Pronominal state in colloquial arabic : a diachronic attempt (original) (raw)

The concept of state The term stcttus oÍ state has been used in Semitic studies for a long time to describe certain phenomena in the nominal inflection. For Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian, and Ancient South Arabian the term is well established although a clearcut definition of it in general linguistic terms is lacking. For Arabic, the term construct state is sometimes used as a designation for words in the 'i(ãfa-construction, but this usage remains strangely isolated in descriptive Arabic grarnmar and constitutes one of the many idiosyncrasies of that subject. The following definition of state is the basis for this study: state is a kind of allomorphic variation affecting bound morphemes marking gender, number and case.l By this definition the connection between semantic oppositions and different states is dissolved. The morphemes in question are the cartiers of semantic-syntactic information which can be realised differently according to rules of distibution. The resulting variation has no impact on meaning. E.g. the so-called masculine plural in Hebrew is a morpheme {MASC+PLUR} that is realized as two allomorphs:-ím and-e: |lrîm yaftm'beautiful songs' vs. iîrë dawld'the songs of David'. These are traditionally designated abolute and construct state rcspectively. The senrantic content of the two-el-i¿¡ elements is identic¿rl, viz plural, and in adjectives also masculine gender. The choice between different realisations is due to morphological ¿urd/or syntactic environment.2 It might be objected that there is after all a kind of semantic difference between e.g. the Hebrew-e and-im suffixes. Even if both have the semantic content {MASK+ PLUR l they furrction as markers of different syntactic constructions which could be seen as representing a kind of semantic distinction. The answer to this is that since morphological state marking is not obligatory in order to distinguish the syntagms in question, the different forms of state cannot bc ascribed morphemic status, If we take the 'ic!ãfatsnúxíit syntagm as an example, it is obvious that this syntagm is constituted by applying a rule of syntactic ordering linking two or more nouns so as to behave syntactically as if they wcre one. The annexion of nouns in an ,i(afa has special properties distinguishing it from e.g. attributive and appositional I Thi" del'inition has been presentcd in Retsö, Sla¡e. 2 Fo, a definition of state in similar terms see Reiner, Aualysis 57 r84 JAN RLTSÖ 'lVRIcIff, W., A grammar of thc Arabic language I. 3rd Éd.' Cåmbridge t896.