (Composed) Lower Egypt.274 Cairo. (Dictated) NE Delta.

Ingham: North East Arabian

1980

Ingham: Bedouin Ingham: Najdi Arabic Kurpershoek: Oral Poetry Landberg: ?Anaze Montagne: Contes Palva: ?Agarma Palva: Hesban Rosenhouse: ?Aramsa Rosenhouse: North Israel Sowayan: Arabian Stewart: Bedouin Narrative Stewart: Sinai Bedouin Law Wetzstein: Sprachliches

1986 1994 1994 1919 1937 1976 1978 1983 1984 1992 1987 1990 1868

Arabia North East, Iraq South. Khuzistan. Arabia North. Daflr. Arabia Central, various tribes. Central Arabia, Duwasir. Syria, ? Anazeh. (Dictated) Northern Arabia. (Dictated) Transjordan, TAgarma. Transjordan, SAgarma. Palestine, TAramsa. Palestine, various tribes. Arabia North, Sammar. Sinai Central, Ahaywat Sinai Central, Ahaywat. Syrian desert. (Dictated)

F. Bedouins

273

The narrative texts were recorded, but the descriptive texts and the dialogues were composed. 274 The texts are from a sole narrator, Mr. Muhammad Sayf ed-Din, who retold stories he heard in his childhood from his grandmother. He was brought up in Minyit in-Nasr, near Mansura, which is situated 130 km north of Cairo. He received twelve years' education in Minyit in-Nasr, and after that four years' university education in Cairo.

129

G. Early Arabic Ibnlshaq: Life of the Prophet appr. 760

^ i-

9.4 Scope

!

4;

-

The area studied for Modem Colloquial Arabic comprises a square-like area with each side approximately 1200 km, with its comers at (or near) Mekka, Kairo, Diyarbakir and Ahwaz in Khuzistan. This area is also a good approximation to what most Arabists would call the heartlands of the Arabic language; it corresponds to a large degree with the extension of the Arabic language on the eve of the Islamic conquests; the Eastern Mediterranean area, however, where Aramaic was spoken, is one important exception.275 Concerning the types of texts, we have chosen to study narratives primarily, and dialogues and descriptive texts secondarily. These three types of discourses cover nearly all (maybe 95%) of our texts on Modem Colloquial Arabic (not counting poetry). Concerning dialogue we should be aware that in most cases they do not reflect live speech directly, in contrast with narrative and description. Dialogue material very often appears as direct speech in narratives, and is accordingly spoken (by the narrator) composed dialogue. Since it is a natural discourse for all narrators, we can assume, however, that they relate the dialogue material in a way that is fairly close to real dialogues. Approximately 22 900 phrases with at least one independent subject and one verb have been collected into a database; 3970 of these are instances from Early Arabic. 3300 clauses with objects are also included in the total number. From the preceding it should be clear that in terms of different types of Arabic we do not investigate basic word order in Classical Arabic, Middle Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic - as a necessary delimitation of the scope of our study. 9.5 Initial analytic procedure 9.5.1 The subject The notion of subject has been a very involved one in modem linguistics.276 In Arabic it appears to be less of a problem; we simply define the subject as the element in the sentence which determines the agreement of the verb. In the following we will present the method which has been used for determining basic word order. The first condition for doing so is that there occur independent subjects. These are nouns or different types of unbounded or separaHoles, Arabic, 16. Map of the linguistic situation on the eve of the Islamic conquests. 276 Cf. Comrie, Language Universal, 104-123; Keenan, Definition, 303-333.

130

te pronouns. In the following they will be referred to as nominal phrases (NPs). Since these are not necessary in Arabic to the same extent as in many European languages, we want to know when independent subjects appear in Arabic. So we start by marking out those instances in the following text in the material from Lebanon. mawt VmTallem Butros. l.kcenjmtros rcekeb tad-dcebe w-rayeh hatta y3s?ly-a mnal-?ayn. 2 . ?ab3l ma yusal netfe zgire ?eza kalb sz-zlran u-sar ihus ?alay. 3. sar i?3llo butros. ruh man hawn u-yad 3rbo bal-?asa hatta iruh, 4. ma kans ifall hatta zaflet "d-doebe zaflet u-?azet la-tahrob. 5. sart atfazz si menfaw? si man tah"t. wuslet la-hadd hazar 'kblre w-fazzet ?an-a bal-faJle. 6. wa??a?atto la-butws ?ala l-?ard, yd. haram, ?9Zfl raso ?ala sahra kblre w-fawwar had-damm man mso. 7. ma kans fi liada hatta yizi ysatdo, hatta yizi yhallso w-ya?mallo forho. 8. damm matraho hatta sqffa dammo, ba?°d sa?atceyn tlCete keen man ?cehl al-bale, meet butros, 9. ?azu han-nces u-gamma?u ?alay hatta isufu su sar. 10. la?yu mfammed, hamlu w-?ahadu ?al-bceyt uballasu ban-nadb u-ballasu bal-?awlt u-ballasu bas-sarifi. 11. marto tahlos safra u-wl&do ysbku w-kallieton ihabbtu hcelon. 12. ba?den ?afiadu la-butros ?al-kriise, zannazu w-ba?ad man-a ?ahadu ?al-ma?bara u-?abaru, 13 ?dlld yarhamo, mat mawte snfta l-maiallem butros.111

The Death of the Master Peter 1. Peter was riding on his beast of burden as he was going to give it a drink at the well. 2. Just a moment before he arrived the neighbours' dog came and started to bark at him. 3. Peter said to it: "Get away from here!" and he beat it with a stick so that it would go away. 4. It didn't leave, so the beast got frightened; it got frightened and wanted to flee. 5. It began to kick recklessly and jump up and down. She got close to a big rock and jumped a high jump away from it. 6. She threw Peter to the ground; what a calamity! His head hit the big rock and his blood gushed forth from his head. 7. There was nobody who could come and help him, who could come and rescue and treat his wound. 8. He remained at the spot until

277

Fleisch, Etudes, 177.

131

finally all his blood was shed; after two, three hours he was among the people of destruction; he died, Peter. 9. People came and gathered around him to see what had happened. 10. They found him stiffened, they carried him, took him home and started lamenting, screaming and

crying. 11. His wife tore her hair, his children were crying and everybody beat himself. 12. Then they took Peter to the church, made a funeral for him. After that they took him to the ceme-

tery and buried him. 13. May God have mercy upon him! He died an awful death, the master Peter. (Our translation) When we study the instances of the NPs, it becomes clear that nearly all of them occur when there is a change of topic. In this text all these topics are also subjects, which is the most common feature. In the language of Giv6n (p. 56) we could say that they are used most commonly in connection with the opening of a new file. It will then serve as the label on that file, under which information about the subject, or topic, can be stored with minimal coding, i.e. without an NP. It is also interesting to see how some of the topics, e.g. the dog, the wife and the children, appear as definites, the first time they appear in the story, as in the scenario technique (p. 57-58), although it could not be taken for granted that the neighbours had a dog, and that Peter had a wife and children. The following diagram visualizes how the information with the topics as labels for the different files is stored in the memory.

132

File: 1 Phrase 1 keen bufros rcekeb 2 w-rayeh hatta y3s?lya 4 1 ma kans ifell 2 3 4 5 6 7 File: 7 Phrase 1 wa fawwar haddamm 2

2

3

?eza kalb sz-ziran u-sar ihus ?alay

sari?BlloJmtros "* u-ydd3rbo bal?asa 6 ?9za raso ?ala sahra

5 hatta Z3flet 'ddcebe zsflet u-?azet la-tdhrob sart dtfazz wuslet la-hadd hazar w-fazzet ?an-a wa??a?9tto la-bu(ros 8 9 ma kans ft hada

damm mafraho keen man ?cehl al bale mc&t bufros

11

12

marto tahlos sa?ra

u-wlado yabku

14

15

3 File: 10 Phrase 1 ?agu hannces 2 u-dzamma?u ?alay 3 la?yu m zammed 4 hamla 5 w-?aljadu ?al-bceyt 6 u-ballasu bal-?awlt 7 u-ballasu bassarifi File: 13 Phrase 1 w-kallyaton ihabbtu 2 baTden ahadu 3 zannazu 4 ahadu ?al-ma?bara 5 u-?abaru

?alld yarhamo

mCet mawte snl?a l-ma?allem bufros

Diagram 11 "File-presentation" of a Lebanese story

"'imperatives are not considered, since they do not have independent subjects.

133

We notice that in only one case there occurs an independent subject which is not at the same time due to topic-shift, namely meet butros (file 9). It occurs at the peak of the story, which leads us to conclude that NPs which are not occurring as topic-shifts may be one of the several devices for marking the peak in a story. The peak is skillfully marked here by prolonging the telling of Peter's death, and by putting a full NP at the end of the file: damm matraho hatta saffa dammo, ba?"d scefatceyn tldete keen man ?cehl dl—bale, meet butros. We notice also that two files of fifteen lack NPs. When the new referent/subject is easily retrievable from the discourse there is obviously no need for an NP. From this example we can infer that change in topics generally is a prerequisite for subject NPs, from which we may determine basic word order. Independent subjects may also occur for the sake of emphasis, as we noticed in file 9 in the preceding diagram, but are less common.279 This also fits the following hierarchy on the Topic Continuity Scale presented by Givon (1983), where we can equate "discontinuous" and topic-shift.280

Ex. 118 more continuous/accessible topics zero anaphora unstressed/bound pronouns ("agreement") stressed/independent pronouns full NPs more discontinuous/inaccessible topics

VS vs. SV order Now we can study the word order of the marked instances and try to find out in what context(s) different word orders may occur.

279

In Genesis, in the Hebrew Bible, Chapter 1 there is a repeated use of an NP, although only one subject is present. The reason is that it is not an ordinary narrative, or that the Almighty is too important a subject to be referred to only once with an NP — or both reasons may apply. Theoretically there can be a whole narrative with only one subject, and accordingly only one instance of an independent subject. "" Continuity, 18.

134

VS

sv

vs

1. ?eza kcelb azzlran 2. sar i?dllo butros 3. hatta idflet 'ddabe 4. ?3za raso ?ala sahra 5. wafawwar haddamm 6. meet butros 7. ?3zu hannces 8. marto tahlos sa?ra 9. u-wlcedo ydbku 10. w-k.3llyceton ih&bbtu hcelon 11. meet mawte ml? a l-ma?allem

VS

vs vs vs vs vs

vs

svo sv svo

We notice that all VS instances are in connection with the suffixconjugation, the Arabic perfect. All of them have punctual aspect, except one (no. 2), which has ingressive aspect. The three instances with SV order are all in imperfect. Since punctual aspect usually is connected with foreground (Table 1, p. 72), we suspect these are especially connected with foreground. A closer study of all the instances in perfect reveals that all except one (no. 11) follow the preceding in chronological sequence, which is the chief characteristic of the foreground. The last example is out of sequence, but is a summary of the whole story, and one could probably therefore say that the foregroundAbackground distinction does not apply to instances in that context. The three SV instances are all out of sequence with the preceding; they are only expansions of what has already been said. They belong, accordingly, to the background. 9.5.2 The foreground/background distinction The material shows a distinct tendency, which makes us eager to apply the foreground/background distinction to another text. The fact that Early Biblical Hebrew made this distinction with VSO in foreground and SVO order in background is a further incentive to proceed along these lines.281 The following example is from Lebanon and the village of el-Khanchara.282 Independent subjects are marked with bold type in the narrative material.

281'Cf.

Eskhult, Studies, 35-36; Longacre, Grammar, 17; and Niccacci, Syntax, 20, 29-41. ^Fleisch, itudes, 151-152.

135

El-Khanchara. l.Pabuna badde Pahkllkon ?ossd zglre, tab?an hiyye ma baddahhek ktlr, bass btafrfu bceyn 3d-diya? masalan hansara ?anna u-btagrln, haddna btagrln mannas bTide ktir, bihabbo yhabbru hayked ?ahbar Tan ba?don, misen i?arr?o tab?an sway. 2. fi masalan (?all)2S3marra tale? 'l-mutran m, ?and al-btagrlniyye, tab?an man zaman, halla?ne haliyyan ma batslr hayde, bass su? baddu yestaTblo hanne. woslo hayked: 3. ?ahla u-sahla sayyedna ?ahla u-sahla hal-frode talTab, hal-?w B. Anatolia Text/Subj. ha + def. n. Total EMMA: def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n. Total

FOREGROUND

vs

%

3

BACKGROUND

VS

sv

%

0

0

SV

%

0

97

65

52

35

5

21

19

79

912 121 61 243 85

87 63 100 66 79

131 70 0 125 22

13 37 0 34 21

61 9 2 7 8

42 12

58 88

10 53

84 65 2 65 7

1422

80

348

20

87

28

223

72

Jas. Juden Jas. Daragozii Jas. QEItu Jas. Schatz Jas. SendOr Sas. Konig def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n.

19 1 65 1 1 12 73 12 2 11 1

Total

99

28 13 17 23

40 12 224 13 15 20 186 83 1 54 0 324

72 87 83 77

4 0 10 0 1 2 16 1 0 0 0 17

19 2 0 11

23 6 79 4 16 6 68 41 0 24 1 134

90 47

81 98

100 89

C. Qaltu Abu Christian

5 2 3 28 74

def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n.

97 3 3 7 2

75 21

112

63

Total

1 0 0 2 16

1 0 0 3 61

Beh. Qdllu Jas. Mossul Jas. Qaltu II: Der iz-Z. Man. Jewish

25

33 11 0 21 0

25 79

65

37

75

0 2 3 2 49

15 1 2 1 0

28

19

25

7

39 4 0 13 0

72

56

75

93

D. Gilit 3 6 1 4 6

Den/Edz./ra E Egypt Text/Subj.

FOREGROUND % VS SV

i) Has. ?Agrab Has. In-nas Nak. Folktales

42 260 63

def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. Total

356 3 3 3 365

40 27

ii) SplGrammatik def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. Total

202 26 2 1 231

87 57

iii) Abul-F. Volte def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. Total

53 18 2 1 74

72 62

%

81

68

E. Bedouins Text/Subj. Ing. Bedouin Ing. Najdi Arabic Ing. North East Kurp. Oral Land. Langue Mon. Comes Pal. 3l-?Agarma Pal. Hesban Ros. TArOmsha Ros. Bedouin Sow. Arabian Ste. Bedouin Ste. Texts Wet. Sprachliches

30 1 39 15 122 104 14 31 10 88 88 32 140 87

def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n.

696 84 33 43 31 100 31 33 10 100

Total

801

531 8 0 3 542

60 73

31 20 1 3 55

13 43

21 11 1 2 35

28 38

60

19

32

77

135 43 0 63 0 241

21 0 1 0 22

14 0

5 0 0 0 5

42 0

4 2 0 0 6

31

14

19

26

3 0 4 2 3 4 0 1 3 8 15 7 6 6

5 0 21 1 16 48 6 14 5 34 19 26 41 5 16 57 0 67 0 23

231

56 4 1 1 0 62

SV

%

32 88 15

2 14 6

55 402 85

40

BACKGROUND % VS

127 86 7 100 0 1 135 86

7 58 14 100 0 0 21 81

9 6 0 2 17

69

74

4 0 6 1 11 10 10 6 1 22 13 21 26 4 38 14 5 31

91 24 0 20 0 135

62 86 95 69

Table 5B )$>

All imperfects. Definite subjects.! A. EMMA Subject def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n.

FOREGROUND VS % 89 85 9 36 2 14 56 9 69

Total

123

def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n.

4 0 0 4 0

Total

8

SV

% 15 64

16 16 0 11 4

44 31

72

47

28

9 0

40 11 0 7 0

91 100

58

88

BACKGROUND VS % 30 27 8 14 9 90 9 7 8 28 62

22

SV 82 51 1 68 21

% 68 86 10 91 72

223

78

41 24 2 16 1

93 96

84

94

B. Anatolia

36 12

64

94

C. Qaltu

def. n. pers. pr. dem. pr. Total

6 0 2 8

22 0 12 14

21 78 12 100 15 88 48 86

10 0 0 0 10

24 0

31 76 17 100 0 4 52 84

10 1 1 0 12

12 8

D. Gilit

def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. Total E. Egypt (i) def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. Total ii) Spitta, Grammatik def. n. ill) Abul-Fadl, Texle def. n. F. Bedouins def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n. Total

12 0 2 3 17

80 0

3 6 0 1 10

20 100

11 1 0 0 12

37

19 3 0 0

63

35

22

65

12 100

0

0

63

37

16

12

3

93 4 2 2 0 101

70 2 11 26

40 225 0 17 0 282

30 98 89 74

51 3 1 0 1

46 5

56

28

0

73 11 0 3 87

88 92

12

100

88

61 54 58 95 1 22 100 3 145

1 For imperfect we present only definite subjects in a table, since indefinite subjects in imper-fect were too few. We may mention, however, that Bedouins had 8 instances in foreground, and all of them were of VS order.

'232

72

Table Relative distribution of independent subjects. Foreground. Perfect. Lebanon

Syria

Subject def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n.

X

X

218 63 15 33 23

% 62 18 4 9 7

Total

352

100

972

516 79 42 263 72

Gilit % S3 8 4 27 7 992

X 996 56 18 52 1 1123

Egypt % 89 5 2 5 0

X 887 11 3 6 0

% 98 1 0 1 0

101

907

100

Table 7 K>

Indefinite

subjects

A. EMMA Perfect indef. n. indef. pr. All imperfects indef. n. indef. pr. B. Anatolia. All perfects. indef. n. indef. pr. All imperfects indef. n. indef. pr. C. Qaltu. Perfect indef. n. indef. pr.

BACKGROUND VS % SV

FOREGROUND VS % sv 117 42

96 68

5 20

13 4

93

1 0

48 14

71 45

20 17

4 32

29 55

2 0

5 0

15 3

60 10

10 26

40 90

6 2

43 6

8 30

57 94

12 3

48 11

13 25

52 89

1 0

0

4 11 100

35 10

95 67

2 5

5 33

5 2

80

20

D. Gilit. Perfect indef. n. indef. pr.

53 27

83 48

11 29

17 52

3 2

18

82

E. Egypt, (i). Perfect. indef. n. indef. pr.

23 3

77 30

23 70

2 0

ii) Spi. Crammatik. Perfect indef. n. 18 indef. pr. 8

95

8 0

73 0

3 27 12 100

4 3

36 16

7 16

F. Bedouins. Perfect. indef. n. indef. pr. All imperfects. indef. n. indef. pr.

0 0

37 17

97 49

1 18

9 7

100

0 2

3 51

2 Deviations from a total of 100 are due to round-offs. ,233

64 84

Table 8 The Topicality Hierarchy. Existential

A.EMMA

3

X

%VS

Perfect Foreground 34 100 Background Imperfect Foreground Background 4 100 B. Anatolia. (All) Perfect(s) Foreground Background 48 65 All imperfects Foreground Background 6 50 C. Qaltu. Perfect Foreground Background

12

100

All imperfects Foreground Background D. Gilit. Perfect Foreground Background 13 100 All imperfects Foreground Background E. Egypt, (i). Perfect Foreground Background All imperfects Foreground Background ii) Spi. Grammatik. Perfect Foreground Background F. Bedouins. Perfect Foreground Background 6 100 All imperfects Foreground Background 1

Indefinite

Definite

I

%VS

I

122 25

96 60

1043 145

87 42

192 74

14 14

93 43

105 112

85 27

68 25

71 48

259 84

7 5

71 20

37 7

95 71

0 1 64 3

83

0 2 30 3

77

2 4

Anaphoric

pronoun

Pers. pr.

Dem. pr.

X

%VS

64 12

368 72

66 10

25 51

36 14

25 75

56 9

28 16

95 42

13 2

65 24

17 0

44 44

9 7

11 25

0 4

11 17

36 6

130 54

75 28

14 5

21 20

28 14

25 7

1 27

22

0 12

0

0 17

12

996 80

75 22

56 30

27 7

52 11

15 0

15 41

80 24

6 17

0 0

4 4

887 148

40 14

11 7

27 0

6 1

30 83

37 12

4 12

8

0 3

%VS

1ZoVS

I

50

19 0

95

233 12

87 42

46 14

57 0

4 0

38 11

97 73

831 147

84 38

6 28

43 14

94 21

33 5

9 11

100 36

133 112

70 46

229 61

2 5

19 22

11 0

Total number of instances in the sample in question (with both VS and SV order).

234

Table 9A ft> Objects. Definite subjects. Perfect VSO Od Oi A. EMMA. Foreground All def. subj. 18 6 Total 24 Background All def. subj. 20 Total 2 B. Anatolia. Foreground All def. subj. 2 0 Total 2 Background 0 0 All def. subj. 0 Total C. Qaltu. Foreground 1 0 All def. subj. 1 Total Background 0 0 All def. subj. 0 Total D. Gilit Foreground All def. subj. 11 10 Total 21 Background All def. subj. 10 Total 1

VOS Od Oi 52

4

OVS Od Oi 0

56

25 0

1

0

0

0

0

0

13

0

0

0

0

60

E. Egypt, (i). Foreground All def. subj. 44 6 Total 50

20 2

00 0

93

Background All def. subj. Total

00 0

00

24

ii) Spi. Crammatik. Foreground All def. subj. 10 2 Total 12

22 4

00 0

iii) Abul-Fadl Texte. Foreground All def. subj! 10 Total i

10 l

00

F. Bedouins. Foreground All def. subj. 12 5 Total 17 Background All def. subj. Total

30 3

14

4

22 115

0

13

3 16

73 10 0

45

4

0

00 0

00 0

00 0

00 0

00 0

00 0

00 0 00

0 0

6

0 0

0

0

0

0

0

0

00

00

hegam sawo ?alaynu ITeshqya lekrad "die kurdischen Banditen griffon ihn an" (Jastrow, Qeltull, 318).

235

0

00

16

20

0

00

61 14

0

0

0

30

0 00

6

0 0

0

15

0 2

00 0

11

0

16

0

0

0

0 18

0

0 0

0

0

1

0 1

0

78

00

2

6

0 0

1

0

8 0

0

0

2

00 0

20

1

0

00 0

1

5

0 0

0

0

6 0

0

0 11

0

13

0

16

0

0

18

5

0

0

00 0

52 0

0

13

34

1 0

0

OSV Od Oi

0

38 I4

0

0 0

12

SOV Od Oi

70

00

3 0

58

0

00 0 2

0

SVO Od Oi

Gft Table 9B ft> Objects. Definite subjects. All imperfects. VSO Od Oi A. EMMA Foreground All def. subj. Total Background All def. subj. Total

53

VOS Od Oi 40

OVS Od Oi 00

8

4

0

10 1

00 0

00 0

00

00

B. Anatolia. Foreground All def. subj. 00 Total 0 Background All def. subj. 00 Total 0

0

SVO Od Oi 92 11 20

00 0

00

00 0

00

OSV Od Oi

00

00 0

16 36

45 0

SOV Od Oi

00 0

0 00 0

00 9

27

00 0

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

00

0

9

64 10

00

0

82 10

00

10

C. Gilit Foreground: Only 3 hits5 Background All def. subj. Total

00 0

00

D. Egypt, (i).6 Foreground: Only 3 hits. Background. All def. subj. Total E. Bedouins Foreground All def. subj. Total Background All def. subj. Total

4 1 5

00 0

0

30

30 3

10 1

47

10

00

26

3 00 0

00

1

10

00 0

11

00

57

0

00

00 0 00

37

0

0

SVO Od Oi 20 2 12 7 19

SOV Od Oi 00 0 00 0

OSV Od Oi 00 0 00 0

oft Table 10 )^> Objects. Indefinite subjects. All verbs. Total, all dialects: indef. n. Total indef. pr. Total Background indef. n. Total indef. n. Total

VSO Od Oi 00 0 1 5 6 00 0 00 0

VOS Od Of 20 2 1 0 1 00 0 00 0

OVS Od Oi 00 0 10 1 00 0 00 0

5

Qaltu had too few hits. 6 Other texts from Egypt had too few hits.

236

24

00 6

15

23 38

0 01 1

00 0 00 0

Table 11 Active participle. Foreground A. EMMA Subject def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n. Total indef. n.

VS

vso

vos

ovs

Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi 16 1 2 9 28

C. Bedouins def. n. pers. pr. dem. pr. ha + def. n. Total

13 0 2 1 16

SV

svo SOV Od Oi Od Oi 3 1 7 1 1 0

1 2 0

0

0

14

0

%

16 80 0 0

0

B. Egypt (i) det.f n.

X

9 75

1 3

28 62

14

3

0

OSV Od Oi

0

0

0

0

17 38 2

0

14

13 31 0 0 2 1 16 29

29 4 1 1 35

%

4 20 9 100 0 1 3 25

14 88

0

Z

12

16 100

3

1

29 69 8 100 1 1 39 71

Perfect x perfect. Punctual aspect (i). Definite subjects. Forejj;rou VS Subject def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n.

122 12 3 54 6

Total

197

B. Anatolia. def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n. Total C. Qsltu def. n. pers. pr. dem. pr. ha + def. n. Total

9 5 1 3 0

vso VOS Od Oi Od Oi 32 9 \7 3 1 13 3

1

1

1

2

6

0

13 68 7 54 1 3 1 25 61

6 6 0 4 0 16

6 1 4 1 12 71

0 1 0 0 1

1

0

99 89

262 97

1 10

164 16 3 69 10

SV

0

1 0

%

93 91

3 2

7

X

1 1 0 3 1

2 1 64

18

4 1 4

ovs Od Oi

0

SVO SOV OSV OdOi Od OiOd Oi

1

1

1 1 2 11 0 5 7 1 9

6 32 6 46 0 4 0

16 39

1

2

3 1 1 0 5 29

rah rafa? ?e$ba?o l-walad (Salonen, Dialekl I, 18). "1-walad" could be tail/right-dislocation, which would mean that this instance would be dropped. We have no information as to what extent intonation has been marked in these texts, which makes us hesitant. Ifright-dislocationis at hand, one would of course expect a comma.

237

3

Table 12 A (cont) VS

VSO VOS OVS Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi

Subject D. Gilit def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. Total

66 1 6 4 77

24 3

E. Egypt, (i). def. n. pers. pr.

12 1

3

ii) Spi., Grammatik. def. n. 40 15 pers. pr. dem. pr. 1 56 Total F. Bedouins def. n. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n.

22 2 2 1

Total

27

14 1 1

4 47

13 5

0

0

4

22

0

0

6

4

10

%

SV

104 94 4 7 9 53 124 87

4 3 0 8 15

15 88 1

2 0

2 12 0

57 100 20 95 1 78 99

0 1 0 1

0 1 0 1

0 5

32 100 2 2 1

0 0 1 0

0 0 1 0

0

I

SVO SOV OSV OdOi Od OiOd Oi 1 2

3

0

0

0

0

0

2,

%

7 6 3 0 8 47 18 13

1

37 97

Table 12 B Perfect x perfect Punctual aspect. Indefinite subjects. Foreground. A. EMMA Subject indef. n. indef. pr. B. Bedouins indef. n. indef. pr.

VS

VSO VOS OVS Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi 3 1 1

I %

SV

SVO SOV OSV Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi

0 0

11 9

I 0 0

1 3

Table 12 C K-imperfect x v-imperfect and A-imperfect x 6-imperfect. Punctual aspect. Definite subjects. Foreground. A. EMMA Subject def. n. pers. pr. dem. pr. ha + def. n. Total

VS 5 0 1 2 8

VSO VOS Od Oi Od Oi 1 1 1 3

0

OVS Od Oi

0

z

%

7 70 1 1 2 11 79

238

SV

SVO SOV OSV Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 2

2 3 30 0 0 0 3 21

Gft Table 13 A K» Perfect (rah) x active participle. Punctual aspect. A. Egypt Subject def. n. pers. pr. dem. pr.

VS

Total

20

20 0 0

VSO VOS OVS Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi 10 2

15

0

0

I

%

SV

33 75 2 0

SVO SOV OSV 2 % Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi 11 25 5 4 2 1 0 1 2 0

35 71

5

7

0

0

14 29

Imperfect (ga) x active participle. Punctual aspect. Definite subjects. Foreground. A. Bedouins def. n. pers. pr. dem. pr.

0 0 0

Total

0

2

2

0

0

0 2 12 0

2 12 1

2 11

15

2 14 88 1

2

2

0

0

17 89

Gft Table 14 ^ Perfect x imperfect aspect Ingressive aspect Definite subjects. A. EMMA VS VSO VOS OVS X % SV SVO SOV OSV X Subject Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi def. n. 40 3 2 45 78 11 1 1 13 pers. pr. 14 1 1 16 64 8 1 9 pers. pr. + x 1 1 0 0 dem. pr. 8 8 47 7 2 9 ha + def. n. 12 1 13 100 0 0 Total 75 8 0 0 83 73 26 5 0 0 31 B. Gilit def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. Total

29 3 1 2 35

1 1

C. Egypt (i) def.n.

18

2

1

D. Bedouins def.n. pers. pr. pers. + x dem. pr. ha + def. n.

33 1 1 0 2

2

3

Total

37

4

6

0

0

1

1

6

1

0

34 72 12 4 4 1 0 2 1 41 69 17

1

21 62

7

5

39 93 2 1 0 0 2

2 1

44 86

6

239

1

0

0

1

22 36 53 0 27

13 28 4 0 1 18 31 13 38

1

3 0 1

%

0

0

3 1 0 3 0

7

7

14

eft Table Beginning. Perfect. Definite subjects. A. EMMA VS VSO VOS Subject Od Oi Od Oi 11 1 def. n. 1 pers. pr. pers. pr. + x 1 dem. pr. 0 ha + def. n. 0 Total 13 1 0 B. Mesopotamia except Anatolia 1 1 18 0 1 1 20

def. n. pers. pr. pers. pr. + x dem. pr. Total

0

12 48 1 1 0 0 14 41

% svo sov OSV Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi 11 1 1 13 52 2 1 3 0 0 2 2 2 2 17 3 0 0 20 59

0

SI 20 51 0 1 1 22 49

14 2 0 0 16

OVS Od Oi

X

%

SV

11 44 2 7

0

0

19 49 2 0 2 23 51

Table 16 A >

Early Arabic. Objects. Indeflnite subjects. All verbs Foreground. VSO VOS OVS Subject Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi indef. n. 2 4 4 0 0 0 Total 6 4 0 Background Indef. n. 10 10 00

SVO Od Oi 1 1 II

SOV OSV Od Oi Od Oi 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00

00

In the material of Ibn IshSq, beginning has beenregisteredwhen a new tradition about a new subject is introduced. 17 Incl. verbs with qad

250

72

10

Table 25 Negatives in Early Arabic VS VSO VOS OVS I % Subject Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi (i) Dialogue. Negated verbs. Perfect Definite subjects def. n. 6 5 2 1 14 93 (ii) Dialogue. Negated verbs. Imperfect Definite subjects 1 9 75 def. n. 8 0 pers. pr. 0 1 pers. pr. + x 1 0 dem. pr. 0 10 59 Total 9

251

SV

SVO SOV OSV I Od Oi Od Oi Od Oi

%

1

1 7

3 3 0 1 7

3 25 3 0 1 7 41

0

0

0

Abbreviations for periodicals, series etc. A ASF AKM AO ASCP BAE BASS BELO BEO BTS CAA CTL FO FGS HOS HSK JL JNES JSOT L LA L LLSEE LOALL LOS LP LSS ML CMS NHLS N. S. OG ONS OS PL PLO PLS QALS SCI SJ SL S.M. SOFOS

Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes • Acta Orientalia Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology Bureau of American Ethnology Beitrage zur Assyriologie und semitische Sprachwissenschaft Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes. Paris Bulletin d'Etudes Orientales de l'lnstitut Francois de Damas Beiruter Texte und Studien Codices Arabici Antiqui Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics Folia Orientalia Functional Grammar Series Heidelberger orientalische Studien Handbiicher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft Janua Linguarum Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Lingua Library of Arabic Linguistics Linguistic & Literary Studies in Eastern Europe London Oriental and African Language Library London Oriental Series Lingua Posnaniensis Leipziger Semitische Studien Mediterranean Language and Culture Monograph Series North-Holland Linguistic Series Neue Serie Orientalia Gothoburgensia Oriental Notes and Studies, publ. by the Israel Oriental Society. Orientalia Suecana Papiere zur Linguistik Porta Linguarum Orientalium Publications in Language Sciences Quantitative Analyses of Linguistic Structure Studia Culturae Islamicae Scripta Judaica Studies in Language Series Maior Studia Orientalia edited by the Finnish Oriental Society

253

SOSOF SLP SSU SV TLP TSL VOK ZAL

S t u d i a O r i e n t a l i a e d i d i t S o c i e t a s O r i e n t a l i s F e n n i c a ; • ; :] i d * Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Studia Semitica Upsaliensia ' ; Semitica Viva Travaux Linguistiques de Prague Typological Studies in Language Veroffentlichungen der Orientalischen Kommission Zeitschrift fiir arabische Linguistik

Transcription Since we are dealing with syntax, we have not considered it necessary to reproduce all the minute fonetic distinctions which appear in some texts. Our aim has been to transform all the different systems of notations to the one we find in Handbuch der arabischen Dialekte, edited by Fischer & Jastrow. Our Hebrew notation is a pure transliterary one, where plene writing is indicated by " A " for yod and waw, and " ~ " for he. The "swa" has not been marked.

Abbreviations CA CD def. dem. EMMA FSP indef. MCA MSA

n. pr. subj. TAM TG

Classical Arabic Communicative Dynamism definite demonstrative Eastern Mediterranean Modern Arabic Functional Sentence Perspective indefinite Modern Colloquial Arabic Modem Standard Arabic noun pronoun subject Tense-Aspect-Modality Transformational-generative grammar

254

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266

161; 167; 168; 169; 170; 172; 173; 174; 176; 177; 179; 181; 182; 183; 184; 185; 186; 187; 188; 189; 190; 205; 207; 216; 219; 220; 221; 225 Baghdad, 117; 124; 128; 129; 149; 169; 202 basic word order, 11; 12; 15; 24; 45; 93; 97; 102; 103; 104; 105; 106; 107; 109; 110; 111; 112; 113; 114; 115; 116; 117; 119; 122; 130; 134; 144; 151; 167; 171; 174; 175; 183; 186; 190; 209; 210; 223; 224; 225 Bedouin, 49; 71; 82; 117; 118; 123; 124; 128; 129; 139; 142; 151; 153; 159; 183; 189; 190; 193; 202; 204; 219; 222; 223 beginning, 12; 19; 21; 34; 35; 39; 65; 70; 71; 87; 107; 113; 136; 139; 151; 163; 188; 190; 220; 223 Berlin & Kay, 22 i-imperfect, 181 Blanc, 71; 123; 124; 128 Blau, 115; 116 Bloch, 39; 91; 127; 147; 156; 157; 162; 224 Bloomfield, 19; 20; 21; 23 Boas, 19; 23 Bolinger, 32 Brown & Yule, 53

Index —A— TAnaze, 125; 129 Abu-Haidar, 116; 127; 195 Abul-Fadl, 181; 194 active participle, 79; 149; 153; 179; 180; 181; 182; 189 adordination, 155; 220 affirmative, 72; 86; 93; 144; 152; 167; 189; 190; 199; 200; 205; 207; 209; 212 agent, 28; 29; 41; 46; 59; 67; 107; 110 anaphoric pronoun, 59; 87; 92; 144; 168; 173; 205; 220 Anatolia, 123; 124; 128; 148; 153; 168; 169; 172; 173; 174; 177; 179; 180; 186; 187; 188; 189; 190; 194; 197; 198; 201; 202; 203; 204; 205; 219; 222; 223 Anatolian, 103; 123; 146; 148; 168; 186; 197; 213 Anatolian Arabic, 148; 168; 186; 197; 213 Aramaic, 130; 168; 208 artistic colloquial, 49; 59; 174; 179 aspect, 64; 65; 66; 68; 69; 70; 71; 72; 75; 79; 80; 83; 84; 85; 118; 135; 150; 151; 161; 180; 181; 182; 183; 186; 187; 190; 212; 220; 221; 224; 225 aspectual, 66; 67; 71; 75; 84; 87; 150 aspectualizer, 69; 70; 71; 84; 150; 212; 220; 221

—c— Cairene, 115; 119; 124; 174; 175 Cairo, 129; 174; 175; 223 Chafe, 57; 58 Chomskian, 12; 20 Chomsky, 17; 20; 21; 23; 24; 38 Christian Arabic, 195 Classical Arabic, 11; 39; 73; 78; 84; 90; 91; 92; 115; 116; 117; 125; 130; 139; 156; 171; 207; 208

—B— background, 23; 46; 58; 61; 62; 64; 72; 75; 76; 77; 78; 80; 82; 83; 84; 90; 122; 128; 135; 138; 139; 143; 144; 152; 155; 158; 159;

267

201; 202; 203; 204; 205; 210; 216; 222; 223; 224 Descriptivist, 20; 21; 23; 24 dialogue, 46; 48; 59; 93; 105; 115; 130; 144; 151; 171; 193; 194; 195; 196; 197; 198; 199; 200; 201; 202; 203; 204; 205; 209; 210; 213; 216; 217; 221; 222; 223; 224 Dik, 35; 36; 38; 43; 50; 53; 54; 59; 90; 92; 102; 103; 104; 105; 113 discourse, 25; 30; 32; 33; 36; 43; 45; 46; 47; 48; 50; 51; 52; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 60; 61; 73; 75; 83; 85; 86; 87; 88; 89; 90; 93; 102; 106; 112; 113; 117; 121; 122; 130; 134; 138; 139; 144; 151; 154; 159; 163; 168; 170; 171; 182; 187; 188; 189; 190; 193; 194; 200; 205; 207; 209; 210; 216; 219; 220; 221; 222; 223; 224; 225 discourse theme, 170; 171; 219; 221 discourse topic, 52; 53; 57; 59; 121; 171 Driver, 115 durativity, 65; 67; 72

communication, 18; 19; 28; 29; 43; 46; 76; 85; 88; 121; 158; 162; 179 Comrie, 15; 17; 18; 22; 29; 64; 65; 66; 67; 68; 69; 80; 84; 95; 98; 99; 108; 130 consecutive, 46; 62; 78; 158; 162; 193; 209 coordinate, 154; 155 coordination, 154; 155; 220 Coptic, 174; 175; 176 Cowell, 115; 118; 149

—D— Damascene, 119 Damascus, 39; 116; 118; 157 Danes, 28; 29; 30; 43; 45; 88; 121 data, 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 23; 24; 58; 59; 64; 118; 152; 153; 154; 162; 163; 172; 222; 223 declarative, 34; 36; 40; 49; 86; 87; 93; 96; 144; 187; 189; 190; 200 deduction, 16; 17; 18 deductive, 15; 18; 23; 24 definite, 50; 51; 54; 55; 56; 57; 59; 67; 87; 90; 112; 115; 117; 118; 146; 147; 149; 152; 159; 168; 169; 170; 171; 172; 173; 174; 180; 183; 186; 187; 188; 189; 193; 194; 195; 196; 200; 205; 207; 209; 210; 213; 215; 216; 221; 222 deictic, 56; 64; 75 Delta, 124; 129; 176; 219 demonstrative, 101; 144; 146; 147; 152; 168; 170; 171; 187; 189; 193; 205 Denz, 72; 73; 74; 75; 82; 84; 129; 169; 220 description, 21; 43; 48; 76; 105; 106; 130; 144; 151; 153; 193; 194; 195; 196; 197; 199; 200;

—E— Early Arabic, 121; 125; 130; 207; 209; 210; 212; 213; 216; 219; 221; 222; 223 Eastern Arabic, 124 Egypt, 49; 71; 115; 124; 129; 162; 169; 171; 174; 175; 176; 177; 178; 180; 181; 182; 183; 189; 190; 194; 199; 200; 204; 205; 219; 220 Egyptian Arabic, 174 empiric, 16; 24 empirical, 15; 16; 17; 21; 23; 24; 63; 108; 113; 119; 220; 225 empiricism, 16; 17; 18

268

ergative, 29; 103

Guillaume, 89; 125; 126; 127; 209; 210; 211; 212; 213; 214; 216

—F— —H—

Feghali, 115; 148; 149 file, 55; 56; 58; 60; 87; 132; 134; 221 Firbas, 26; 27; 28; 29; 43 first level, 28 Fischer, 12; 39; 125 Fleischman, 63; 72 focus, 23; 30; 31; 32; 33; 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 42; 43; 57; 59; 85; 90; 103; 121; 214; 219 foreground, 23; 61; 62; 63; 64; 69; 72; 75; 76; 77; 78; 79; 80; 82; 83; 84; 117; 122; 135; 136; 138; 139; 143; 144; 152; 155; 158; 159; 161; 162; 167; 168; 169; 170; 172; 173; 174; 177; 179; 180; 181; 183; 184; 185; 186; 187; 188; 189; 190; 205; 207; 216; 219; 220; 221; 222; 225 Functional Grammar, 36; 38; 43; 45; 53; 102 Functional Sentence Perspective, 25; 26; 28; 35; 43; 45; 57; 183

habitual, 66; 72; 83; 118; 149 Halliday, 22; 23; 30; 32; 33; 34; 36; 43; 50; 107; 121; 157 Hawkins, 98; 101; 102; 112; 113 Hebrew, 62; 63; 65; 78; 82; 98; 99; 134; 135; 149; 157; 158; 160; 161; 172; 208; 225 Hjelmslev, 95 Holes, 117; 118; 119; 130; 174; 177; 178; 200; 211; 224 Hopper, 24; 61; 62; 63; 85; 93; 102; 113; 122 j Ibn Hisam, 126; 127 Ibnlshaq, 88; 125; 126; 130; 150; 213; 224 imperfect, 62; 68; 69; 70; 71; 77; 79; 80; 81; 124; 135; 148; 149; 158; 167; 170; 181; 182; 183; 193; 194; 195; 204; 209; 213; 220; 222; 223 imperfective, 65; 68; 69; 72; 83; 87; 88 implicational, 11; 22; 101; 105 indefinite, 26; 50; 54; 55; 56; 59; 87; 89; 112; 115; 117; 118; 139; 146; 147; 152; 170; 171; 172; 173; 177; 178; 189; 195; 200; / 201; 205; 207; 210; 212; 215; 216 induction, 15; 16; 17; 18 inductive, 15; 18; 20; 23; 24; 225 Ingham, 12; 34; 35; 118; 129; 161; 179; 202; 204; 224 ingressive, 69; 70; 71; 84; 135; 153; 161; 182; 183; 187; 190; 212; 220; 221; 224

—G— Garrod, 57; 60 gilit, 123; 124 given information, 34; 43; 50; 56; 88; 121; 172 Giv6n, 16; 17; 20; 21; 24; 39; 45; 47; 50; 51; 55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 60; 62; 72; 85; 86; 87; 88; 89; 90; 92; 93; 100; 101; 132; 134; 144; 145; 152; 154; 155; 167; 187 Greenberg, 11; 15; 18; 23; 24; 95; 96; 97; 98; 99; 100; 101; 102; 104; 112; 113 Grotzfeld, 91; 116; 127; 147; 149; 156; 203

269

marked, 27; 29; 32; 34; 40; 67; 80; 85; 86; 87; 88; 93; 98; 102; 103; 104; 115; 121; 122; 134; 135; 144; 151; 167; 168; 170; 180; 181; 182; 183; 187; 190; 194; 201; 204; 219; 221 markedness, 67; 68; 85; 86; 87; 181; 182; 183 Mathesius, 20; 26; 27; 30; 42; 43; 45; 107; 121; 151; 183; 188 MCA, 121; 122; 144; 177; 178; 179; 180; 187; 188; 189; 200; 201; 202; 205; 209; 212; 213; 216; 220; 221; 222; 223; 224 Mesopotamia, 49; 70; 123; 169; 170; 174; 180; 183; 188; 189; 222; 223 Mitchell, 64; 75 Mithun, 105; 113 modality, 64; 72; 183 model, 17; 18; 23; 35; 38; 188; 189 Modern Colloquial Arabic, 34; 56; 69; 75; 78; 82; 83; 88; 91; 92; 122; 127; 130; 139; 150; 155; 156; 157; 162; 168; 170; 172; 173; 181; 183; 187; 188; 189; 204; 224 Modern Standard Arabic, 11; 12; 38; 43; 68; 130; 154 Monologue, 46; 47 Moutaouakil, 38; 39; 40; 41; 42; 43 MSA, 38; 39; 41; 42; 43; 73

intonation, 29; 32; 90; 92; 156; 157; 204; 220 Iraq, 118; 123; 124; 128; 129; 169; 222 irrealis, 72; 83; 87; 145; 152

—J— Jankowski, 117 Jastrow, 91; 127; 128; 145; 146; 148; 149; 151; 156; 157; 174; 197; 198; 201; 203; 224 Jewish Arabic, 197; 198; 222 Johnstone, 154; 155 Jordan, 70; 123; 128; 139; 168; 171; 181

—K— Keenan, 108; 130 Khuzistan, 34; 118; 125; 129; 130 Krupa, 107; 113 Kurdish, 29; 123; 146; 148; 149; 168; 186; 201

—L— Labov & Waletzky, 59; 61; 223 Lebanese, 115; 116; 133; 148; 170; 173 Lebanon, 71; 88; 123; 127; 128; 131; 135; 149; 171; 185 Lehmann, 98; 99; 112 Li & Thompson, 105; 106; 113 locative, 89; 178 Longacre, 46; 47; 48; 59; 82; 135; 224 Lyons, 50; 64; 65; 66; 67; 68; 87

—N— Najd, 118 narrative; 30; 35; 47; 48; 49; 61; 67; 72; 73; 75; 76; 80; 82; 83; 84; 86; 88; 93; 105; 112; 115; 117; 122; 128; 129; 130; 134; 135; 138; 139; 144; 151; 159; 168; 170; 171; 173; 175; 178; 186; 188; 189; 194; 195; 201; 202; 205; 207; 208; 209; 210;

—M— main clause, 72; 144; 154; 209; 219; 224 Mallinson & Blake, 18; 107; 155 Maltese, 122

270

213; 215; 216; 217; 219; 221; 222; 223 negated existence, 145; 201; 222 Negated subject, 145; 187 Negated verb, 145; 187; 188; 213 negative, 72; 86; 139; 144; 152; 187; 204; 222 new information, 25; 28; 30; 31; 32; 34; 36; 39; 43; 46; 50; 56; 57; 58; 60; 85; 105; 112; 121; 144; 172 nomad, 124 North Africa, 122; 223 North Arabian, 125

personal pronoun, 145; 168; 170; 171; 180; 182; 194; 203; 205; 209; 221; 222 plain colloquial, 49; 174 pluperfect, 39; 62; 73; 75; 76; 77; 78; 80; 81; 207 Prague School, 18; 20; 24; 26; 30; 43; 45; 85; 107 Prince, 57; 58; 60 progressive, 66; 67; 68; 69; 84; 150; 153 Pullum, 102; 103; 104; 108; 109; 113 punctual, 65; 67; 69; 72; 79; 80; 83; 135; 151; 153; 161; 180; 181; 182; 183; 186; 187; 189; 190; 212; 220; 221

—O— object, 11; 12; 15; 19; 23; 25; 28; 29; 35; 51; 56; 59; 73; 90; 91; 92; 96; 97; 98; 100; 103; 104; 108; 110; 111; 112; 115; 116; 118; 151; 153; 173; 174; 178; 188; 189; 196; 197; 207; 210; 211; 212; 216; 221 old information, 23; 32; 46; 57; 58; 60; 121; 215

-Qqaltu, 123; 124; 128; 146; 151; 156; 169; 171; 174; 180; 187; 190; 194; 198; 199

—R— realis, 63; 72; 83; 87; 144; 145 recipient, 29 reference point, 64; 69; 75; 76; 77; 78; 79; 80; 84; 170; 207; 220 relative tense system, 84; 220 reliability, 16; 167 reliable, 16; 23 repetition, 185; 209 repetitive, 69; 84; 153 Retso, 76; 127; 144; 149; 158; 162; 175; 176 rheme, 23; 27; 30; 32; 33; 42; 43; 105; 121; 183; 215; 219 Rosenhouse, 124; 125; 129; 193

—P— Palestine, 70; 71; 115; 123; 128; 129; 168; 171; 196; 197 paradigm, 18; 20; 23; 24 Parkinson, 12; 117 patient, 29; 110; 148; 178 peak, 23; 82; 84; 122; 134; 183; 184; 190 perfect, 26; 39; 66; 67; 68; 69; 70; 72; 75; 76; 77; 78; 79; 87; 88; 112; 117; 118; 135; 148; 149; 168; 170; 173; 180; 181; 182; 183; 187; 188; 189; 190; 193; 204; 207; 209; 213; 220; 221; 222; 223 perfective, 63; 65; 68; 69; 72; 80; 83; 87; 88; 144; 189

—s— Sammar, 129; 222 Sanford, 57; 60 Saussure, 19; 21; 23

271

—T—

scenario, 57; 60; 132 second level, 29 sedentary, 123; 124 semantic, 16; 21; 28; 29; 41; 43; 51; 63; 89; 99; 107; 110; 118; 147; 160; 178; 185 sequentiality, 63; 72; 88; 118; 136; 158; 159; 160; 184; 185; 193 Shammar, 125 Sibawaih, 125 Sinai, 49; 65; 78; 79; 82; 84; 92; 125; 129; 151; 181; 207; 220; 225 Sinai Bedouins, 49; 78; 79; 84; 92; 207; 220; 225 Spitta-Bey, 115; 129; 171; 174; 175 181; 194 subject, 11; 15; 22; 23; 25; 26; 28; 29; 34; 35; 43; 45; 46; 48; 51; 53; 54; 55; 56; 59; 82; 89; 90; 91; 92; 95; 96; 98; 102; 103; 104; 105; 106; 108; 109; 110; 111; 112; 113; 115; 116; 117; 118; 119; 130; 132; 134; 139; 144; 145; 146; 147; 150; 152; 153; 163; 171; 172; 173; 174; 175; 177; 178; 188; 189; 196; 197; 200; 201; 204; 207; 208; 209; 210; 211; 212; 215; 216; 217; 221; 222; 224; 225 subordinate, 68; 72; 86; 104; 154; 155; 157; 207 subordination, 49; 59; 154; 155; 156; 157; 220 Sudan, 122 syntax, 15; 16; 19; 20; 23; 24; 25; 26; 29; 45; 56; 72; 82; 100; 102; 103; 106; 115; 116; 121; 122; 161; 168; 169; 170; 171; 172; 173; 180; 181; 182; 187; 188; 189; 194; 195; 207; 212; 220; 221; 225 Syria, 69; 71; 123; 127; 128; 129; 171; 189; 216; 223 Syro-Mesopotamia, 125

tail, 34; 36; 38; 42; 44; 102 TAM, 64; 72; 82; 83; 84; 87; 122; 148 tense, 29; 64; 65; 67; 68; 69; 72; 73; 75; 76; 78; 79; 80; 83; 84; 103; 118; 144; 148; 149; 153; 168; 170; 175; 180; 219; 220; 223; 225 TG, 17 thematization, 33; 174; 183; 190; 207; 217; 221 theme, 23; 27; 28; 30; 32; 33; 36; 38; 41; 42; 43; 45; 50; 52; 102; 105; 106; 107; 109; 112; 121; 139; 171; 183; 214; 215; 216; 219; 221 theory, 16; 20; 21; 23; 106 third level, 29; 30; 43; 88; 121; 223 Tomlin, 97; 107; 108; 109; 110; 111; 112; 113 topic, 23; 35; 36; 38; 39; 41; 42; 50; 51; 52; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57; 59; 88; 89; 103; 105; 106; 113; 121; 132; 134; 152; 153; 170; 171; 187; 189; 219; 220; 221 topicality, 50; 51; 54; 59; 144; 147; 172; 180; 189; 190; 195; 220 Topicality Hierarchy, 172; 173; 189; 193; 195; 205; 220; 222 typology, 11; 18; 95; 102; 105; 106; 112; 224

—U— universal, 11; 17; 18; 22; 50; 61; 101; 105; 109; 113; 122 Uzbekistan, 186; 223

—V— validity, 16; 102 van Dijk, 51; 52; 53; 154

272

Vennemann, 45; 99; 100; 101; 112; 113 Versteegh, 117; 124; 125; 186

—w— Wahb b. Munabbih, 126 Watson, 117; 152 Weil, 25; 26; 42; 43; 95; 96; 97; 112 written, 13; 31; 45; 46; 48; 49; 59; 62; 72; 86; 101; 106; 122; 125; 153; 154; 171; 209; 224

y Yemeni Arabic, 122 y-imperfect, 181

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