This thesis examines one of the most intriguing and much studied phenomena in Semitic known as the broken plural formation. It has a twofold goal. It documents the diverse shapes of broken plurals in the Muscat dialect of Omani Arabic. Furthermore, it provides a formal analysis to the shapes and vocalism contained in these word forms within Optimality Theory framework (Prince and Smolensky 1993; McCarthy and Prince 1993a & 1993b). Following proposals by McCarthy (2000), this thesis assumes that the distinction between the singulars and broken plural shapes is better represented as 'affixed mora (p)' attached at a certain locus in broken plural forms. The analysis of the vocalism characterizing broken plural forms addresses two distinct types of fixed vocalism: phonological and specified. Fixed vocalism is demonstrated to result from an interaction between conflicting alignment and CrispEdge constraints (It6 and Mester 1999) together with *Place markedness constraints.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Center for Language Studies, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-71).

Inaug. Diss.--Heidelberg. / "Lebenslauf": p. [149]. Also issued in print.

Inaug. Diss.--Heidelberg. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. "Lebenslauf": p. [149].

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1982. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 168-171).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 220-247).

Standard Arabic exhibits 'that trace' effect in one instance in the extraction of the subject from an 'anna' clause while the extraction of the object and the subject of an 'an' clause may be extracted freely in the formation of WH-question. The extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause may not be extracted unless the extracted position is marked by a clitic on the complementizer 'anna'. If the clitic appears in place of the moved NP in an 'an' clause it renders the sentence ungrammatical. The adoption of the Government and Binding Framework, Chomsky (1981), (1982) and in particular Case Theory, Government theory and the Empty Category Principle (ECP) enable us to explain this distinct behaviour in the extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause and show that the appearance of the clitic is predicted by the proposed analysis. It is argued that the clitic appears in the extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause in order to properly govern the trace left by the extracted subject, and so as not to violate ECP. Since verbs are proper governors in SA, extraction of the subject of an 'an' clause must apply from a governed position. In fact this is exactly what our analysis predicts. Since 'an' is not a case assigner and since we are assuming that government and case are assigned only to the right, AGR and verb preposing are obligatory in an 'an' clause to assign case to the subject NP. Therefore extraction of the subject leaves a trace properly governed by the verb. In the extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause on the other hand, since 'anna' is a case assigner and assigns a cusative case to its subject, AGR and verb preposing may not apply. Thus, the extraction of the subject leaves a trace which is not properly governed in violation of ECP, and the clitic must appear in order to properly govern the trace left by movement. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

In order to define clearly the subject of the essay which is The spoken Arabic of Syria, it is perhaps necessary to say a word about it. The thesis treats of the dialect spoken by all classes of people - the rich and the poor, the high & the low, the learned and the ignorant - both at home and in the street, & for all purposes, except the literary i.e. writing and lecturing. It is really the language of the masses, called [??], and therefore it is considered an unpardonable breach of literary etiquette to use it in modern periodicals, public addresses, or even in private correspondence. The object of this thesis is to show the contrast between the classical and the vulgar, to examine, classify & account for all the changes to phonetic, linguistic & grammatical as far as possible. As it is beyond the scope of this thesis to deal with the various dialects current in Syria, I have confined myself to that of Beirut and its neighbourhood. Beirut, besides being the most important town in Syria commercially, politically + ecclesiastically is the centre of intellectual activity with its three universities, numerous schools, 20 printing presses and 12 Arabic periodicals. Its language, therefore, may be considered the standard Syrian Arabic dialect.

The present work is concerned with the influence of English grammar, syntax, idiom and style upon contemporary literary Arabic. Loan-words-which have been arabicized or directly adopted into Arabic have not been included in this study. The work is in two parts. Part I treats the historical background of the influence, the native attempts at resistance or adaptation, a historical survey of the standard Arabic (a definition of this is given later in this chapter), previous studies and observations in this field, and evaluation of the material used, which covers works (books) as well as the press. Biographical notes of the authors used in this work and their association with the patterns and examples quoted in Part II are included here. At the end of Part I there is a Questionnaire answered by three of the authors treated in this mark, namely Najib Mahfuz, Ahmed Zaki, and Jabra Ibrhim Jabri.

Middle Eastern Studies / Kitāb al-jumal fī l-naḥw (KJN) is a short grammatical treatise dating back to the early centuries of Arabic grammatical development. There is no consensus in modern scholarship surrounding its authorship, or even the century in which it was composed. The text is sometimes attributed to the famous 8th century grammarian al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī, but this hypothesis is often rejected in favor of attribution to lesser-known 10th century grammarian Ibn Shuqayr. Contemporary attempts to date this text and identify its author have given inconclusive results, largely due to issues with the methodology employed up to this point. In this thesis, I propose a new methodology for dating Arabic grammatical texts. This method concerns the use of terminology to refer to vowels. The distinction between declensional and non-declensional vowel terminology that remains in use today was first introduced by Sibawayh in his Kitāb, in which he states that the terms rafʿ, naṣb, jarr, and jazm are reserved for syntactically determined vowel endings, while ḍamm, fatḥ, kasr, and sukūn are used for vowels that are not related to syntax. In works composed during the period before the Kitāb, as I will illustrate, vowel terminology is used in a disorganized and inconsistent fashion. In contrast, grammarians after the Kitāb adhere to Sibawayh’s distinction with remarkable consistency. Thus, vowel terminology represents a clear dividing line between pre-Kitāb (late 8th-early 9th centuries) and post-Kitāb works (late 9th century and onwards) and is a valuable method for dating texts. In this thesis, I will summarize the controversy surrounding the provenance of KJN, demonstrate the advantages that the method of vowel terminology has over the other approaches taken in contemporary scholarship in an attempt to date the text, and present material from a wide range of grammatical works in order to validate this approach. Finally, I will apply this method to KJN. The results of this study show that the use of vowel terminology in KJN is much more consistent with an earlier (8th century) dating of the text than with the later (10th century) dating that has often been proposed. / text