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Perfect Modality: AUXILIARY VERBS AND FINITE SUBORDINATES IN LEVANTINE (AND OTHER) ARABICS

Modal auxiliaries in spoken Arabic usually embed verbs in the unmarked imperfect. Yet Kristen Brustad (2000) has documented modals embedding perfective verbs in the speech of an informant from a village near Latakia, Syria. This study demonstrates that, rather than its being a geographically isolate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:al-'Arabiyya (Chicago, Ill.) Ill.), 2015-01, Vol.48, p.157-174
Main Author: Wilmsen, David
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Modal auxiliaries in spoken Arabic usually embed verbs in the unmarked imperfect. Yet Kristen Brustad (2000) has documented modals embedding perfective verbs in the speech of an informant from a village near Latakia, Syria. This study demonstrates that, rather than its being a geographically isolated rural peculiarity, this type of construction is a feature of coastal Levantine dialects, both rural and urban, from northern Syria to southern Lebanon, inland as far as Aleppo and the hinterlands of Homs and Damascus. What is more, Arabic varieties with modals embedding perfect verbs are widely dispersed outside the Levant, attested in the Arabian Peninsula, the Sudan, and North Africa. Perfect modals are semantically meaningful, introducing a time-bounded dimension into discourse.
ISSN:0889-8731
2375-4036