Dec 23, 2006 - In this study I argue that Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) is a separate ...... linguistic idiosyncrasy, or may have other socio-political reasons.
A sociolinguistic investigation of the verb in Educated Spoken Arabic
Ola Moshref Department of Linguistics University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
40th Annual Conference on African Languages, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, USA, April 2009.
Abstract In this study I argue that Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) is a separate variety of Arabic whose internal variability is attributed to the ongoing process of koineization. Using the verb as a linguistic variable, and a corpus of four political interviews on Aljazeera TV channel with speakers from Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Morocco, I show that ESA combines features from Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Spoken Arabic (SpA), as well as hybrid forms. Moreover, its internal variability is constrained by cross-regional intelligibility on one hand and regional loyalty on the other. The analysis involves lexical, phonological, and morphosyntactic features of the verb, in addition to the impact of sociolinguistic factors on stylistic shifts, and their implications for language contact.
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I. Introduction Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) is a Pan-Arab variety of Arabic that combines features from Classical Arabic (CA), Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Spoken Arabic (SpA). As an interdialectal medium of communication that feeds off the common written language (CA & MSA), ESA is a prestigious variety spoken mostly by educated speakers on formal and semi-formal occasions. It serves to enhance intelligibility among Arabs from different regions, without completely obliterating their dialectal differences. Example (1) is an example of ESA discourse. All the verbs in bold are lexically MSA, but they all drop the suffixal vowel endings /u/ or /a/, which express the mood. The speaker is easily identified as Egyptian because of explicit phonological features of his spoken dialect, e.g. in tazYhar = ‘there appears/comes’, [zY] replaces the standard phoneme /Y/. Other SpA morphological features that are sometimes retained in ESA are common to other dialects, e.g. the aspectual prefix b-. 1.
yanī ana b-ataqid zayy muYam il θawarāt bad an tantasYir tazYhar mukila wa heya mukilat kayfa an yataawwal al thawri ila bīruqrātYi.1
It means that I believe that like most revolutions, after they win, there comes a problem, which is the problem of how a revolutionary transforms to a bureaucrat.
In this excerpt, the verbs in MSA form would be: 2.
yanī ana ataqid-u …. bad-a an tantasYir-a taðYhar-u …. an yataawwal-a …
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Source: al-azīra al-fadYāiyya: http://www.aljazeera.net/channel/archive/archive?ArchiveId=1096284 accessed 10/20/2008.
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Deviations from MSA, as exemplified above, do not impede intelligibility for any Arab national. Besides, since the language closely approximates the prestigious standard variety, the speaker is regarded as highly educated.
Blanc’s analysis of an extended conversation between four educated speakers from Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Aleppo/Syria in 1960 was an early evidence of the different levels of classicization incorporated in their speech (Blanc, 1960). Intra-regionally, analysis of variation in Spoken Egyptian Arabic showed the same type of mixing between CA, MSA, and SpA (Badawi, 1973; Schmidt, 1974; Schultz, 1981). Since then, many researchers have been interested in describing the grammar and sociolinguistics of educated speech (El-Hassan, 1978a&b; Mitchell, 1975, 1978 & 1986; Owens, 2001). Although to date no complete description of ESA has been reached, some of its linguistic and sociolinguistic features have been identified (Meiseles,1980; Ryding, 1991).
Interest in ESA is not only linguistically oriented, but is also of pedagogical significance, because ESA has the potential of solving the diglossic dilemma of which variety of Arabic to teach to non-native speakers as well as to native speakers for whom learning classical or modern standard Arabic is a continuing struggle (Ryding, 1991; Al-Sulaiti & Atwel, 2003).
One interesting question regarding ESA is whether it constitutes a new (perhaps koineized) variety of Arabic, or whether it is best viewed as a stylistic register characterized by the alternation of standard and colloquial forms and a high degree of
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fluctuation between the two. In favor of the latter view, Mitchell (1986) describes ESA as a style that shuns stigmatized linguistic forms of the vernacular, as well as literary features. I will argue, however, that ESA is a separate variety of Arabic whose internal variability is attributed to the ongoing process of koineization. To reach this conclusion, I show that ESA does not only combine features from the written and spoken registers, but can also develop novel forms of its own. Moreover, I show that by using ESA, a speaker projects the identity of an educated person who is capable of communicating with all Arabs, yet keeping his local affiliation intact.
I choose the verb as a linguistic variable, because it has distinctive features in CA/MSA as opposed to SpA (Ferguson, 1959). In addition, it has been observed that verbs reflect both regional and cross-regional linguistic exponents in ESA (Mitchell, 1978). Data were collected from four spontaneous interviews on al-Jazeera satellite TV, where speakers are from Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Morocco. The interviews took place between the years 20062008 and the topics were on different political issues relating to the Arab world. The corpus consists of all verb forms2 occurring in the speech of the interviewees. Spontaneity of speech and formality of the setting are essential conditions for ESA. Additionally, because the topic concerns politics and the audience of al-Jazeera spans the entire Arab world, there is a strong sociolinguistic motivation to use ESA.
The objective of the analysis is to investigate what SpA and/or MSA characteristics show in verb forms in ESA discourse, and to evaluate the frequency of occurrence of these
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In accordance with standard linguistic usage, the term ‘verb form’ is used throughout the paper in reference to the inflected forms of the verb, not to the derivational forms/patterns of Arabic verbs.
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characteristics. The analysis will cover phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical domains. The hypothesis is that mixing between spoken and standard forms in ESA is different across these levels of analysis, and is subject to regional, stylistic, and idiosyncratic differences among speakers.
The paper is organized as follows: Section II introduces regional and sociolinguistic varieties of the Arabic language, and surveys some proposed classifications of ESA. Section III presents the methodology. Section IV outlines lexical, phonological, morphological, and syntactic features of the verb form in ESA. Section V presents the data analysis and results. Finally, section VI contains the discussion, conclusions and some implications of this study for future research.
II. Varieties of Arabic II.1 The fusYћa The fusYa refers to the two written varieties of Arabic, namely CA and MSA. CA is called arabiyyah ‘Arabic’ (Ferguson, 1959:617) or luγa muštaraka ‘common language’ (Badawi, 1973:20). It is traced back to pre-Islamic times when a leveled variety, which was primarily based on the dialect of the tribe that inhabited Mecca, emerged. This was the result of the annual gathering of all Arab tribes during pilgrimage time, an occasion of intensive trade and poetic contests. Anis (1959:9-10) defines three characteristics of this common language: 1. It was mastered only by the literary elite, though understood by all laymen.
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2. It was a blend of numerous tribal linguistic features, without any specific regional identity. 3. It had inflectional endings, which were not part of the linguistic intuition of all Arabs, but only of the literary elite.
With the advent of Islam, CA was standardized by the revelation of the Qur’an. It was descriptively codified by the relentless efforts of Muslim grammarians of the 8th century c.e., who referenced and analyzed the speech and grammatical judgments of Bedouins in the Arabian peninsula. During subsequent centuries, socioeconomic and political factors widened the gap between CA and spoken varieties in the newly arabized territories (Ibrahim, 1989:39-43). In modern times, CA survives only in genres connected with religion, classical or classicizing literature.
MSA is the modern form of CA. It came into being as a result of contact with western culture and consequent modernization in the Arab world since the 19th century. Today, it is the effective formal language in education, media, literature and all government documentation in all Arab countries. Aside from phonetic differences from CA, MSA is constantly coining and arabizing new terms, as well as introducing semantic shifts in classical terms. In addition, stylistic changes in sentence formation largely distinguish modern texts from classical writing styles (Holes, 2004:46-48). Before closing this section, it is worth mentioning that MSA is only marginally affected by regional variation, whereas CA is the only fixed form both diachronically and synchronically (Holes, 2004:47).
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II.2 Modern Arabic dialects II.2.a Classification of Modern Arabic dialects Turning to the spoken forms of Arabic, we find large regional variation among the vernaculars, but considerable conformity in ESA. In the lexicon, for example, different dialects use different verbs or participles to say ‘I want’: bī (Moroccan), beddī (Levantine), a-rīd (Iraqi), āyiz or āwiz (Egyptian). In ESA, speakers prefer to use the MSA verb u-rīd. The question word ‘what’ is in Moroccan nū or a, Levantine ū or
ē, and in Egyptian ē, but in ESA it is the MSA equivalent māā. On the other hand, it is rare in ESA to realize adjectives like lubnāniyy = ‘Lebanese’, or umhūriyy = ‘republican’, with a final /yy/ as in the MSA form. The double glide is almost always rendered as a long vowel as in SpA: lubnānī or umhūrī.
Figure (1) shows a simplified classification of major spoken dialects across the Arab region: North African (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya), Egyptian (Egypt and Sudan), Levantine (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan), Iraqi, and Arabian (the Arabian peninsula). This classification glosses over many distinctions in regional linguistic characteristics. For example, although Libyan is grouped with the North African dialects, it is quite different from Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian. Also, socioeconomic dialectal variation cuts through this geographic distribution. For example, Bedouin dialects are typologically similar in different regions, and so are urban vs. rural dialects (Holes, 2004:70).
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Fig. (1) Geographic distribution of major dialects of Arabic (Alosh, 2000:xxiii)
II.2.b Origins of modern spoken varieties It is interesting to observe how spoken varieties of Arabic diverged from their classical root after the expansion of Islam, and how they are now converging slowly based on the binding power of their common origin. ESA is one stage in this long-lasting chain of developments. In this section, two contrasting hypotheses regarding the origins of SpA are discussed in order to help situate ESA in the proper framework.
The first scenario is that modern dialects evolved through the koineization of pre-Islamic dialects of Arabic (Ferguson, 1956). A koine is defined as “the stabilized result of mixing of linguistic subsystems such as regional or literary dialects. It usually serves as a lingua franca among speakers of the different contributing varieties and is characterized by the mixture of features of these varieties and most often by reduction and simplification in comparison” (Siegel, 1985:363). Ferguson states that “it is widely accepted that the Classical language … was based on a standard poetic language… known to us from the remnants of pre-Islamic poetry and from the Qur’an… [H]owever, spoken Arabic, even at the time of Muammad quite different from the ‘Arabiyyah [CA], diverged
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increasingly from this standard” (Ferguson, 1959:617). His argument is based on the fact that modern dialects share linguistic features that contrast with CA, and that many of their similarities are not systematic drifts from the classical language. Hence, their origin must be a “common, non-classical source” (Ferguson, 1959:618), which means that there was a spoken koine of pre-Islamic dialects. The koine co-existed with CA and reached its final stage during Islamic expansion. Modern dialects are “continuations” of this koine, and the differences among them are the result of subsequent “borrowings and innovations” (Ferguson, 1956:617-9).
Versteegh (1984) criticizes Ferguson’s proposal because it does not inherently account for the differences among modern dialects. He denies that there was an early spoken koine because, to him, pre-Islamic dialects and the literary CA were “essentially one and the same language” (1984:22). Nevertheless, he acknowledges that some contemporary trends in SpA are traced back to pre-Islamic tribal dialects, such as the so called taltala of bahraa’ tribe (1984:23). Besides, based on the notion of tadāxul al-luāt ‘interpenetration of pre-Islamic regional variants’ (1990:19), Versteegh attests that “preIslamic forms have not disappeared, but remain within the repertory of the speakers, even though nobody uses them anymore” (1996:20). This, in his view, is sufficient to account for the similarities among Arabic dialects. In order to account for the differences, he proposes that a process of pidginization, followed by creolization, and decreolization took place. In his definition, “a language is pidginized when it is acquired in an untutored process of language learning as a second language; and … creolized when it is acquired as a first language, a pidginized variety acting as input … [;] the two processes are
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always accompanied by certain changes in the linguistic structure.” (Versteegh, 1984: 52). By analyzing linguistic features in the perspective of historical circumstances, Versteegh argues that mixed marriages between Arabs and non-Arabs in the new territories gave rise to a pidginized form of Arabic as a language of communication between spouses, leading at a later stage to a creolized variety spoken by their children. Literacy and increasing formal instruction in CA, in addition to, religious and political factors, forced the creolized variety to decreolize, whereby certain linguistic features from each stage of development were retained and others abandoned.
Versteegh admits that his scenario is challenged by a methodological problem, that of finding linguistic evidence for pidginization/creolization because “the traces of the process had been obliterated by the subsequent levelling towards CA” (Versteegh, 1984:129). In a counter argument to Versteegh’s hypothesis, Holes notes that pidginization of CA with each of the indigenous languages, Aramaic, Coptic, and Berber, would yield quite different pidgins and divergent creoles. Upon decreolization differences in the resulting vernaculars would surpass their similarities, which is not true of observed facts (2004:27). Moreover, the fragmentation of CA during the process of pidginization, then its reconstruction upon decreolization requires several centuries. But, it was found that the language of a vast number of mundane and ephemeral documents from Egypt and Syria dating to the 8th/9th century “deviates unmistakably [from CA] in the direction of Middle Arabic, typologically akin to most of the modern colloquials” (Hopkins, 1984:x1vi, quoted in Holes, 2004:25). Earlier domestic documents from the 7th century and late ones from the 17th century showed the same commonalities with modern
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dialects and deviations from CA (Owens, 2006:46). This means that throughout all these centuries there had not been “any violent dislocation or change, but rather a long and gradual evolution toward the present dialectal situation” (Holes, 2004:26).
The pre-Islamic koine hypothesis, thus, seems more credible. If we combine the picture of the spoken koine with the earlier literary koine that resulted in CA, together with the present day emergence of ESA, we come up with the schematic representation in Fig. (2), where CA survives unchanged, and MSA and SpA undergo a third koineization process. ESA seems to be an early stage of this process, because it is certainly not a native language variety of any speaker, and has not yet developed a clearly defined system of its own. In Siegel’s model, ESA can be described as a prekoine “characterized by the coexistence of numerous varieties and variants” (Tuten, 2003:27); however, “few forms have emerged as the accepted compromise” (Siegel, 1985:373). Koine Educated Spoken Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic
Regional variation in Modern Arabic dialects
Classical Arabic Literary Koine
Tribal variation in Pre-Islamic Literary Arabic
Written
Spoken Koine
Tribal variation in Pre-Islamic Spoken Arabic
Spoken
Fig. (2) Schematic representation of Arabic language developments
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II.3 Educated Spoken Arabic II.3.a Sociolinguistic functions Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) is used in formal or semi-formal registers and intellectual contexts by the educated and societal elites in the Arab world. Badawi explains that these elites have access to Western culture and can speak at least one foreign language, in addition to being educated in the fusYћa. Their acquaintance with both Arabic and Western cultures frees them from adherence to fixed norms and qualifies them to develop the standard language by introducing and coining new terms and expressions. Less educated speakers are far less influential in language development because of their limited access to foreign cultures and their lower status in society (Badawi, 1973:113115).
Mitchell (1986:8) explains that the motivation for speakers to choose ESA in certain settings is to portray themselves as educated, to facilitate inter-regional intelligibility, and to show solidarity with speakers from different regions. ESA provides space for expressing local allegiances because speakers select certain standard forms and at the same time retain other local features of their choice. In cases when a local feature is stigmatized, speakers replace it with a standard equivalent in order to avoid ridicule. For example, snaawal or stnāwal = ‘to reach out for’ (stigmatized Syrian SpA) is replaced by tnāwal (unstigmatized Syrian SpA) or tanāwal (MSA). Other factors are the formality of the setting, the role and status relations between interlocutors. Finally, the media and mass education propagate standard linguistic forms under the pressures of modernization, urbanization, and internationalization.
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II.3.b The hierarchical models of Blanc, Badawi & Meiseles Attempts for characterizing SpA are based on the degree of the impact of the fusYћa on the spoken language. Blanc (1960), Badawi (1973), and Meiseles (1980) identify a hierarchy of intermediate varieties ranging from CA as highest in prestige and degree of codification to colloquial Arabic as lowest. Table (1) compares the three categorizations. Blanc divides SpA into semi-literary colloquial, koineized colloquial, and plain colloquial. His categorization is linguistically based. Badawi, on the other hand, proposes a socially stratified classification and identifies three types of colloquial varieties: colloquial of the cultured (who are well educated), of the enlightened (who are partially educated), and of the illiterate. Meiseles’ classification is taken as the starting point in the commentary that follows, because it combines the social-functional role of each variety with its linguistic features. Written Spoken
Blanc 1960 Modified Classical Semi-literary (elevated) Colloquial Koineized Colloquial
Plain Colloquial
Badawi 1973 Modern Standard (fusYa al-asYr)
Colloquial of the Cultured (aamiyyat al-muθaqqafiin) Colloquial of the Englightened (aamiyyat al-mutanawwiriin) Colloquial of the Illiterate (aamiyyat al-ummiyyiin)
Meiseles 1980 Literary Arabic Oral Literary (Substandard) Arabic Educated Spoken Arabic
Basic/Plain vernaculars
Table (1) Varieties of Arabic in Blanc (1960), Badawi (1973), and Meiseles (1980)
Highest on Meiseles’ classification is Oral Literary Arabic (OLA), a spoken counterpart of informal written Arabic. The latter is unedited writing that may violate MSA norms under the influence of SpA. OLA roughly corresponds to Blanc’s semi-literary Colloquial, which he describes as a koineized colloquial classicized beyond “mildly formal” (1960:85). OLA is only an approximation to the stringent descriptive rules of the
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fusYћa. Meiseles expresses this in Ferguson’s words as “an Arab’s attempt to speak classical Arabic” (1980:125). Functionally, OLA is used by the mass media and in formal settings. However, even in these situations, people may shift to more colloquial registers/varieties for the purpose of establishing a degree of intimacy with their interlocutors (Ferguson, 1959:235; Hary, 1996:76). Next on the spoken hierarchy is ESA, which being mildly classicized and leveled, corresponds to Blanc’s description of Koineized Colloquial. It also coincides with Badawi’s Colloquial of the Cultured, since it is spoken in certain registers and contexts by the cultural and societal elite.
II.3.c The continuum model of Hary (1996) The models of Blanc, Badawi, and Meiseles imply that the different levels of spoken Arabic fall within defined boundaries. Hary (1996) underscores the fact that these boundaries are only theoretical abstractions due to the frequent stylistic and functional shifts in the spoken discourse of Arabs. Without advocating Versteegh’s pidgin/creole hypothesis, Hary borrows the terms acrolect and basilect to designate CA and SpA at the two extreme ends, and uses mesolect to capture aspects of the intermediate variation that fall between them. He uses these terms with reference to a set of variables that drive speakers to move back and forth along the continuum. These variables determine the degree of standardization in spoken discourse. They include the setting (formal/informal), topic, interlocutors’ proficiency in MSA, and their emotional state (1996:71-7).
Hary shows experimentally that the intermediate continuum is systematic and regular; i.e. it has ordered rules by which speakers select and combine features in their attempt to standardize colloquial forms. For example, ‘I see him’ in SpA is uf-t-u. Level 1 15
standardization is to select the equivalent koineized standard lexeme: raee-t. In level 2, the verbal suffix is inflected and colloquial long vowels change to diphthongs: raay-tuh. In level 3, the full fusYћa form is realized by inflecting the pronominal suffix: raay-tuhu (1996:81). The ability of the subjects in this experiment to rank linguistic hybrid forms on a continuum is evidence that the transitional rules across the continuum are systematic. This indicates that MSA, SpA, and intermediate varieties do not constitute independent systems, but they all share one core of a common underlying grammar (1996:77). This proposition is useful in analyzing how standardization of SpA and colloquialization of MSA can yield hybrid forms in ESA.
II.3.d The stylistic model of Mitchell (1986) Contrary to the hierarchical and continuum models, Mitchell (1986) sees ESA as a style. He divides the spoken continuum to stigmatized and unstigmatized forms. The former constitutes pure vernacular, and the latter ESA. Within ESA, there is stylistic variation on the formality scale. The informal style is subdivided into careful and casual. Beyond ESA is the non-spontaneous “high-flown” speech used only in reading aloud of prose (Mitchell, 1986:17).
Stylistic variation in ESA is characterized by an increase in tempo as formality decreases. Fast tempo is associated with phonetic assimilation. For example, maha = ‘with her’ becomes maa in casual speech of the Levantine dialect. In different regions, forms may stylistically be classified differently, i.e. what is stigmatized in one region may not be stigmatized in another, e.g. katbat = ‘she wrote’ is stigmatized in Syria, but not in
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Palestine (Mitchell, 1986:15). Also, one and the same linguistic form may be considered both formal and informal in one region, but not in another, e.g. in Syria samīn = ‘fat’ is the formal form of smīn (Mitchell, 1986:16), but in Egypt the former is both formal and informal.
The scope of stylistic variation ranges from morphemes to phrases or sentences, and involves hybridization between forms of MSA and SpA. Similar to the experimental findings of Hary (1996) above, Mitchell analyzes the incorporation of standard features in SpA hierarchically. It is also possible to find “high-flown” segments co-existing with other ESA or vernacular segments in the same sentence (Mitchell, 1986:24-5).
My data will demonstrate that the intermediate variety between CA and MSA in Hary’s model is that of ESA, and that the stylistic variation in Mitchell’s proposal is one of its main characteristics.
III. Methodology III.1 Hypothesis In the light of the analyses presented in the previous sections, ESA is the spoken vernacular realization of MSA (Meiseles, 1980), which is characterized by regional as well as stylistic variation (Michell, 1986). Using the corpus collected for this study, I will show that verb forms in ESA: 1. alternate between Standard and Colloquial, as well as involve hybrid forms.
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2. have specific phonological characteristics that point to the local identity of the speaker. 3. follow a hierarchy of classicizing usage where lexical choice of standard items is most common; second and third on the scale are phonological then syntactic standardization; last, obeying the standard morphological rules is lowest in frequency. 4. reveal that given a situational context and topic of discourse, the choices made by people of comparable education and social class are affected by idiosyncratic factors.
These results support a characterization of ESA as a separate variety of Arabic, yet one that is still characterized by a high degree of internal variability as is the case with newly emerging koine varieties (Mitchell, 1975:71,74).
III.2 Data collection Four interviews were downloaded from the online archive of the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera3. Each interview lasts for about 47 minutes. They were broadcast in the weekly program bila udūd ‘Without Borders’ between the years 2006-2008. The program is very popular across the Arab region. Its producer and interviewer Ahmad Mansour is Egyptian and speaks mainly in MSA, with some lapses to Egyptian SpA. The selected interviewees are all male with comparable age, education and social/occupational status as can be seen from the following brief profiles:
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http://www.aljazeera.net/Channel/
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1- Khayr Eddin Hasib: Iraqi (male). Born 1929. Ph.D. in Economics from Cambridge University. Director General of the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut. 2- Muhsin Bilaal: Syrian (male). Born 1944. Ph.D. in Surgery from the University of Pennsylvania. Minister of Information in Syria. 3- Abdel Wahab Elmessiri: Egyptian (male). Born 1933. Ph.D. in Comparative literature from Rutgers University. Renowned author and general coordinator of the Egyptian opposition organization “Kefaya”. 4- Ahmad Harzanni: Moroccan (male). Born 1948. Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Kentucky. Chairman of the Advisory Council on Human Rights in Morocco.
All four interviews pertain to political issues. The title and original broadcasting date for each interview are shown in Table (2). Region Iraq Syria Egypt Morocco
Title of interview Broadcasting date The future of Iraq in the light of the current situation 4 12/23/2006 The dimensions of the Syrian position in Lebanon 5 1/23/2008 The future of Israel and precursors of its end6 5/7/2008 Human rights in Morocco7 5/12/2007 Table (2) Topics and Date of interviews in the four Arab regions
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Source: al-azīra al-fadYāiyya: http://www.aljazeera.net/channel/archive/archive?ArchiveId=1035858 accessed 10/20/2008 5 Source: al-azīra al-fadYāiyya: http://www.aljazeera.net/channel/archive/archive?ArchiveId=1088911 accessed 10/20/2008 6 Source: al-azīra al-fadYāiyya: http://www.aljazeera.net/channel/archive/archive?ArchiveId=1096284 accessed 10/20/2008. 7 Source: al-azīra al-fadYāiyya; http://www.aljazeera.net/channel/archive/archive?ArchiveId=1085085, accessed 10/20/2008.
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Politics is one of the top discourses favoring ESA, because political analysts are usually well trained in public speech. It is thus expected that political interviews feature a high degree of standardization of SpA in the direction of MSA.
III.3 Procedure In each interview, all verb form tokens were extracted and transcribed. Because verb mood in Arabic is determined by certain particles that may precede the verb, and the future tense and negation are also indicated by other particles before the verb, these particles are also transcribed whenever they co-occur with the verb form. If the speaker drops the mood marker, inflection for person can sometimes be ambiguous and understood only from context. For example if the indicative -na in the verb ya-crif-ū-na = ‘they know’ is dropped, the utterance in fast speech will sound like ya-crif-u = ‘he knows’ because the distinction between final short and long vowels /ū/, /u/ is not salient. In cases like this, a note of the intended person is provided.
The corpus is analyzed and compared with respect to lexical, phonological, syntactic, and morphological features. Phonological transcription and analysis was based on my native intuition. Non standard lexemes were first identified and excluded from further analysis. Second, the phonological variants, mood markers, future markers, negation particles, passive forms, and aspectual/inflectional affixes of each verb form were analyzed. A binary digit is assigned for each token under each subcategory, where an MSA feature gets 1 and the spoken form gets 0. Deviations from MSA were qualitatively compared for each speaker and across the four speakers. Quantitatively, the score of each speaker was
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calculated by adding up the points and computing the MSA percentage for each feature. Finally, common trends in the corpus were deduced, and specific idiosyncratic tendencies were identified.
IV. The verb in MSA and SpA In this section differences between verbal features in MSA and SpA are briefly outlined. The SpA dialects discussed are Iraqi, Syrian, Egyptian and Moroccan (Cowell, 1964; Harell, 1964; Heath, 1997; Erwin, 2004). Data analysis in the following section will show that ESA draws on both systems, MSA and SpA, by selecting one feature or the other, or by hybridizing them.
IV.1 Lexical features It is not always easy to differentiate between the lexemes of SpA and MSA. Both are essentially the same, except for standard items that have undergone phonetic alternations, semantic shift, or other developments. For example: 3. (MSA) adYar-a
‘he brought’
4. (MSA) dāb
‘he wandered or he cut through’
In SpA dāb has acquired the meaning of adYar-a, and both verbs are used in ESA to mean ‘bring’.
IV.2 Phonological features IV.2.a Consonants
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Interdental fricatives in all dialects, except Iraqi, become either alveolar stops or fricatives: /θ/ [s] or [t], //[z] or [d], /Y/ [dY] or [zY] 5. (MSA) Yahar-a
(SpA) zYahar
‘it appeared’
In Iraq, the voiced emphatic alveolar stop becomes a fricative: /dY/ [Y] 6. (MSA) dYarab-a
(Iraqi) Yarab
‘he hit’
In some regions of Iraq and in certain phonetic contexts the voiceless velar stop becomes a palatal affricate: /k/ [t] 7. (MSA) ya-kī
(Iraqi) yi-t-ī
‘he speaks’
The voiced uvular stop stays the same in Morocco, but changes to glottal in urban Egypt and Syria except for a small number of lexemes: /q/ []. It has different realizations in different Iraqi regions: /q/ [q] or [g] or [k] or [d] 8. (MSA) qāl-a
(Egyptian/Syrian) āl
‘he said’
The voiced palatal affricate /d/ becomes [] in Iraq, Syria, Morocco and rural Egypt. In urban Egypt it is [g]. 9. (MSA) ya-tād-u
(SpA) ya-tā, ya-tāg
‘he needs’
The glottal stop is often deleted in medial and final positions. 10. (MSA) ya-kul-u
(SpA) yākul
‘he eats’
IV.2.b Vowels Diphthongs are transformed in SpA to long vowels: /ay/ /ee/ and /aw/ /oo/ 11. (MSA) maay-na
(SpA) maē-na
‘we walked’
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There is a lot of variation among regions and social classes in the internal vowelization of verbs. For example the vowel sequence of the verb form CvCvC may take different combinations of a, i, and u. Moroccan is characterized by initial clusters and a schwa: CCC. 12. (MSA) labis-a
(Egyptian) libis /(Iraqi) labas /(Moroccan) lbəs
‘he wore’
IV.3 Morphological and syntactic features IV.3.a Aspectual prefixes Aspectual prefixes do not exist in MSA. In SpA, they indicate habitual or ongoing actions in the present tense. These are bi- in Egypt & Syria, ka-/ta- in Morocco, and da- in Iraq. 13. (SpA) bi-nisma
‘we listen/ we are listening’
IV.3.b Geminate verbs Verbs, whose second and third radicals are identical, are geminated in the imperfective. When the perfective is inflected for first and second person, they degeminate in MSA, but in SpA they don’t. Instead a vowel is inserted before the inflectional suffix. In Moroccan, this vowel is /i/ and in other dialects it is a long vowel /ē/. 14. (MSA) marar-ta
(SpA) marrē-t
‘you passed’
IV.3.c Subject affixes Dual and feminine plural inflections exist only in the standard. All other number and gender agreement is the same in MSA and SpA. In the imperfective:
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The /a/ of MSA subject prefixes changes to /i/ or /u/ in SpA and may get deleted in Moroccan. 15. (MSA) ta-tYlub-u
(SpA) tu-tYlub (Moroccan) tYlYeb
‘you request’
Moroccan replaces the 1st sg. prefix a- by ne-, which is the MSA first person plural prefix. In this dialect, the 1st pl. prefix stays ne-, but an additional –u or –w is suffixed. Also, the 1st and 2nd pl. suffixes –u are pronounced –w when the stem ends in a vowel. 16. (MSA) a-bda-u /na-bda-u
(Moroccan) ne-bda / ne-bda-w
‘I/we begin’
In the perfective: The 2nd pl. suffix alternates between –tum and –tu in SpA. In Moroccan, -tu alternates with –tiw. Also, the 3rd pl. suffix –u alternates with –w in Moroccan (e.g. (17)). In Egyptian, the /u/ lengthens upon negation with ma… (e.g. (18)) 17. (MSA) be-tum
(SpA) be-tu(m) / (Moroccan) be-tiw
18. (Egyptian) ma-be-t-ū-
‘you (pl.) sold’
‘you (pl.) did not sell’
IV.3.d Object suffixes Same as subject prefixes, there are no dual and feminine plural distinctions. Other object pronominal suffixes change as follows: Second person singular masc./fem.: The suffix undergoes consonant-vowel metathesis. 19. (MSA) saal-t-u–ka (SpA) saal-t–ak
‘I asked you (masc.)’
20. (MSA) saal-t-u-ki (SpA) saal-t–ik
‘I asked you (fem.)’
Second and third person plural: The final consonant of the suffix may be dropped or retained. 21. (MSA) xadam–kum (SpA) xadam–ku(m) ‘He served you (pl.)
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Third person masculine singular: The /h/ of the suffix is hardly realized. The final vowel is also dropped if the verb form ends in a vowel. In this case, the suffix is deleted altogether, and compensated for by lengthening the vowel of the verb form (e.g. (22)). In Egyptian the /u/ of the suffix lengthens upon negation with ma… (e.g. (23)). 22. (MSA) na-ī-u–hu / ramā-hu 23. (Egyptian) ma-n-i-ū-
(SpA) n-ī–u / ramā-(h)
‘We live it’
‘We do not live it’
Third person masculine plural: In Syrian the suffix is replaced by its feminine counterpart. 24. (MSA) kallam-ū-hum
(Syrian) kallim-ū-hun
‘They spoke (to) them (masc.)’
IV.3.e Mood Mood is expressed verb finally and is consistently deleted in all dialects. 25. (MSA) a-fta-u
(SpA) a-fta
‘I open’
In weak verbs, which have a medial or final long vowel, the vowel is shortened in the jussive mood but it is retained in SpA. 26. (MSA) ru
(SpA) rū
‘Go!’
The indicative marker /na/ for the 2nd fem.sg., and the 2nd and 3rd pl. of the imperfective becomes /n/ in Iraqi, and is deleted in other dialects. 27. (MSA) ta-ktub-ū-na (Iraqi) ti-ktib-ū-n
(Egyptian/Syrian/Moroccan) ti-ktib-ū
‘you (pl.) write’
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IV.3.f The future The future is formed in MSA by prefixing the imperfective with sa- or preceding it with the particle sawfa. In SpA sawfa is replaced by ra in Iraq and in the speech of lower social classes in Egypt. All four dialects use the future prefix a-, or ha-. 28. (MSA) sawfa/sa- asma
(SpA) ra asma/a-sma
‘I will listen’
IV.3.g Negation In MSA a verb is negated by several particles such as mā, lam, lan, lā depending on whether it is perfective, imperfective, imperative, or in the future tense. These particles boil down in SpA to nearly one: ma. Regional variation slightly changes the form of ma. Imperative: 29. (MSA) lā tu-sYaddiq-ū
(Egyptian) ma-t-sYadda-ū-
‘do not beleive’
(Iraqi) ma-d-a-ruf
‘I do not know’
Imperfective: 30. (MSA) lā a-rif-u Perfective: 31. (MSA) lam ya-di/mā dā-a
(Moroccan) ma a
‘he did not come’
Future: 32. (MSA) lan ta-tafil-a
(Syrian) mā a-ta-tafil
‘she will not celebrate’
IV.3.h The Passive Verb stems of Arabic have ten patterns derived from combinations of the consonantal root with vowels and other consonants. The passive of all perfective patterns in MSA is formed by changing the stem-final vowel to /i/, and changing all preceding vowels to /u/.
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33. (MSA) kasar-a
‘he broke’
kusir-a
‘it was broken’
For the imperfective passive, the vowel of the subject prefix is /u/ and all the following vowels are /a/. 34. (MSA) ya-ksar-u
‘he breaks’
yu-ksar-u
‘it was broken’
Pattern VII (inCvCvC or nCCvC in Moroccan) is the reflexive of pattern I (CvCvC), but can yield a passive meaning when the subject is animate (Abboud & McCarus, 1983:552). This property is generalized in SpA, so that pattern VII is consistently the passive of pattern I. The /n/ segment of this pattern may be replaced by /t/ so that the passive becomes itCvCvC/tCCvC. 35. (SpA) itamal
‘it was made’
yi-timil
‘it is made’
In a similar manner, the medio-passive of pattern II (CvCCvC) is pattern V (taCvCCvC) in MSA and (itCvCCvC / tCvCCvC) in SpA. 36. (SpA) haddid
‘he threatened’
ithaddid
‘he was threatened’
V- Data Analysis & Results V.1 Lexical features Native speakers from the four regions were asked to classify the verbs used in the interviews as common to MSA and their respective dialects, or as occurring only in MSA. In table (3), the percentages of verbs common to MSA and SpA in the Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi speeches are between 80-90%, but less that 50% for the Moroccan interviewee. Judgments by two different native speakers confirmed the low ratio for the Moroccan data.
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Moroccan Egyptian Syrian Iraqi Total 136 136 96 136 127 MSA/SpA 66 58 80 153 106 MSA 70 78 16 17 21 %MSA/SpA 48.5% 42.6% 83.3% 88.9% 84.1% Table (3) Ratio of verbs common to MSA and SpA for the four interviewees
Referring to table (4), all four interviewees employed verbs which are predominantly MSA. For the Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi speakers, this result reflects the high degree of lexical overlap between MSA and SpA in their respective dialects. In the Moroccan case, this argument does not hold, because standard and colloquial lexemes are much less congruent. Lexical selection in this case may be driven by a conscious desire to avoid miscommunication when the local equivalent is thought to be unfamiliar or unintelligible in other dialects. Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan 320 MSA 288 378 292 1 SpA 3 12 1 99.7% %MSA 99.7% 96.9% 99.7% Table (4) Percentages of MSA lexical verb forms used by the four interviewees
Table (5) lists the SpA verbs used by the four speakers. The verbs šāf, āb, and xarbaT are common to all regional dialects. The verb šaf in the dictionary of lisān il-arab has the meaning ‘to see’ only in the spoken vernacular of pre-Islamic Arabia, but denotes a different meaning in classical literary Arabic. 8 This is an example of Ferguson’s koine evidence for pre-Islamic forms that have survived in modern Arabic dialects. The other two verbs, bedd (Syrian) andidda (Egyptian), are comprehensible in all dialects. Hence, a speaker using any of these spoken lexemes is confident that they will not cause any communication breakdown.
8
Source: Sakhr s.v. šāf (http://lexicons.sakhr.com/openme.asp?fileurl=/html/7069701.html; accessed 11/09/08)
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Iraqi šāf āb
Syrian šāf
Egyptian
Moroccan šāf
‘to see’ ‘to bring’ ‘to want’ bedd ‘to confuse’ xarbaT ‘to give’ idda Table (5) Spoken Arabic verbs used by the four interviewees
Eight of the ten SpA verbs of the Syrian speaker occurred during the second half of the interview when the interviewer maneuvered fiercely with him. In response, the speaker got irritated and lapsed into several short stretches of SpA. The interviewer frequently controverted the Moroccan speaker too, but the latter managed to remain composed. None of these interjections occurred with the Egyptian or the Iraqi speaker.
V.2 Phonological features V.2.a Consonants In what follows, verbs that occur only in SpA are excluded from further analysis. As table (6) shows, the Moroccan was the only speaker who abided 100% with the standard pronunciation of all consonants. The Iraqi never realized /dY/ as the Iraqi vernacular [Y], but somewhere between the two phonemes. But the Egyptian consistently retained the Cairene /g/ for MSA /d/. Since these phonetic features are tolerated in MSA, they are excluded from the present comparison. Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan MSA 271 372 275 320 SpA 17 8 17 0 %MSA 94.1% 97.9% 94.2% 100% Table (6) Percentages of standard realization of consonants in verb forms
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Table (7) shows the phonemes which are influenced by local pronunciation. The two alternations common to the three speakers from Iraq, Syria, and Egypt are changing /q/ to [] and eliding the glottal stop either in initial, medial, or final positions.
Iraqi
// : d
Syrian Egyptian /q/ : [] [] : /Y/ : [zY] /θ/ : [t] // : z
Table (7) Consonants affected by dialectal influence
1. /q/ in the Iraqi dialect is either [q] or [g], but the speaker, having lived in Beirut from 1981 until the date of the interview in 2006, changed /q/ in several tokens to the Levantine []. With all speakers, transforming /q/ to // only happened with different forms of one verb qāl = ‘to say’, except that the Egyptian also pronounced ya-qra-ha = ‘he reads it’ as yi-rā-ha once. However, all speakers used the verb qāl more than twice the number of times in standard than in colloquial pronunciation. Table (8) shows the ratio of pronouncing the uvular stop in all tokens to changing it into a glottal stop. /q/ Iraqi Syrian Egyptian [q] 65 32 46 [] 7 3 2 %MSA 90.3% 91.4% 95.8% Table (8) Percentages of standard realization of /q/
2. Table (9-a) shows the ratios of // deletion for the three speakers. The distributions of // elision in initial, medial and final word position are shown in table (10-b).
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// Iraqi Syrian Egyptian [] 30 35 36 10 3 8 %MSA 75.0% 92.1% 81.8% Table (9-a) Percentages of standard realization of // Iraqi Syian Egyptian [] del. [] del. [] del. Initial 18 6 27 1 20 6 Medial 11 3 7 0 10 1 Final 1 1 1 2 6 1 Table (9-b) The distribution of // and its deletion in initial, medial and final word positions //
Final and medial positions of glottal deletion occurred with spoken verb forms like b-n-iī = ‘we come’ (Iraqi), ia = ‘he came’ (Syrian). The standard pronunciation of the former is na-ī-u and the latter is jā-a. Initial deletion is common in all dialects, but in the data this only happened when the verb had the aspectual prefix b-: b-()a-taqid = ‘I believe’ (Iraqi) 9, b-()a-tkallim = ‘I talk’ (Syrian), b-()a-tmanna = ‘I hope’ (Egyptian). Since most of what is counted in table (10-b) as initial elisions is b-prefixed, the majority of elisions are practically medial. Eliding the glottal stop in medial position is reported as characteristic of the old Hijazi dialect (Abdel Tawwab, 1988:272-3). This is another example of the link between the early spoken koine and modern dialects. The Iraqi’s speech sounded less standard because he went further in deleting // in the absence of the b- prefix, e.g. ʕatY-ū = ‘they gave’, ntqil = ‘I move (to)’, where the standard pronunciation is a-tY-aw and a-ntaqil-u. Glottal deletion can be a result of hybridization. For example, the Egyptian said b-a-ra = ‘I see’, where the verb ʔara is not used in SpA; however, he attached the colloquial aspectual prefix to it and deleted the glottal stop. 9
It will be shown in section V.3.e that the Iraqi speaker never used the Iraqi aspectual prefix d-, but frequently used the Levantine/Egyptian b-, and that the Moroccan speaker never used an aspectual prefix.
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3. /Y/: As shown in table (10), there is a sharp contrast between the Egyptian and the Syrian. The Egyptian retains the vernacular pronunciation even with MSA forms, which is not so much the case with the Syrian. Six instances of [zY] in the Egyptian data were with one verb which is common to MSA and SpA: zYahar = ‘to appear’, and one instance with the verb zYall= ‘to continue to be’, which is used only in MSA. /Y/ was realized with the MSA passive form of yu-lāaY = ‘it is observed’. On the other hand, the Syrian used /Y/ with the MSA verb naYar = ‘to look’, and MSA/SpA verb itafaY = ‘to keep’. He alternated between [zY] and [Y] with the MSA/SpA verb intaYar = ‘to wait’. /Y/ Syrian Egyptian [Y] 8 2 [zY] 2 6 %MSA 80.0% 33.3% Table (10) Percentages of standard realization of /Y/
4. //: ya-ʔxu = ‘to take’ was pronounced once by the Iraqi in the Levantine SpA as y-āxed. Two of the three standard occurrences of // in his data were other forms of the same verb. Similarly, the Egyptian changed // once to [z] in zakarnā-ha = ‘we mentioned it’ as in Egyptian SpA, and the same verb occurred twice with the standard phoneme. For each of the two speakers, only four tokens during the whole interview contained the phoneme //. 5. /θ/ changed in one of six tokens during the Syrian interview to /t/ in baat-na = ‘we sent’. This verb is common to MSA and SpA, and is pronounced in Syria with /t/. The other verbs containing /θ/ are more common in MSA, but when used
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in SpA never have the interdental fricative changed to a stop: adaθ = ‘to happen’, baaθ = ‘to research’, tumaθθil = ‘to represent’.
In the overall picture, phonetic fluctuation in consonantal realization among ESA speakers in this corpus is more inclined towards MSA. The influence of SpA is particularly observed in interdental fricatives, as shown in paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 above.
V.2.b Vowels As with the consonants, no changes in internal voweling of verb forms occurred in the speech of the Moroccan. It was mentioned in section IV.2.b that Moroccan Arabic is characterized by consonant clusters and vowel reduction. This is one feature that makes Moroccan Arabic harder to comprehend by speakers from eastern regions, and is one possible reason that may have motivated the Moroccan speaker to conform to standard pronunciation. The Syrian and the Iraqi speakers had comparable ratios of vowel alternations, and were less standard than the Egyptian speaker. Iraq Syria Egypt Moroccan MSA 264 372 286 320 SpA 24 26 6 0 %MSA 91.7% 93.2% 97.9% 100% Table (11) Percentages of MSA vowels in verb forms
Diphthongs The Syrian speaker changed /aw/ twice to a long vowel /ū/ in ra-ū = ‘they saw’ and atū = ‘they came’. There were no other diphthongs in his speech, except awqaf-ū = ‘they
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stopped’ and mašay-na = ‘we left’. Only the latter could be changed to /ē/ in SpA. The Iraqi changed the single /aw/ occurrence to /ū/ in baq-ū = ‘they stayed’.
Internal vowelization Stem-internal vowels may be deleted resulting in syllable restructuring, e.g. b(a)-at = ‘he sent’, y-nsa(i)b-ū = ‘they withdraw’. Instead, they may be altered in quality, e.g. sama = ‘he heard’, in MSA sami. There was a noticeable tendency for the Syrian speaker, under the influence of his dialect, to change the stem vowel of the imperfective verb from /i/ to /u/, e.g. ya-dYrub = ‘he hits’ in MSA ya-dYrib. The Iraqi, Syrian, and Egyptian speakers tended to delete the first /a/ of the vowel sequence a-a-a in imperfective stems CvCvCCvC, e.g. ti-t(a)daxxal = ‘she interferes’, ta-t(a)raddad = ‘it lapses’. For the Iraqi and Egyptian speakers, these changes were obvious shifts to the vernacular, but for the Syrian the shift was only partial because other standard features were retained. In the Iraqi examples (37) and (38), the lexemes are common to MSA and SpA, and the subject and object affixes ti- and -ak are colloquial. Thus, the changes in stem-internal vowels seem natural. 37. (Iraqi) ti-ntihi = ‘it ends’
(MSA) ta-ntahi
38. (Iraqi) aāwb-ak = ‘I answer you’
(MSA) ʔu-āwib-u-ka
On the other hand, in the two Syrian examples (39) and (40), the subject prefixes ta-, naare standard. The second verb also carries an indicative –u- mood infix. Nevertheless, internal vowels change alongside these standard features. 39. (Syrian) ta-mul = ‘it bears’
(MSA) ta-mil
40. (Syrian) na-rum-u-hum = ‘we deprive them’
(MSA) na-rim-u-hum
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It is unlikely that this unexpected behavior is due to misconception about the standard pronunciation. Rather, it appears that the Syrian speaker in these instances was possibly less careful in his speech. This is supported by the fact that 16 out of the 26 non-standard vowelizations occurred during the third quarter of the interview, which is about the same time that the speaker shifted to some colloquial lexemes.
V.3 Morphological and syntactic features V.3.a Mood In the following cases, the mood marker does not show on the verb form because it is null: 1- In the perfective aspect of all plural persons, and with the 3rd fem.sg., e.g. ta-
ayyarat- = ‘it changed’, quddim-ū- = ‘they were put on (trial)’. 2- The negative verb lays-a = ‘is not’ in the 3rd masc.sg. 3- In past negation with the particle lam, e.g. lam a-ltaiq- = ‘I did not join’. 4- In the indicative of a weak verb with a final long vowel e.g. tu-ī- = ‘it hurts’. 5- In the indicative of a weak verb with a final long vowel when attached to an object suffix, e.g. u-tYī-ka = ‘I give you’. 6- In the imperative of a sound verb (i.e. not a weak verb), e.g. xu- = ‘take’. When these cases are excluded from the comparison in table (12), the number of verb forms drops significantly and disproportionately among speakers. The “effective” percent is the ratio of the latter number to the total number of verb forms. This percent is a truer measure of standardization on the part of the speaker. For example, taking all tokens into account, the Moroccan speaker retains morphological marking of mood 35
about twice as much as the Egyptian speaker, and the percent of the Iraqi speaker exceeds that of the Egyptian too. On the other hand, effective mood marking shows that the Moroccan speaker standardizes about five times as much as the Egyptian speaker, and the latter actually surpasses the Iraqi speaker.
Realized Dropped Total % Mood Null marker Possible marker Effective % Mood
Iraqi 109 179 37.8% 104 5 4.6%
Syrian 208 172 54.7% 121 87 41.8%
Egyptian 99 193 33.9% 81 18 6.2%
Moroccan 196 124 61.3% 85 111 34.4%
Table (12) Percentages of apparent and effective standardization in mood marking of verb forms
It is obvious that mood marking stands at the opposite pole from lexical and phonological results. The total ratio of realizing and dropping mood markers is between 30-60%. The superiority of the Moroccan in this respect can be attributed to linguistic idiosyncrasy, or may have other socio-political reasons. For example, in the context of education and bilingualism in Morocco, it is reported that there are strong trends that regard Arabization as “an inevitable step toward preserving the Moroccan cultural identity” (Ennaji, 2002:72). The same may apply to Syria which is one of the few Arab countries that Arabizes education in all the physical sciences including medicine10. However, the impact of these factors on the linguistic performance of native speakers needs empirical support.
10
Source: Arabization of Health Sciences Network: http://www.emro.who.int/ahsn/arabicpublicationsDrKhayat-97-Section2.htm, accessed 12/12/08.
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V.3.b The future Table (13) shows the percentage use of the MSA future prefix and the percent of future tense marking for each speaker. Less than 4% of all verb forms were in the future tense and all of them were standard except for the Iraqi speaker. The Iraqi speaker replaced the MSA future prefix sa- with the future verb rā three times. This is the Iraqi SpA norm for future constructions. He used the future prefix a-, which is common to other Arab dialects, once. All instances were associated with other colloquial features such as internal vowel deletion in the verb t(a)kallam = ‘to speak’. On the other hand, the occurrence of sa- in the data of all speakers was associated with the MSA pronunciation of the verb and its subject prefix. Moreover, the Moroccan speaker realized mood in 9 of his 11 future tokens. One hybrid combination occurred in the Iraqi speaker’s data: se-y(a)-sYal = ‘it will happen’. Here, the MSA prefix had its vowel reduced, the subject prefix vowel was deleted, and the verb stem underwent an internal vowel change in its final syllable from /u/ to /a/.
MSA SpA %MSA % Future tokens
Iraqi 4 6 60% 3%
Syrian 2 0 100% 1%
Egyptian 5 0 100% 1.7%
Moroccan 11 0 100% 3.4%
Table (13) Percentages of future tense and MSA future prefixes in verb forms
V.3.c Negation As shown in table (14), all except the Egyptian speaker negated the verb using MSA particles 100% of the time. The distribution of negation particles is shown in table (15).
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Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan MSA 25 30 41 25 SpA 0 0 1 0 %MSA 100% 100% 97.6% 100% Table (14) Percentages of MSA negation of verb forms Tense Present Present or Past Present Past Future
Negation particle Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan laysa 2 7 13 8 ma 0 3 0 1 la 12 12 19 9 lam 8 5 8 6 lan 3 3 1 0 Table (15) Distribution of negation particles of verb forms
Total 30 4 52 27 7
1. laysa = ‘is not’ occurred frequently in different forms. It does not negate a verb, but is a standard negative verb in itself. 2. ma, which is also used in SpA, was rarest indicating that the speakers avoided it in order to sound more standard. The Egyptian speaker used it in conjunction with the suffix - in ma kan-ū- = ‘they were not’, as in Egyptian SpA past tense negation. The Syrian speaker used ma once with an imperfective verb prefixed by b- as common in the Syrian dialect: ma b-arif = ‘I do not know’. The Moroccan speaker used it with the verb kān = ‘was’. All recorded cases of ma usage are closely equivalent to spoken negative forms. 3. laa, lam, and lan were all followed by phonologically and morphologically standard verbs. In MSA, the verb following laa, lam, and lan has indicative, jussive, and subjunctive mood respectively. There is no marker for the jussive mood, but a medial or final long vowel is shortened. Shortening of the final vowel is not salient in oral production, contrary to the medial vowel which is easily noticeable. The Iraqi failed to shorten the vowel of the only hollow verb form (i.e. a verb with a medial long vowel) he encountered: lam ya-sYīr = ‘it did not
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become’. Other speakers conformed to the standard rule as shown in table (16). The Iraqi speaker appears to be much more casual in his speech. Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan Shortened vowel 0 3 3 2 Unshortened vowel 1 0 0 0 Table (16) Shortening of medial vowel of the verb form negated with lam
With lan, the Egyptian speaker dropped the subjunctive marker –a: lan yati = ‘it will not come’, but the Syrian speaker was careful to attach it to the three negated verb forms: lan ta-fi-ya = ‘it will not exempt’, lan na-dxul-a = ‘we will not enter’, lan ta-dxul-a = ‘you (masc. sg.) will not enter’.
V.3.d The Passive The only SpA passive form recorded in table (17) is tYtYarr-it = ‘it was forced to’, which in MSA is itYtYurr-at. This verb is peculiar in that it is rarely used in the active voice. However, in SpA it is pronounced with the vowel sequence of the active voice a-i. Hence, the Iraqi speaker replaced the passive vowel sequence u-a with a-i. Two of the MSA passive verbs by the Egyptian speaker were prefixed by bi-: bi-tu-sYāb = ‘it gets inflicted with’, and bi-yu-samm-ū = ‘they are called’. These are clear hybridizations especially in the latter example, which in addition to the prefix, has its final diphthong /aw/ : (MSA) yu-samma-w replaced by the long vowel /ū/.
MSA SpA %MSA
Iraqi 21 1 95.5%
Syrian 29 0 100%
Egyptian 32 0 100%
Moroccan 23 0 100%
Table (17) Percentages of standard passivization
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V.3.e Prefixes Verbal affixes in Arabic depend on whether the verb is imperfective or perfective or in the imperative. The subject is referred to by a prefix and suffix in the imperfective, and by a suffix in the perfective or in positive commands. The aspectual prefix is attached only to imperfective verbs. It was noted in section IV.3.c that the vowel of the subject affix often changes in SpA to /i/ or /u/ or gets deleted. It is, thus, expected that the occurrence of an aspectual and subject prefixes in sequence will motivate this change in ESA. Otherwise, the combination of the colloquial aspectual prefix and the standard subject one is a hybrid form. Table (18) shows the numbers of imperfective, perfective, and positive command forms in the data. The percent MSA in table (19) and (20) is calculated with respect to the total number of imperfective verbs. Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan Imperfective 171 293 178 199 Perfective 112 138 111 115 Command 5 3 0 6 Table (18) Total number of verbs in the imperfective, perfective and positive command forms Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan No ASP prefix 155 232 178 320 ASP prefix 16 7 34 0 %MSA 90.6% 97.1% 80.9% 100% Table (19) Percentages of standardization by dropping the aspectual prefix Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan No vowel change 93 222 164 195 Vowel change 78 17 15 4 %MSA 54.4% 92.9% 91.6% 98.0% Table (20) Percentages of standardization by vowel quality of subject prefix
The Moroccan speaker never used the aspectual prefix of his dialect (ta- or ha-). Although in Iraq this prefix is da-, the Iraqi speaker adopted the Levantine or Egyptian ba- instead, most probably due to his period of residence and work in Beirut. The
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Egyptian used b- the most, and the Syrian less. The percentages in table (19) show that the majority of verb forms for all interviewees lack the aspectual prefix.
Referring to table (20), we see that the frequency of vowel changes in subject prefixes is low for the Syrian and Egyptian speakers and negligible for the Moroccan. In contrast, the Iraqi speaker changed the vowel about 55% of the time. In table (21), the percent concomitance of the aspectual prefix and vowel change is the ratio between the number of co-occurrences and the total number of aspectual prefixes. The ratios reflect varying tendencies for hybridization. This is illustrated in the following examples from the Egyptian’s data: [bi-]ta-taaddaθ[-] = ‘it speaks’, [b-yi-]staxddim-u[-] = ‘they use’, and [b-a-tmanna] = ‘I hope’. The first is an MSA only verb, its subject prefix is standard, but colloquial bi- is attached. The second is also an MSA verb stem, however, the aspectual and subject prefixes are SpA. Both verbs have no mood marker. The verb stem in the last example tamanna is lexically common to MSA and SpA, but adjoining it with b- caused the whole verb form to become colloquial. Thus, the internal vowel /a/, and the glottal stop of the subject prefix are both deleted (MSA: ʔatamanna). There is a significant difference among speakers in hybridizing. The Egyptian speaker hybridizes to a much greater extent than the Syrian and Iraqi speakers, while the Moroccan does not. . ASP prefix Vowel change Co-occurrence % co-occurrence
Iraqi 16 78 12 75%
Syrian 7 16 6 85.7%
Egyptian 34 15 9 26.5%
Moroccan 0 4 0 0%
Table (21) Percentages of co-occurrence of aspectual prefix and vowel change in subject prefix
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V.3.f Suffixes In the perfective, the subject is indicated by a suffix. The vowel of the 3rd fem.sg suffix is /a/ in MSA, and in most dialects it changes to /i/. In table (22), this change is particularly noticeable for the Iraqi and Egyptian speakers whose spoken habits outweighed their standard performance in this respect. Although the percent of the Syrian speaker is higher than that of the Moroccan, this result is not conclusive because the number of verb forms in the 3rd fem.sg in the corpus is limited. Besides, the Syrian speaker changed the vowel of the verb irtakab-at = ‘she/it committed’, whereas the Moroccan speaker used the verb kaan-at = ‘it was’. It is evident that kaan is a much more frequent verb, and is thus more prone to be affected by spoken habits. Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan No vowel change 13 20 7 16 Vowel change 14 1 9 1 %MSA 48.1% 95.2% 43.8% 94.1% Table (22) Percentages of standardization by vowel quality of the subject suffix of 3rd person feminine singular
The dual object suffix, which is changed to plural in SpA, had only one appropriate context in the whole set of data. It was in the Egyptian’s interview, and the speaker used the MSA suffix: ya-dYman-ān = ‘they (dual) guarantee’. There was no context for the 2nd or 3rd fem.pl subject suffixes in any interview.
Similarly, the object suffix could not be tested for the dual and feminine plural because the context did not require them. However, the Syrian speaker used the latter once in place of the masculine plural: tYalla-hun = ‘he expelled them (masc.)’. As noted in section IV.3.d, this is a feature of the Syrian dialect.
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Iraqi Syrian Egyptian Moroccan MSA 17 27 18 30 SpA 2 8 6 11 %MSA 89.5% 77.1% 73.6% 71.4% Table (23) Percentages of standardization in object suffixes
The low percentages in table (23) are due to dropping the final vowel of the object suffix for the 2nd and 3rd masc.sg. All other verb features were often standard, including mood, e.g. a-id-u-k(a) = ‘I promise you’, akarnā-h(u) = ‘we mentioned it’. Hence, object suffixes provide an additional means of hybridization. The Egyptian speaker used no verbs with the 2nd masc.sg object suffix. He tended to drop the consonant of the 3rd masc.sg along with the vowel, hence deleting the suffix altogether, e.g., na-rā- = ‘we see it’. The Iraqi speaker had only two verbs with each of the 2nd and 3rd masc.sg suffixes, and retained the vowel of the latter, e.g. xasYsYasY-at-hu = ‘it allocated it’. The Syrian and the Iraqi speakers also performed a consonant-vowel metathesis in some 3rd masc.sg object suffixes, e.g. araf-ak = ‘he knew you’, a-āwb-ak = ‘I answer you’. In addition to metathesis, the last example has several other colloquial features: glottal deletion in the subject prefix, internal vowel deletion āw(a)b, and no mood marker.
VI Discussion and Conclusion The findings of this study shed light on the sociolinguistic status of ESA, as well as on the grammatical form of the verb in ESA. Because Arabs “are today strongly motivated to employ and extend” ESA and foreign learners of Arabic are “left to ‘pick [it] up’ as best they may in the absence of teaching and reference materials” (Mitchell, 1975:71), the findings are also relevant to the teaching of Arabic as a second language on the premise that there is a growing trend to teach ESA to foreign students, rather than
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teaching them SpA and MSA in two independent curricula (Ryding, 1991:212, AlSulaiti & Atwel, 2003:148-50). However, The corpus is limited to one topic of discourse and one setting, namely, political discourse in satellite TV interviews, while the scope of ESA usage is much wider in topics and contexts. Also, the age and level of education of the speakers do not encompass the whole range of ESA speakers. Hence, the following results can at best be indicative of possible trends and need to be tested on larger corpora.
Several features of the verb in ESA can be deduced. Lexically, it is evident that the choice of verb items is predominantly MSA. The few exceptions are verbs which are either common to all dialects or local but well understood in all regions. The SpA aspectual prefix is most often avoided in ESA. When it occurs, it leads to more colloquialization by changing the vowel of the subject prefix. Subject and object suffixes are mildly colloquialized, by changing their vowel quality or eliding their consonant. Mood is the least preserved feature of MSA in educated speech. Thus, it is the main distinctive feature in rating speakers with respect to their degree of standardization. Other syntactic features like the future, negation, and the passive contribute positively to classicization. The local identity of the speaker is largely indexed by certain phonetic characteristics, especially in vowels. Future and negation markers are other candidates for revealing the local affiliation of ESA speakers. Most common hybrid forms are produced by using a lexically standard verb while doing one or more of the following: a. dropping the mood marker
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b. adjoining an aspectual prefix c. colloquializing the verb stem or its subject and/or object affixes by phonetic alternations
The results demonstrate that deviations from MSA in educated speech are constrained by cross regional intelligibility as much as they are indicative of the speaker’s regional loyalty. Stylistic variation is evidenced in the different tendencies of speakers to reveal their local identity at the expense of standardization. This confirms Mitchell’s observation that “speakers of different regional origins … differ in their use of koineizing and ‘elevating’ devices” (1975:80). It is found that the Iraqi speaker sounds the most ‘local’, while the Moroccan the least. The Moroccan and Syrian speakers surpassed the Egyptian and Iraqi ones by more than 25% in mood marking. They also changed the subject suffix vowel about 50% less often than the Egyptian and Iraqi speakers. The speech of the Iraqi also illustrates the influence of dialect contact, since he had lived and worked in Beirut for more than twenty years. As a result he always used the Levantine aspectual prefix ba- rather than the Iraqi prefix da-.
Considering the comparable age, education, and social position of the four interviewees, the reason for stylistic variation must be related to idiosyncratic factors. It is possible that the Moroccan interviewee who was an occasional lecturer and article writer was more trained in MSA than the Iraqi speaker who was an economist and worked most of his life in industry. However, this cannot be the case with the Egyptian speaker, who was a prominent author, as compared to the Syrian speaker, who was
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originally a surgeon. The Moroccan speaker was clearly accommodating his speech habits to the pan-Arab audience, and in addition, projecting a very professional and refined image of his social status. Hence, he suppressed the distinctive word stress patterns of Moroccan Arabic and maintained a steady standardized style throughout the interview. On the other hand, verbal features in the speech of the Iraqi occasionally fluctuated between SpA and MSA forms, and on the whole inclined to be more casual. He hardly monitored his speech phonetically and was not careful enough to apply the grammatical rules of MSA as much as all other speakers did. The Egyptian speaker was also less accommodating as compared to the Syrian speaker. The most distinctive features of the Egyptian dialect that occurred were phonetic, particularly the use of [g] and [zY] in place of /d/ and /Y/ respectively. Egyptians lack the motivation to accommodate because as El-Hassan observes, “there are two main forces which operate on an educated Egyptian speaker: (i) the desire to sound Egyptian, and (ii) the desire to sound educated…. In both kinds of situation, intelligibility is not in jeopardy in view of the fact that Egyptian regional speech has spread far and wide in the Arab world” (1978b:42). The Levantine dialect is also intelligible as compared to the Iraqi and Moroccan dialects. However, colloquialization in the speech of this Syrian speaker was due to another factor: the contentious interruptions of the interviewer. The speaker’s performance dropped and he reverted to his vernacular speech habits under situational stress. In arousal theory, stress leads to arousal, which beyond certain limits becomes inversely proportional to performance (Matthews et. al, 2000:165). For this reason, Holes contends that “When speakers become excited …, they tend to move toward the Colloquial end of the continuum” (1996:76).
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Ferguson predicted that the “more widespread literacy, broader communication among different regional and social segments of the community, desire for a full-fledged standard ‘national’ language...” would lead to “the adoption of H or one form of L as standard” (1956:339). On the other hand, Anis predicted that, with the support of an institutionalized language policy and the spread of the media and education, the differences between MSA and SpA, as well as among regional dialects can be neutralized by means of neglecting some features of the fusYa, e.g. mood marking, and promoting others, e.g. negation and future markers (1959:49-63). This paper shows that Ferguson’s prediction has not come true, and that without the directed language policy called for by Anis, a third koineized variety is working its way out along two axes: leveling regional dialects and elevating /classicizing them. As featured in the use of verbs, the characteristics of ESA pertain to what features are incorporated from either SpA or MSA, what features are avoided, and what features are hybridized. With respect to Siegel’s model (1985), the indeterminacy of the linguistic forms and structures of ESA, in addition to the evident idiosyncratic and regional variation, put ESA at the stage of a pre-koine.
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