THE GRAMMATICALIZATION OF THE MODAL PARTICLES IN SOUTH IRAQI ARABIC
THE GRAMMATICALIZATION OF THE MODAL PARTICLES IN SOUTH IRAQI ARABIC
Author(s): Qasim HassanSubject(s): Language studies, Lexis, Language acquisition
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti
Keywords: Iraqi Arabic; gilit-dialects; politeness particle; narrative particle; particle serialization; feministic particle;
Summary/Abstract: Modal particles are noninflected lexical categories which express the mood of the speaker towards a specific proposition. It is cross-linguistically well established that just few languages make use of modal particles. Among others, Diewald (2013) separates between two classes of modal particles, the peripheral and the core class. It seems that the spoken South Iraqi Arabic (henceforth in this paper SIA) has the peripheral class of modal particles. The peripherality of such modal particles is a result of the overlaps of such particles with other lexical categories in this dialect. This paper will show how these peripheral modal particles are always interchangeable with other lexical categories, which makes their meaning elusive in this dialect. Based on source materials and informants from the region of the gilit dialects, the structural nature and the meaning of some prevalent peripheral modal particles will take priority in this study.
Journal: Romano-Arabica
- Issue Year: XVI/2016
- Issue No: 16
- Page Range: 45-54
- Page Count: 10
- Language: English