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LINGUIST List 20.3654

Wed Oct 28 2009

Qs: Wh- forms in Modern Arabic Dialect

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        1.    Issa Abdel Razaq, Wh- forms in Modern Arabic Dialect
Message 1: Wh- forms in Modern Arabic Dialect
Date: 23-Oct-2009
From: Issa Abdel Razaq <issarazaqyahoo.com>
Subject: Wh- forms in Modern Arabic Dialect
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For those who can contribute:
My name is Issa Abdel Razaq, I am doing my PhD in the Department of
Linguistics at the University of London-Queen Mary:

I am trying to tie together the use of wh- forms in Modern Arabic dialects.
I have been working for a while on argument & adjunct wh- phrases.
Currently, I am studying the wh- form 'shuu' (the equivelant of 'what' in
English') and its instantiations such as 'eish' 'wesh' 'sheno' 'esho' etc.
My hypothesis is that across all the dialects, these forms have the same
deep structure and share morphology & internal structure. If I am on the
right track, I believe that this wh- form comes from a complex makeup of
'ayyu/ayya shay'en huwwa' (which-thing-it) which then has undergone
morphological reductions to result in the different forms used in the
Arabic dialects even the Egyptian form 'eeh'.

Moreover, this type of wh- form forms the basis of some adjunct wh-words
such as 'gadd eish' (how much); 'leesh/laweesh..' (for what thing, i.e.,
why); 'eshloon' (how).

I would be grateful for you feedback and comments as well as initiating a
discussion on this wh- form in Arabic as I believe it will have significant
implication for the analysis of wh- words at least as far as Arabic is
concerned, rather than some scattered material. My e-mail is:
issarazaqyahoo.com.

Regards to everyone.

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology
                            Semantics
                            Syntax

Subject Language(s): Arabic, Standard (arb)
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