MODALITIES AND MODALIZATION AS SEEN BY THE ARAB GRAMMARIANS
MODALITIES AND MODALIZATION AS SEEN BY THE ARAB GRAMMARIANS

Summary/Abstract: The present article revisits a set of ideas stemming from previous studies in which I approached modalities in Arabic and the connections that can be made between this category and the one known in traditional Arab linguistics as nawāsiḫ, based on both formal and semantic common features, highlighting, at the same time, the relevance of this discussion for the debates around the influence possibly exerted on Arab grammarians by other linguistic traditions. While acknowledging that modalities constitute an open, flexible and constantly evolving category, I also put forward a series of criteria that have proved to be helpful in assessing the modal function of different elements of linguistic expression in modern literary Arabic.

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