Grammaticalization in Emirati Arabic

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the process of language change whereby lexical items and constructions, in specific contexts, come to serve new grammatical functions. Emirati Arabic provides us with a wide range of grammaticalization phenomena. The aim of this paper is twofold: to shed light on the basic concepts relating to grammaticalization phenomena and to examine the grammaticalization of a number of constructions in Emirati Arabic, investigating their formation and the changes in their functions. The development of these grammatical constructions follows a grammaticalization pathway identified for a wide range of linguistic items cross-linguistically.

Grammaticalization of discourse markers: views from Jordanian Arabic

“…They report that this grammaticalization is paired with semantic, morphological, phonetic and morpho-phonological shift. Additionally, Jarad (2017) investigates the grammaticalization of a number of lexical items into grammatical ones in Emirati Arabic, including the grammaticalization of the volitional verb ʔabɣi ‘I want’ into a future marker. With regard to aspect markers, the development of some posture verbs to progressive aspect markers are studied in Kuwaiti Arabic ( Al-Najjar, 1991 ), Emirati Arabic ( Al-Najjar, 1991 ), Urban Hijazi Arabic ( Basulaiman 2018 ) and vernacular Arabic, in general ( Camilleri and Sadler 2017 ).…”

Grammaticalization Cases Through the Four Linguistic shifts

“…The literature shows dozens of examples that follow the cline in (1) (see, for example, Al Zahrani, 2020;Eifan, 2017;Hopper & Traugott, 1993, 2003Jarad, 2014Jarad, , 2017Norde, 2012;Norde & Beijering, 2014, to mention a few). Some typical examples include the change of some lexical motion verbs into future markers as is the case with the English to be going to, the French aller and the Dutch gaan (Norde, to appear in ORE ); this is the case in all Roman languages (see, Fleischman, S. (1982), for more examples).…”

“…That is to say, all the developments of each form show constituents existing in HA and thus the order of these constituents is presented according to their morphophonological features at best. This method is not so unusual; as a matter of fact, investigating the variations and changes of the language through time without its diachronic data or any written documents is impossible (see, for example, Jarad's (2013, 2017) and Fleischman's (1982 studeis, to mention a few). This being said, unless otherwise stated, the examples come from the author's intuition and/or introspection.…”