1

SASON ARABIC

FARUK AKKUŞ

1 INTRODUCTION

Sason Arabic is a Semitic language spoken in the provinces of Bitlis and Batman in eastern

Turkey and is one of the several Arabic varieties spoken in Anatolia. It is part of the larger

Mesopotamian dialect area, in other words it is a continuation of the Iraqi Arabic dialects. Sason

Arabic is classified as a member of Kozluk-Sason-Muş group (Jastrow 1978, 2005a, 2006), and

is categorized as qəltu-dialect based on Blanc (1964).1 The estimated number of speakers is

around 2,000 to 3,000 speakers based on the population of villages Sason is spoken in. The

absence of official literacy in Arabic, and hence the absence of diglossia,2 and the strong

influence from the surrounding languages, such as Turkish (the official language of Turkey),

Kurdish and Zazaki (Indo-Iranian) and Armenian (spoken by Sason speakers of Armenian

origin) are the two primary factors that have shaped Sason Arabic linguistically and

sociologically. Sason speakers are usually multilingual, speaking some of the mentioned

languages.

1 Blanc’s (1964) seminal book Communal Dialects in Baghdad is an investigation of Arabic spoken in three

religious communities, Muslims, Jews, and Christians, who were speaking radically different dialects despite living

in the same town. Based on the word “I said”- qultu in Classical Arabic- Blanc called the Jewish and Christian

dialects qəltu dialects, and the Muslim dialect a gilit dialect.

2 The term diglossia refers to a linguistic situation where there are two linguistic varieties, called High and Low,

which are, to some extent, in complementary distribution, though there is significant overlap and code-switching

(Jastrow 2005a).

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This paper will highlight some of the salient morphological aspects of Sason Arabic,

sometimes in comparison with other Arabic varieties. In section 2, I will discuss the general

properties of Sason, particularly affixation strategies and templatic arrangement of inflectional

morphemes. Section 3 discusses the interrogative and personal pronouns in Sason. The

interrogative pronouns are given a historical account and personal pronouns are analyzed,

concluding that the pronoun paradigm of Sason is consistent with the feature geometry of Harley

and Ritter (2002). Section 4 deals with derivational morphology and other word formation

processes. In section 5, I discuss the inflectional system of Sason Arabic in nouns, adjectives and

verbs in detail, followed by a discussion of compounding, or the so-called iDaafa, in section 6.

Section 7 concludes the paper.

2 GENERAL PROPERTIES OF SASON MORPHOLOGY

2.1 Affixation Strategies

Sason Arabic makes use of both affixation and root-templatic morphology to express different

valency-changing processes. In this section I will give some examples of these different

strategies, which I will elaborate on in sections 4 and 5. For instance, passivization,

reflexivization and anticausative, three valency-reducing operations, are realized in the form of a

prefix that has the same phonological realization. The discussion will show that the root-and-

pattern morphology of Sason contains considerable gaps compared to other varieties of Arabic.

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2.1.1 The passive

In order to express passive, Sason Arabic makes use of a different strategy from other Arabic

dialects (Benmamoun 2000, Hallman 2000), namely, the prefixation of a passive morpheme to

the perfective and imperfective verbs. Passivization is applicable only to transitive constructions.

The prefix ın- is attached to the stem to form passives.34

(1) a. kitab qaritu-n

book read.1SG-it

‘I read the book.’

b. kitab ın-qara.

book PASS-read.3SG

‘The book was read.’

The prefix undergoes allomorphy and realized as in- with imperfective verbs.

(2) a. kıllom a-yel šorbiye

every day 1SG-eat soup

‘I eat soup every day.’

b. kıllom šorbiye in-ti-yel

every day soup PASS-3SG-eat

‘Soup is eaten every day.’

3 List of abbreviations used: 1, 2, 3: first, second, third person, ANTIC: anticausative, COP: copula, DEF: definite

article, DUAL: dual F: feminine, GEN: genitive, M: masculine, PASS: passive, PL: plural, POSS: possessive,

PRES: present, REFL: reflexive, SG: singular.

4 The letter [ı] corresponds to the high central unrounded vowel, i.e. [ɨ] in IPA, while [i] is the front, high vowel.

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In Standard Arabic and other modern colloquial dialects, on the other hand, passivization is

expressed through a change in the vocalic melody, which also has two allomorphs: [u_i] appears

in the perfect, where /i/ overwrites the stem vowel and /u/ everything leftward; [u_a] appears in

the imperfective, where /a/ overwrites the vowel melody of the entire stem and /u/ the vowel of

the prefix (Hallman 2000:5). This property, known as root-and-pattern morphology, i.e.

transfixation, has been lost for some of the forms, e.g. the passivization and reflexivization.

However, Sason still preserves this type of morphology in the some root patterns, e.g. ZRB ‘hit’,

KTB ‘write’.

(3) kitāb ‘book’

mekteb ‘school’

kutuphāne ‘library’

mektub ‘letter’

kātib ‘clerk’

The examples in (3) show that although the root-and-pattern morphology is observed in Sason, it

is not systematic, and different roots are compatible with only various patterns in a rather random

way. Another striking property of (3) is that the only forms derived from the root KTB are

nouns, while the verb ‘to write’ is expressed by an unrelated form, namely qara ‘lit: he wrote’.

2.1.2 The reflexive and anticausative

The reflexive is also realized as a prefix with the same morpheme as passive, i.e. ın-. Therefore,

the sentence in (4) is ambiguous between ‘you washed yourselves’ and ‘you were washed’.

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(4) ın-xasal-to

REFL-washed-2PL

‘You washed yourselves.’

Another clear example of event-changing operation is anticausative, where the agent is

completely removed from the argument structure. Anticausative is also expressed through the

same prefixal morpheme ın-.

(5) faƔz le mara ın-qaraf.

leg of woman ANTIC-broke.3M

‘The woman’s leg broke.’

2.1.3 Other Affixes

The adjectival participle mı- is also a prefix, which expresses a state.

(6) a. a-fte b. m-aftu

1SG-open ‘open’

‘I open’

(7) a. a-qawweǰ b. mı-qawweǰ

1SG-close ‘closed’

‘I close’

An example of infix in Sason is -t-, as in (i)š-t-agal ‘be occupied’ (base: šagala). This

infix attaches to the right of the first consonant and derives an inchoative interpretation. It is not

very productive though, for instance, it is available to the base ‘sick’ (8)a, but not in ‘yellow’ in

(8)b.

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(8) a. raxu ‘sick’

irtaxa ‘to become/fall sick’

b. asfar ‘yellow’

isfar ‘to become yellow’

The -t- infix in the form irtaxa ‘to become/fall sick’ gives an inchoative meaning. The

appearance of the infix is not dependent on the lexical category of the base (see Section 4.1.3).

The derivational morpheme -tije is a nominalizing suffix, it has the semantic notion of

‘state of/quality of’ although it is translated into English with various suffixes. Modern Standard

Arabic has a similar morphological process through suffixing the feminine nisba ending -iyya to

an already existing word stem. This suffix derives nouns from nominals (nouns and adjectives).

(9) a. raxu ‘sick’

raxu-tije ‘sickness’

b. zƔer ‘child’

zƔer-tije ‘childhood’

c. hamal ‘porter’

hamal-tije ‘(the state of) being a porter’

d. awwal ‘early’

awwal-tije ‘priority’

To my knowledge, the suffix imposes no certain semantic or morphological restriction on the

bases that it attaches to. The base can be human, inanimate, abstract noun. Moreover, it can

attach to stems of various syllable sizes. One particular property of this process is that the nouns

derived with this morpheme have the feminine gender.

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Subject agreement is realized as a suffix on the verb in the perfective as in (10)a, and as

both prefixes and suffixes in the imperfective, as in (10)b. In addition to the position of person

agreement, the two forms differ with respect to their internal vocalic melody of the verb stem,

another instance of transfixation (see section 5.3 for further discussion).

(10) a. faqas-te

run.PAST-2F.SG

‘You ran.’

b. tə-fqəz-e

2F.SG-run-2F.SG

‘You run.’

2.2 Morphological Typology and Sason Arabic

Despite exhibiting the properties of a root-and-pattern language, Sason has some instances where

the same morph expresses simultaneously two or more morphemes, a property of fusional

languages. For instance, subject agreement is an instance where a single morpheme expresses

multiple morphs or grammatical properties. The example in (11) shows how a single suffixal

segment expresses multiple features.

(11) faqas-te singular, 2nd person, feminine

‘You ran.’

Similarly, a morph expresses multiple features, e.g. number, person and gender, in genitive

constructions.

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(12) a. axt-ki

sister-GEN.2F.SG

‘your (f.) sister’

b. axt-ey

sister-GEN.2M.SG

‘your (m.) sister’

(13) a. axt-a

sister-GEN.3F.SG

‘his (f.) sister’

b. axt-u

sister-GEN.3M.SG

‘his (m.) sister’

The example in (8)b can be treated as an instance of multiple exponence, where multiple

segments express one piece of information. This property is observed in the imperfective aspect

of the verb (see section 5.3).

The examples in (14) are instances where there is a one-to-one correspondence between

morpheme and morph. In (14)a, the suffix -aḏ expresses plurality, and in (14)b, the feminine

noun is marked by the suffix –e (For other examples, see also section 5.1.1)

(14) a. axt-aḏ

sister-PL

‘sisters’

b. ġaruf-e (cf. ġaruf (masc.))

lamb-F

‘female lamb’

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3 PRONOUN MORPHOLOGY

This section discusses the properties of Sason Arabic pronouns, focusing particularly on

interrogative and personal pronouns. I give a diachronic explanation for the forms of

interrogative pronouns and conclude that the personal pronouns are consistent with the feature

geometry of Harley and Ritter (2002).

3.1 Interrogative Pronouns

The forms of interrogative pronouns in Sason are most likely the result of historical and contact-

induced changes. For this reason, it is not easy to speak of a relation in form of interrogatives in

the language; hence segmentation of the wh-words is not possible.

There are two words for ‘how’, əštaba and šəme. The former is used in contexts where

the manner is being questioned, as illustrated in (15)a. In this sentence, the means of

transportation is being inquired. In other contexts, the word šəme is used, as in (15)b.

(15) a. əštaba məšit wane?

how went.2M.SG there

‘How did you go there?’

b. šəme kənt?

How be.2M.SG

‘how are you?’

The question word for ‘where’ is amma, which can be traced back to the compound form *ayna

mōḏa ‘which place’ (Jastrow 2005a:92). The Old Arabic form matā is not used for the word

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‘when’. Instead the form əčax, the reflex of the compound ayš čāx ‘which time’ (< Kurdish čax

‘time’) is used.

The following is a list of the commonly used wh-words.

(16) ande ‘who, whom’

šəne, əšne ‘what’

atey ‘why’

əšqadarī ‘how much’

The chart of demonstratives in (17) supports the non-segmentability of wh-words in Sason. On

the basis of the demonstratives, it is difficult to come up with shared segments across the wh-

words and demonstratives.

(17) Near deixis Remote deixis

sg. ‘this’ ‘that’

m. ala aya, ay

f. ali ayi

pl. ‘these’ ‘those’

m./f. alu ayu

Moreover, the locative elements ni ‘here’ and wane ‘there’ also differ from the question word

amma ‘where’ considerably, hence showing that a segmentation analysis is not applicable to

Sason.

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3.2 Personal Pronouns

The pronoun paradigm in Sason Arabic can be schematized as in Table 1. The gender distinction

in 2nd and 3rd person plural has been lost in Sason, as in other Anatolian Arabic varieties.

Table 1. Personal Pronouns of Sason

SINGULAR PLURAL

MASC FEM

1st ina, īna nāna

2nd

ənt ənte ənto

3rd

iyu iya iyen, ənnen

The two 1st person singular pronouns and 3rd plural pronouns are in free variation. As seen in

the paradigm, Sason makes gender distinction in 2nd and 3rd person singular, and not in 1st

person. This does not fit readily with Harley and Ritter’s (2002) system, which argues for a split

between discourse participants and others. It should also be noted that 1st person gender is not

disambiguated by the verb agreement.

The personal pronouns in Sason Arabic are mostly monomorphemic, but an investigation

of their historical development implies a bimorphemic analysis to 2nd and 3rd person pronouns.

In Sason, the initial /h/ in 3rd person forms has disappeared. Regarding the development of

personal pronouns, following Jastrow’s (2005a) account for Daragözü dialect, it is plausible to

suggest that the expected form hīye has become hīya by analogy to the 3rd pers. sg. fem -a. The

forms iyu and iyen in turn are back formations from īya, by attaching to a basis īy- the respective

pronominal suffixes -u and –en. The 2nd person forms ənt-e and ənt-o acquired their final vowel

to the analogy with the inflected verb, as illustrated in (18), hence bimorphemic.

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(18) a. ǰab-e

brought-3F.SG

‘She brought.’

b. ǰab-o

brought-3PL

‘They brought.’

The Sason pronouns are consistent with the predictions of Harley and Ritter’s (2002) feature-

geometry. I should note that the properties of gender distinction are not specific to Sason, but

also observed in non-peripheral dialects as well. Table 2 and Table 3 illustrate personal pronouns

in Egyptian Arabic and Standard Arabic, respectively. The latter is the only dialect that has

preserved gender distinction in plural, although it does not exhibit it in dual forms. This follows

from Greenberg’s universal, in which the presence of a dual number entails the existence of

plural form. The implication is that plural form is the less marked, hence in this case it can be

said that gender on the singular and plural forms in Standard Arabic in contrast with the dual

form is predicted. Likewise, the loss of the gender distinction in plurals of Sason and Egyptian

Arabic, but not in singular forms could be interpreted as a process that targets the more marked

form first.

Table 2. Personal Pronouns of Egyptian Arabic

SINGULAR PLURAL

MASC FEM

1st ana eHna

2nd

inta inti intu

3rd

howwa heyya homa

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Table 3. Personal Pronouns of Modern Standard Arabic

SINGULAR DUAL PLURAL

MASC FEM MASC FEM

1st ana naHnu naHnu

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2nd

anta anti antuma antum antunna

3rd

howwa heyya huma homa huna

The minimal feature in Standard Arabic would be contrastive since it makes a distinction

between three types of number, unlike Sason and Egyptian Arabic in which MIN is the default

number. Since all three dialects lack inclusive forms, the Speaker is the default person.

The absence of gender distinction in plural could possibly be analyzed as a case of

syncretism. However, there is no evidence to support this hypothesis from other aspects of the

language, unlike the case in e.g. Guarani, Koasati discussed in Harley and Ritter 2002, where the

verbal paradigm disambiguates the number syncretism. Consider the following instances of

verbal agreement in (19)a and possessive agreement in (19)b, which provide no hint regarding

the disambiguation of the gender, unlike e.g. number agreement in Koasati.

(19) a. adaš-to kelp-ma

saw.2PL dog-a

‘You saw a dog.’

b. zġar-en

children-3PL.POSS

‘their children’

5 It is possible to say that naHnu is just the plural form and Standard Arabic does not have 1st person dual. However,

I will follow the traditional approach to Arabic pronoun paradigm and assume that dual and plural are syncretic. The

assumption of the existence of a 1st person dual is also desirable for the symmetricity of the paradigm.

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4 DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY

In this section, I will discuss the derivational processes in more detail, along with some other

peripheral word formation processes, such as full reduplication of adjectives to create adverbs or

‘doubling with /m/’.

4.1 General Overview

Arabic morphology differs from that of English or other Indo-European languages because it is

to a large extent based on discontinuous morphemes. It consists primarily of a system of

consonant roots which interlock with patterns of vowels to form words, or word stems. In Sason

Arabic, it is difficult to speak of productive derivational processes to produce nouns, adjectives,

or verbs due to the various historical events which led to the emigration or death of speakers, and

in turn caused these dialects to come close to extinction as early as during the First World War.

Linguistically, the surviving dialects have suffered from irretrievable loss of a large collection of

idioms or expressions (Jastrow 2005a). This loss led to attrition in the number and complexity of

derivational and inflectional patterns.

The procedure of differentiating meaning by means of word-internal vowel change in

Arabic may involve several vowels unlike, for example, the English type ‘ablaut’ in sing, sang,

sung, song.

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4.1.1 Nominalization

In line with the root-pattern morphology of the language, nominalization usually proceeds in

consonantal patterns, and underived nouns also follow a pattern, which is CVCC, as exemplified

in (20).

(20) Trilateral nouns

CeCC

kelp ‘dog’

šelč ‘snow’

The nominal derivation CəCəC may also form nouns in collective.

(21) a. ləbəs

‘clothing’

b. šərəp

‘drinking’

For example, the root QTL can be used as a noun or verb based on the pattern it is inflected for.

(22) qatil ‘murderer’

maqtul ‘victim’

qatəl ‘killing’

The form qatəl is a ‘complex event nominal’ (Alexiadou and Grimshaw 2008) derived out of the

verb base qadal ‘lit: he killed’ in which the argument structure is preserved.

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(23) qatəl le insan kotti ye

killing of people bad COP.3

‘Killing of people is bad.’

Another pattern regarded as derivational process in Arabic literature is type of pluralization

which also follows the root-pattern. Note that the vocalic melody varies from root to root, thus is

not predictable (see section 5.1.2.2 for the discussion of regular pluralization).

(24) a. gebš gubuš

‘goat.sg’ ‘goat.pl’

b. farče fəreğ

‘stone.sg’ ‘stone.pl’

The following tables in this section will illustrate the very few affixes used for derivational

processes.

Table 4. Nominalization

Category of Semantic notion Affix Example

the base

from adjective quality, state of -tije raxu ‘sick’ > raxu-tije ‘sickness’

noun zƔer ‘child’ > zƔer-tije ‘childhood’

A few words in Sason Arabic reflect the specific derivational pattern used to denote nouns of

instrument, i.e. mifʿaal pattern (Ryding 2005: 88)

(25) a. miftah ‘key’

b. mengise < miknasa ‘broom’

c. miqass ‘scissors’

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In this pattern, the prefix mi- attaches to the mifʿaal pattern and expresses the instrumental

reading.

4.1.2 Adjectivalization

The pattern maCCūC designates adjectives in masculine singular.

(26) a. mašhūr cf. šohret ‘fame’

‘famous’

b. maskūn cf. sakin ‘inhabitant’

‘populated’

c. marhūm cf. rahim ‘womb’

‘deceased’

The prefix be-, which attaches to a noun base to derive an adjective, has the meaning of

‘without/lacking’.

(27) aqəl ‘mind’ > be-aqəl ‘stupid’

lit: without mind

4.1.3 Verbalization

Verbs in Sason Arabic are usually formed through the consonantal roots, however, one type of

quite productive process, or pattern, which has the semantic notion of ‘change of state’ is

typically from adjectives. This process creates inchoative verbs, similar to English redden < red.

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(28) a. raxu ‘sick’

irtaxa ‘to become/fall sick’

b. gbir ‘big’

igbar ‘to become big’

The -t- infix in the form irtaxa ‘to become/fall sick’ gives an inchoative meaning (see Section

2.1.3) in the iCCVC(V) pattern.

Given the root and template nature of the morphology in Sason Arabic (although it is not

as systematic as other Arabic varieties or Hebrew), it is plausible to assume that any

phonological change to the stem is a diagnostic of a Level I process (Katamba and Stonham

2006).

From a Distributed Morphology framework, the words in (3) would be considered as root-

derived words (Arad 2003) in that the occurrence of the root in several patterns leads to multiple

meanings, which share a semantic core.

4.2 Other Word-Formation Processes

In addition to the word-formation processes discussed above, Sason makes use of some other

strategies as well to derive new words. One type of productive word-formation in Sason Arabic

includes full reduplication, which derives adverbs out of adjectives, as the following examples

illustrate.

(29) a. araba hēdi

car slow

‘slow car’

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b. hēdi hēdi ǰa

slow slow came.3M

‘He came slowly.’

(30) a. səker qəlle ye

sugar little be.3.PRES

‘The sugar is little.’

b. kəl qəlle qəlle

eat.2M little little

‘Eat little (referring to the manner of eating).’

Another type of reduplicative process produces forms which are called doublets with /m/

following Lewis's (1967: 237) account for Turkish. /m/ is added initially to the words with initial

vowels, as in (31)a or replaces the initial consonants in words with initial consonants, as in (31)b.

The new meaning added by this way is either that of vagueness or et cetera. It is reminiscent of

the ‘food shmood’ type reduplication in English.

(31) a. asal m-asal

honey m-honey

b. gerre merre

noise m-noise

The process of hypocorism, i.e. shortening of a given name, is a very productive process

in Sason Arabic. This is usually done by reducing the name into a bisyllabic word and adding the

vowel [o].

(32) a. Husamettin Huso

b. Abdullah Apo

c. Bulent Bulo

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To the best of my knowledge, processes such as acronymy or blending do not exist in the

language.

5 INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY

This section discusses the inflectional properties of nouns, adjectives and verbs in Sason Arabic.

5.1 Nouns

Three inflectional features characterize Sason Arabic nouns: gender, number, definiteness. Sason

Arabic does not show case marking and humanness, which are important morpho-semantic

features of nouns, affecting agreement in other Arabic varieties.

5.1.1 Gender

Sason Arabic nouns are classified as either feminine or masculine. The gender category into

which a noun falls is semantically arbitrary, except where a noun refers to a human being or

other creature, when it normally conforms with natural gender. For instance, in (1) the noun

‘mule’ is feminine, while the noun ‘dog’ is masculine. Thus, it can be said that gender is

inherently encoded in such nominals.

(33) a. baġle b. kelp

mule (fem.) dog (masc.)

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From the point of view of word structure, or morphology, the masculine form is the simplest and

most basic shape, whereas feminine nouns usually have a suffix that marks their gender. Most

feminine nouns are marked by the suffix –e (cf. Ryding (2005, 121) for the feminine marker –ah,

a in other dialects).

(34) a. ġaruf b. ġaruf-e

lamb (masc.) lamb (fem.)

(35) a. muallim b. muallim-e

teacher (masc.) teacher (fem.)

5.1.2 Number

Arabic nouns are marked for three different kinds of number: singular, dual, and plural. Because

Arabic has a special morphological category for the dual, plural in Arabic refers to three or more.

The singular is considered the base form of the noun, and the dual and plural are extensions of

that form in various ways.

5.1.2.1 Dual

Arabic uses a dual suffix -teyn on the singular stem to mark the noun as being dual, instead of

using the number two.

(36) kelp-teyn

dog-dual

‘two dogs’

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Interestingly, dual inflection is restricted to nouns in Sason Arabic (unlike other Arabic dialects).

Therefore, when a noun in the dual is modified by an adjective, is referred to by a pronoun, or is

the subject of a following verb, these form classes do not conform to the dual inflection, and are

inflected as plural. In other words, the concept of dual is present only in nouns, not in adjectives,

pronouns and verbs.

(37) kelp-teyn gbar ğo.

dog-dual big.PL came.3PL

‘Two big dogs came.’

5.1.2.2 Plural

Sason Arabic nouns form their plurals in two ways: (i) via a suffix added to a stem and (ii) via a

shift in the noun stem itself, the so-called broken plurals, realized through shifting the

arrangement of vowels, and sometimes inserting an extra consonant or two.

The regular plural suffix is –ad or -aḏ.6 As far as I can tell, there is a free variation among

speakers regarding the choice between these two suffixes.

(38) a. šušumar-ad

centipede-PL

‘centipedes’

b. horti-yaḏ

calf-PL

‘calves’

6 ḏ corresponds to ð in IPA. The glide [y] is epenthesized to break up a vowel hiatus as in (38)b.

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The following are some examples where the broken plural strategy is observed.

(39) a. kelp kəlēb

‘dog.SG’ ‘dog.PL’

b. bənt bənad

‘girl.SG’ ‘girl.PL’

c. gebš gubuš

‘goat.SG’ ‘goat.PL’

Note that a CVCC template with a final cluster is broken up and turned into a CVCVC pattern.

As discussed in section 4.1.1., the vocalic melody varies across the roots.

5.1.3 Imāla

The so-called imāla phenomenon is one of the most characteristic features in the phonology of

qəltu-Arabic, including Sason Arabic, in the context of plural formation. It means the raising of

the long [ā] vowel to a closed [ē], [a] sound shift triggered by the presence of an [i] vowel, either

short or long, in the preceding or following syllable (Jastrow 2005a). This is basically a

phenomenon similar to the “Umlaut” in Germanic languages, e.g., German Mann, pl. Männer or

Lang, pl. Länge. This kind of imāla, which is very old in Arabic, now only survives in the qəltu

dialects (Jastrow, pers. comm.). Thus the Arabic plural dakakin ‘shops’ (from the sg. dukkan

‘shop’) yields dəkēkīn by way of imāla. When the imāla has been triggered by a short [i], this

vowel may have subsequently been lost, e.g. klēb ‘dogs’ which is derived from the Old Arabic

plural kilāb. Consider the following (Old Arabic examples are taken from Jastrow 2013).

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(40) Imāla (* ā > ē) in Sason Arabic

Old Arabic Sason

dakakīn > dəkēkīn ‘shops’

kilāb > kəlēb ‘dogs’

The same phenomenon is observed in the fronting of [ō] vowel to a closed [ē] as well. The [o]

sound shift is also triggered by the presence of an [i] vowel in the preceding or following

syllable, e.g. sənnor ‘cat’ > sənēnīr ‘cats’.

5.1.4 Definiteness

In Arabic dialects, indefinite NPs are unmarked, while an NP becomes definite by prefixing the

definite article al-, əl-, il- (Brustad 2000, Jastrow 2005b, Ryding 2005). 7

(41) a. ʔaSiide b. l-ʔaSiide (Lebanese Arabic)

‘a poem’ ‘the poem’

Sason Arabic has lost the definite article, and exhibits the opposite pattern, a pattern also found

in Iranian and Turkic languages. Jastrow (2005b) notes a similar change for Uzbekistan Arabic

and ties to its contact to Uzbek and Tajik. The example (42) shows that Sason has enclitic

indefinite article to mark the indefiniteness of a noun. Definiteness is usually inferred from the

discourse context.

7 It is also argued that the indefinite marker is a suffix, -n, referred to technically as ‘nunation’, e.g. (Ryding 2005,

156).

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(42) a. baġle b. baġle-ma

‘mule’ mule-a

‘a mule’

5.2 Adjectives

Adjectives are part of the noun phrase and follow the noun directly, agreeing with it in gender,

number, and definiteness.

The example (43) indicates that the attributive adjective is inflected in accordance with

the number of the nouns it modifies.

(43) a. kelp gbir

dog.SG big.SG

‘big dog’

b. kəlēb gbar

dog.PL big.PL

‘big dogs’

(44) provides an illustration of gender agreement between noun and adjective.

(44) a. baġle gbir-e

mule.F.SG big.F.SG

‘(the) big mule’

b. kelp gbir

dog.M.SG big.M.SG

‘(the) big dog’

Note that gender inflection is visible only in singular forms. In plural nouns, the adjectival

inflection is the same.

26

(45) a. baġal gbar

mule.F.PL big.PL

‘big mules’

b. kəlēb gbar

dog.M.PL big.PL

‘big dogs’

The adjective agrees with the noun in definiteness as well, in that the indefinite enclitic surfaces

both on the noun and the relevant adjective, and always has the same form.

(46) a. baġle gbir-e

mule.F big-F

‘(the) big mule’

b. baġle-ma gbir-e-ma

mule.F-a big-F-a

‘a big mule’

The category degree is not an inflectional category in Sason Arabic, which has adopted the

Turkish adverbs daha ‘more’ and en ‘most’ for comparative and superlative, respectively. daha

‘more’precedes the adjectival constituent (47)a, similarly the superlative adverb en ‘most’ comes

before the adjective (47)b.

(47) a. daha gbir

more big

‘bigger’

b. en gbir

most big

‘biggest’

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5.3 Verbs

Sason Arabic verbs are inflected for:

Aspect : perfect-imperfect

Person : first, second, third

Number/gender : masculine, feminine

Voice : passive, reflexive etc.

The inflectional morphology for the person agreement is based on the aspect of the verb as in

other Semitic languages and Arabic dialects (Aoun et al 2010; Benmamoun 2000). Verbs exhibit

two morphological patterns: perfective and imperfective. In the perfective, subject agreement is

realized as a suffix on the verb. In the imperfective, by contrast, the agreement is realized by

both prefixes and suffixes. In addition to the position of person agreement (as suffix in the

perfective and as prefix in the imperfective)8, the two forms differ with respect to their internal

vocalic melody of the verb stem, another instance of transfixation.

The following tables illustrate the aspect, person and number/gender inflection in Sason

Arabic.

8 The only exception to the generalization that person is expressed as a prefix is the second person feminine where

gender is expressed as a suffix, like number.

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A. PERFECTIVE

Table 5: Conjugation of a perfective verb

B. IMPERFECTIVE

Table 6: Conjugation of a strong verb fqz ‘run’

6 COMPOUNDING

Compounding is another word formation process encountered in Sason Arabic. The closest

construction to compounding in Arabic is iDaafa, which is interpreted as both a genitive

construction and sometimes compounding as well Ryding (2005: 160), Amer (2012), Cowell

(1964: 455). The only compound types that exist in Sason are N+N and N+Adj, or Adj+Adj, the

first category being the dominant form.

Person Number Gender Affix Verb+Affix

1 Singular M/F -tu faqastu

2 S M -t faqast

2 S F -te faqaste

3 S M Ø faqaz

3 S F -e faqaze

1 Plural M/F -na faqazna

2 P M/F -to faqasto

3 P M/F -o faqazo

Person Number Gender Affix Affix+Verb

1 Singular M/F a- afqez

2 S M tə---Ø təfqez

2 S F tə---e təfqəze

3 S M i- ifqez

3 S F tə---Ø təfqez

1 Plural M/F nə- nəfqez

2 P M/F tə---o təfqəzo

3 P M/F i---o ifqəzo

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iDaafa, or Construct State, is a common syntactic structure in Arabic and Hebrew with a

wide range of meanings, reflecting relationships of belonging, identification, and possession. It

consists of the combination of two nouns. The iDaafa can be translated into English as either

regular compound, where two nouns occur together with one defining the other, example, coffee

cup or university library or as a possessive phrase using ‘of’, as in ‘ a bottle of wine’ or the

possessive suffix ’s on the possessing noun, e.g. Istanbul’s cafés.

(48) fincan qahwa

cup coffee

‘coffee cup’

(49) šarq awsat

east middle

‘Middle East’

(50) qarra farče

head stone

‘the top of stone’

As the above examples illustrate, the head of the compound is systematically the left member.

This fact holds for all the examples provided here. Sometimes in Sason, both the iDaafa and a

phrasal compound denote exactly the same object, similar to Spanish (Fábregas and Scalise

2012: 122).

(51) a. ene zġar

room children

‘children’s room’

30

b. ene le zġar

room of children

‘children’s room’

Both examples in (51) express the same meaning, i.e. children’s room. Based on the Spanish

examples, one could take the compounds like the one in (51)a as proper compounds, and those

similar to (51)b as phrasal compounds, following the definition of Fábregas and Scalise (2012:

122). The name phrasal compounds is suitable since the apparent genitive constructions carry at

least in some cases the semantics of a compound, in that no anaphoric relation exists.

(52) məftah le babe

key of door

‘door-key’

Only the rightmost member can carry the (in)definite marker in dialects which have the definite

article, basically Standard Arabic and other Arabic dialects, as illustrated in (53). However, since

Sason lacks the definite article, it is not possible to draw a contrast between iDaafa and non-

iDaafa with respect to which element carries the (in)definite marker, as shown in (54).

(53) a. ktab 1-wald (Moroccan Arabic)

book the-boy

‘the boy’s book’

b. *l-ktab 1-wald

book the-boy

‘the boy’s book’ (Benmamoun 2000:10)

(54) bənt oratman

daughter teacher

‘the teacher’s daughter’

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Moreover in Sason the second member of the iDaafa cannot be indefinite.

(55) *bənt oratman-ma

daughter teacher-a

‘a teacher’s daugher’

Some of the compounds that exist in the form of construct state in Standard Arabic have been

turned into genitive construction in Sason.

(56) a. yawm-u l-hisaab-i (Standard Arabic)

day DEF-counting

‘Doom’s day’

b. ōm le hisaab (Sason Arabic)

day of counting

‘Doom’s day’

Sason Arabic has borrowed the N+N compounding strategy from Turkish, where the right-hand

member is attached the compound linker. Other varieties of Arabic are alien to this type of

compound, hence this is likely due to language contact. These are not synthetic compounds since

the head noun does not carry any derivational morphology although left-member of the

compound is the theme of the head.

(57) a. lisa mudur-i

high school director-comp. linker

‘high school director’

b. qurs oratman-i

course teacher-comp. linker

‘course teacher’

32

To express the concept of “multi-” as the first component of an Arabic compound, Standard

Arabic normally uses the adjective phrase mutafiaddid ‘numerous’ (Ryding 2005: 274).

However, Sason Arabic does not have this type of compound.

(58) mutafiaddid-u l-jinsiyyaat-i

numerous DEF.-nation

‘multi-national’

The compounds of N+Adj are usually used to refer to some objects or entities that are important

to the community.

(59) a. ayn hamar

fountain red

‘crimson fountain’

b. farče bīz

stone white

‘white stone’

The example for Adj+Adj compound is the following:

(60) kor-topal

blind-handicapped

Different semantic relationships are expressed between the constituents despite the very few

available compounds in the language. For instance, the example fincan qahwa ‘coffee cup’ in

(48) or ene zġar ‘children’s room’ in (51) expresses subordinative relationship, while the

examples in (59), i.e. ayn hamar ‘crimson fountain’ or farče bīz ‘white stone’ are attributive. The

compound kor-topal ‘blind-handicapped’, on the other hand, is coordinative, and more precisely

33

an appositional compound in the sense of Haspelmath and Sims (2013) since both compound

members have the same referent.

Moreover, in Arabic literature the numerals are also considered as N+N compounds

(Ryding 2005: 339). Following this approach, we can consider the numerals above ten to be

compounds.

(61) a. ašra wēd

ten one

‘eleven’

b. ašrin ənteyn

twenty two

‘twenty two’

7 CONCLUSION

The examination of Sason Arabic morphology highlights the fact that it shares a number of

properties with other Arabic varieties. In terms of the verbal morphology, Sason Arabic patterns

with other Arabic dialects in that the perfective-imperfective distinction is preserved and in turn

the placement of person agreement.

The Construct State, which is one of the characterizing features of Arabic, is still

observable in Sason although less widespread.

This morphological sketch also makes it clear that the root-pattern system in Sason is not

as systematic as the so-called non-peripheral Arabic dialects or Modern Standard Arabic in that

the language contains considerable gaps in patterns. For instance, certain valency-changing

operations, such as passivization, are not expressed through the vocalic melody, but prefixes.

34

Interestingly, the vowel quality of the prefix changes based on the aspect of the verb, a process

which, to my knowledge, is not observed in Arabic.

The inflectional features characterizing Sason Arabic nouns are also more restricted than

other varieties. Sason marks nouns in terms of gender, number, definiteness, but it has no

marking for case and humanness, which are important morpho-semantic features of nouns,

affecting agreement in other Arabic varieties.

In Arabic dialects, indefinite NPs are unmarked, while an NP becomes definite by

prefixing the definite article al-. The loss of the definite article in Sason has led to the opposite

pattern, a pattern found in Iranian and Turkic languages.

Sason has borrowed certain word-formation processes from Turkish, such as doubling

with /m/ or compounds of the N + N-linker type. These constructions are not encountered in non-

peripheral Arabic varieties.

The interrogative pronouns of Sason are strikingly different, some of which can be

attributed to its contact with the surrounding languages, while I do not have an account for others

yet. The gender distinction in 2nd and 3rd person has been lost in Sason, similar to colloquial

varieties, e.g. Egyptian Arabic, and unlike Standard Arabic. Sason also has no dual forms (except

for dual marking on nouns), another aspect that distinguishes it from Standard Arabic.

Furthermore, Sason has developed various periphrastic causative constructions, with the light

verbs ‘make’, ‘do’ or ‘give’, which clearly reflects the Kurdish influence.

Finally, the so-called imāla phenomenon, that is, raising of the long [ā] vowel to a closed

[ē], [a] sound shift triggered by the presence of an [i] vowel, which is very old in Arabic, now

only survives in the qəltu-dialects, including Sason.

35

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