Arabic Dialectology

In this paper we deal with a type of construction in Rural Palestinian Arabic (RPA) which presents the co-occurrence of a verb and its unmodified cognate verbal noun, e.g.: yixunkūna xanik ‘they suffocate us completely’, yismaʕ samaʕ ‘he listens attentively’.

The unmodified cognate complement (UCC) – known in traditional terminology as mafʕūl muṭlaq mubham – is generally described as an emphasizing device. At the same time, it evidently yields a bewildering wide range of interpretations. Our paper is an attempt to uncover the semantic mechanism that underlies this varied interpretability (hence translatability), as well as the contextual conditions which call for the use of this construction.

Based on the examination of a large collection of examples, extracted mainly from naturally occurring discourse in RPA, we observe that the core function of the UCC is to lay focus on a certain semantic feature of the verbal event and exhaust its semantic potential. We propose a semantic model which explains how this function is variously interpreted with four types of verbal events, combining either positive or privative values of the aspectual features phasality and boundedness.

By providing a ‘technical’ reading of each type, the model not only accounts for the UCC tokens attested in the corpus, but also enables the prediction of the meaning of other tokens which pertain to the identified types, in RPA and also in other varieties of Arabic.

The present volume provides an overview of current trends in the study of language contact involving Arabic. By drawing on the social factors that have converged to create different contact situations, it explores both contact-induced change in Arabic and language change through contact with Arabic. The volume brings together leading scholars who address a variety of topics related to contact-induced change, the emergence of contact languages, codeswitching, as well as language ideologies in contact situations. It offers insights from different theoretical approaches in connection with research fields such as descriptive and historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, and language acquisition. It provides the general linguistic public with an updated, cutting edge overview and appreciation of themes and problems in Arabic linguistics and sociolinguists alike.

This paper explores the linguistic behavior in relation to the identity of speakers who stay in their hometown and speakers who travel from one dialect region to another. Following the methodology of sociolinguistic variation studies, combined with qualitative analyses, this study examines two noticeable linguistic features of Tiaret compared to those acquired by speakers who moved to other dialect areas. Qualitative analyses of speakers' social identities, attitudes and language practices match quantitative analyses of patterns of phonological variation. The study finds that the migrant groups do make changes in their linguistic production due to their continuous exposure to a new dialect. Moreover, the findings suggest that speakers' linguistic behavior is noticeably related to their identities, social networks, language attitudes and the wider sociopolitical framework in the whole country.

By Federico CORRIENTE, Christophe PEREIRA & Ángeles VICENTE                                         

The diachronic description of a language is not complete unless one considers the linguistic substrata and adstrata spoken beforehand by a population that then came to coexist with the language in question. Thus, the fourth volume of the Encyclopédie provides a detailed description of the influence exerted by the Romance substratum and the Berber adstratum on Andalusian Arabic dialects.

- Une brève description du substrat roman de l’arabe andalou
- Des éléments importants dans la formation diachronique de l’arabe andalou
- Des hypothèses sur l’influence du berbère sur l’arabe andalou

By Federico CORRIENTE, Christophe PEREIRA & Ángeles VICENTE                                       

Le but principal de ce nouvel ouvrage est de fournir des informations étymologiques essentielles sur le lexique arabe, qu’on ne trouve que partiellement dans les sources existantes et sporadiquement dans certains ouvrages descriptifs de la langue classique et des dialectes. Les étymologies ne concernent pas seulement les emprunts aux langues sémitiques, mais aussi ceux faits à l’égyptien ancien, au persan, etc., ainsi qu’au latin, au basque, au germanique et à d’autres langues notamment romanes. Le dictionnaire fournit également une disposition améliorée des entrées et de la phraséologie.

Maydan is the first Italian journal of studies on the Arab, Semitic and Islamic worlds run by PhD students and graduates, whose main purpose is to encourage the production of first research articles by young scholars. The journal revolves around a broad conception of the Arab, Semitic and Islamic worlds, which includes the geographical areas of the Middle-East, North Africa, the Sahel region, Caucasus, Central and South-East Asia. Maydan also invites submissions regarding the connections between these geographical areas and Europe, North America and other continents. The journal aims to explore the presence of the Arab, Semitic and Islamic Worlds outside the regions traditionally characterised as “Arab”; "Semitic" or “Islamic” and highlight differences within these worlds. Therefore, Maydan welcomes contributions focused on the connections between these areas and the globalised world’s political, economic, social, and cultural dynamics. In addition, the journal aims to support a critical reflection on the concept of Area Studies, problematising culturalist approaches that reproduce an essentialist and colonialist vision of the Arab, Semitic and Islamic Worlds. Maydan accepts contributions from master’s, post-graduate and PhD students. For any additional information, visit https://rivistamaydan.com or write to info.rivista@maydan.it.