Academic Paper |
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| Title: | Subject-verb order in spoken Arabic: Morpholexical and event-based factors |
| Author: | Jonathan Owens |
| Institution: | Universität Bayreuth |
| Author: | Robin Dodsworth |
| Institution: | North Carolina State University |
| Author: | Trent Rockwood |
| Institution: | University of Maryland |
| Linguistic Field: | Morphology; Typology |
| Subject Language: |
Arabic, Standard
Portuguese |
| Abstract: | This article explores the relationship between the global functions of variable subject-verb order and morpholexical class of subjects in the spoken Arabic of the Arabian peninsula. Using corpus-based methods, it is shown that lexical class—pronoun, pronominal, noun—definiteness, and the discourse-defined lexical specificity of a noun all correlate significantly with subject-verb or verb-subject word order. The global function of the two orders is explored using an array of measures to show that verb-subject order prototypically presents events, while subject-verb signals available referentiality. Using the quantitatively based study of Anthony Naro and Sebastiao Votre ([1999]. Discourse motivations for linguistic regularities: Verb/subject order in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Probus 11:75–100.) on Brazilian Portuguese as a point of comparison, a typological framework is developed for understanding languages with variable subject-verb order. |
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This article appears in Language Variation and Change Vol. 21, Issue 1, which you can read on Cambridge's site or on LINGUIST . |
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