Revisiting the Morphosyntactic Categorization of Modals in Jordanian Arabic

Mohammed Ali Malahmeh

Abstract


Abstract

This paper is mainly concerned with delineating the categorical status of Jordanian Arabic  modals. In this regard, the paper defends an alternative perspective of the conventional ‘verbal, pseudo-verb and particle’ view of the morphosyntactic categorization of modals in Arabic in general and in JA in particular. It is proposed therefore that JA modals laazim’must’, mumkin/yemkin ‘may/might’ and the modal bigdar ‘can/could’ belong to an ‘open/null category’ and not to any of these conventional categories. Furthermore, the paper shows that JA modals exhibit inconsistent and non-coherent morphosyntactic behavior. Based on this fact, it is concluded that JA modals form quite a heterogeneous rather than homogenous group. Crosslinguistically, the heterogeneity and the proposed open/null category of JA modals lend further evidence to the difficulty to universally define the category of modals on formal grounds (Machova, 2013).

 

 

 

 

 

قراءة نحوية وصرفية مغايرة في التصنيف الفعلي وشبه الفعلي والجزيئي للتراكيب الدالة على الاحتمال والضرورة في اللهجة الأردنية

 

ملخص

هدف هذه الدراسة إلى تقديم قراءة نحوية وصرفية للافعال الدالة على الضرورة والاحتمال والاستطاعة مثل "لازم" و"ممكن" و "بقدر" في اللهجة الأردنية. وتتطرق هذه الدراسة بالأخص إلى الإجابة عن السؤال "تحت أي قسم من أقسام الكلام يمكن تصنيف هذه التراكيب؟". وأشارت الدراسة لكافة التصنيفات النحوية والصرفية التي قُدِّمت حول هذه التراكيب في الدرس اللغوي العربي المعاصر، والذي يصنِّف هذه التراكيب تحت تصنيفات مثل: الأفعال، أشباه الأفعال وروابط الكلام. وأوضحت الدراسة أن هذه التراكيب تتصف بخصائص نحوية وصرفية غير متجانسة الامر الذي  يميزها عن باقي التصنيفات النحوية والصرفية الشائعة كالأفعال وأشباه الأفعال وروابط الكلام.وعليه فقد ذهبت الدراسة إلى أنه يجب تصنيف هذه التراكيب تحت تصنيف نحوي وصرفي "خاص". وتعد نتائج هذه الدراسة بمثابة دليل آخر يضاف إلى نتائج دراسات عالمية أخرى أكدت تعذر تصنيف مثل هذه التراكيب تحت أيٍّ من أقسام الكلام المعروفة.

 

 


Keywords


Modals, verbal- Pseudo and Particle Analysis, Jordanian Arabic, Categorization, Heterogeneity.الأفعال الموقفية، التصنيفات النحوية والصرفية، اللاتجانس والتغاير النحوي والصرفي.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.35682/1764

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