fi Arabic Inde nites, Interrogatives, and Negators OXFORD STUDIES IN DIACHRONIC AND HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS general editors AdamLedgewayandIanRoberts,UniversityofCambridge advisoryeditors CynthiaAllen,AustralianNationalUniversity;RicardoBermúdez-Otero,Universityof Manchester;TheresaBiberauer,UniversityofCambridge;CharlotteGalves,Universityof Campinas;GeoffHorrocks,UniversityofCambridge;PaulKiparsky,StanfordUniversity; AnthonyKroch,UniversityofPennsylvania;DavidLightfoot,GeorgetownUniversity; GiuseppeLongobardi,UniversityofYork;DavidWillis,UniversityofCambridge recently published in the series 7 WordOrderinOldItalian CeciliaPoletto 8 DiachronyandDialects GrammaticalChangeintheDialectsofItaly EditedbyPaolaBenincà,AdamLedgeway,andNigelVincent 9 DiscourseandPragmaticMarkersfromLatintotheRomanceLanguages EditedbyChiaraGhezziandPieraMolinelli 10 VowelLengthfromLatintoRomance MicheleLoporcaro 11 TheEvolutionofFunctionalLeftPeripheriesinHungarianSyntax EditedbyKatalinÉ.Kiss 12 SyntacticReconstructionandProto-Germanic GeorgeWalkden 13 TheHistoryofLowGermanNegation AnneBreitbarth 14 ArabicIndefinites,Interrogatives,andNegators ALinguisticHistoryofWesternDialects DavidWilmsen fi Arabic Inde nites, Interrogatives, and Negators A Linguistic History of Western Dialects DAVID WILMSEN 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,ox26dp, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. 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To my beloved wife Nadia, who bemusedly tolerates my obsession with tiny details of language, gamely lending me her insights into the varieties of her native Jordanian Arabic. Contents Seriespreface x Listoffiguresandtables xi Transcriptionandnotation xii 1. Introduction:Theory,conventions,andtheassessmentoffacts 1 1.1 Arabicinlinguistictheory 4 1.2 Afacts-firstapproachtotheoryandatheory-freeapproachtofacts 7 1.3 Aguidetotheperplexing:chaptersummaries 9 1.4 Acomingtoterms 12 1.5 Arepaymentofdebts 19 2. OntheageandoriginsofspokenArabicvernaculars: Anunresolvedquestion 21 2.1 OldandNewArabic 22 2.2 NewArabicisold 24 2.3 Retentionsandinnovations 28 2.4 SharedSemiticretentions 29 2.5 Shareddialectalretentions 36 2.6 Inconclusion,thewayforward 39 3. fīšwabiddīš:Thefunctionsofšī 44 3.1 Tracingtheoriginanddevelopmentofthepseudo-verbbidd- 46 3.2 The-šofbiddīš 49 3.3 Conventionalviews 50 3.4 Grammaticalizationofšay 50 3.5 Partitiveši 51 3.6 Polarinterrogativeši 53 3.7 Rhetoricallynegativeši 56 3.8 Negativeši 57 3.9 Distributionofši 59 3.10 Conclusion 63 viii Contents 4. AndalusiArabicnegatorsandinterrogatives:Earlyevidence ofgrammaticalši 64 4.1 IndefiniteandnegativešiinAndalusiArabic 66 4.2 AJespersen’sCycle? 70 4.3 Interrogativeornegativeiš? 72 4.4 RhetoricalquestionsinArabic 75 4.5 Arabicinterrogativesasexclamatives 79 4.6 Orthographicidiosyncrasies 81 4.7 Conclusion 87 5. InterrogationandnegationwithšiinNorthAfricanand LevantineArabic 90 5.1 SharedretentionsinAndalusiArabic,NorthAfricanArabic, andMaltese 92 5.2 CopularinterrogativesinmodernNorthAfricandialects 96 5.3 AHōrānicasestudy 102 ˙ 5.4 HōrānianaloguesinotherArabicvarieties 110 ˙ 5.5 Conclusion 115 6. Originsofgrammaticalši:SouthernArabiaortheLevant? 119 6.1 Possibleorigins 120 6.2 AsharedWestSemiticinnovation 124 6.3 Generaandgeography 126 6.4 Dialectswithandwithoutnegativeši 127 6.5 Apre-diasporasouthernArabpresenceintheFertileCrescent 130 6.6 ArabChristiansinthepre-IslamicFertileCrescent 133 6.7 AnancientArabpresenceintheFertileCrescent 137 6.8 LevantineorYemeni? 140 6.9 Conclusion 146 7. Proto-SemiticandProto-Arabicoriginsofgrammaticalši 148 7.1 Earlyevidenceofnegator-š 149 7.2 TheSemiticsofši 154 7.3 ImplicationsforArabic 161 7.4 Implicationsfortheory 163 7.5 Processesofgrammaticalization 164 7.6 Degrammaticalizationofši 167 7.7 Derivationalpathwaysofgrammaticalši 169 7.8 Areassertionoftheory:Croft’sCycle,notJespersen’s 173 7.9 Areaffirmationofanassumption:negatingwithmāisearly 176 7.10 Conclusion 177 Contents ix 8. OnexplanationandtheoryinArabiclinguistics 180 8.1 FormalapproachestoArabic:mistaken,misplaced,andmisguided 180 8.2 Formalapproachestogrammaticalši 188 8.3 Negator-šandnegativepolarity 198 8.4 Conclusion 204 Afterword 209 Appendix:PointsofdivergencebetweenwrittenandspokenArabic 214 References 216 Index 239