Papers by Stephan Procházka
H. Çelik, Y. Köse, & G. Prochazka-Eisl (Hrsg.), "Buyurdum ki...." The whole world of Ottomanica and beyond: Studies in honour of Claudia Römer., 2023
The paper shows that arguments for a Middle Eastern Sprachbund are less striking than those that ... more The paper shows that arguments for a Middle Eastern Sprachbund are less striking than those that have been put forward for a Standard Average European. Nevertheless, there is a bundling of features found in the region which can be considered to be the outcome of mutual influences.
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Studies in Language, 2022
Many studies on Moroccan Arabic presuppose the existence of a determination system organized alon... more Many studies on Moroccan Arabic presuppose the existence of a determination system organized along the lines of definiteness and indefiniteness. Hence, they postulate a ‘definite article’ with the form /l-/ and an ‘indefinite article’ as its counterpart in the form /waħd.l-/.
This study shows that the so-called ‘definite article’ /l-/ is actually a general referential marker that mainly marks a noun as [-PREDICATIVE]. /l-/ and its augmented forms are specific and allow different readings ranging from anaphoric definiteness to specific indefiniteness. /waħd.l-/ is less an ‘indefinite article’ but marks ‘mirativity’, is pragmatically salient and thus often as a cataphoric function. Demonstratives are used in deictic function but also to evoke an already existing knowledge in the hearer. The system is extended by the referential marker /ʃi-/ restricted to mark non-specific items. The complexity of nominal determination is partly the result of the juxtaposition of typically Moroccan linguistic innovations and retentions of “common Arabic” structures.
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M. Werner, & W. U. Dressler (eds.): Between Derivation and Inflection, 181-204, Vienna: ÖAW., 2023
Arabic verbal morphology is characterized by a very limited set of patterns (or stems) that are a... more Arabic verbal morphology is characterized by a very limited set of patterns (or stems) that are almost unanimously seen as a prototypical system of derivational morphology. Verbs belonging to PATTERN-II are characterized by a doubled medial root consonant. They are either denominal or function to form causative and intensive/iterative verbs. Transitive verbs of the latter type usually cannot govern a direct object in singular. The pluractional character of PATTERN-II verbs was already noticed by the medieval Arab grammarians, who called this phenomenon ‘plurality of action’. There are few if any Arabic dialects where PATTERN-II verbs that mark different types of pluractionality are completely absent. But there are two regions in the Fertile Crescent which exhibit a development unique for Arabic: in the dialects of the Arabic speaking minority in southeastern Turkey, and in the speech of some settlements in the Syrian Steppe, the distributions of many transitive PATTERN-I verb and PATTERN-II verbs (for the structures see Table 1) is largely determined by the grammatical number of the direct object they govern. Thus, the morphological category PATTERN-II has undergone a significant shift away from prototypical derivational morphology towards inflectional morphology.
This article analyzes typical examples and discusses the possibility of pluractional marking with collective nouns and strict cardinality. It also sheds light on factors in the dialects in question which seem to restrict the transition from PATTERN-I to PATTERN-II verbs. We conclude that the prototypical pluractional verb in the Arabic varieties investigated not only expresses distributivity over time and space, but also over arguments. The high degree of productivity, often negligible difference in meaning with regard to PATTERN-I verbs, and systematic agreement between plural object/subject and verbal pattern (besides agreement expressed by inflectional suffixes) allows us to refer to PATTERN-II verbs in these few dialects as a category, which lies between inflection and derivation.
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STUF Language Typology and Universals, 2022
Arabic is a typical noun-attribute language with head-driven agreement in gender and number. As f... more Arabic is a typical noun-attribute language with head-driven agreement in gender and number. As for definite attributive NPs, the default in most spoken Arabic varieties is definite marking of both the noun and the adjectivea feature that is rarely found cross-linguistically. This article shows that there are also cases of reversed word order, lacking agreement in gender, and dialects with definite marking on the nominal head. In dialects at the northern fringe of the Fertile Crescent, definiteness is by default only marked on the adjective. In these dialects, adjectival attributes are structurally identical to nominal attributes, including the use of the construct state with feminine heads.
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Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics
The primary aim of this paper is to explore the functions of the word /fard/ in Iraqi and Khuzest... more The primary aim of this paper is to explore the functions of the word /fard/ in Iraqi and Khuzestani Arabic. The study is based on the analysis of various text corpora and the elicitation of further examples from native speakers of the varieties investigated. The analysis of these data has shown that /fard/ is a polyfunctional item. Its various functions are the result of several grammaticalization processes. In the first stage, the noun “individual” has become a quantifier that expresses singularity. From this stage it developed into an intensifier, a marker of approximation and the scalar adverb “only.” It has been demonstrated that, from its use as a presentative marker, it developed toward an indefinite article. In contrast to the definite article, which is a grammatical category in nearly every variety of Arabic, the use of an indefinite article is rarely found in spoken Arabic. In Iraqi and Khuzestani Arabic, /fard/ is an indefinite article that possesses a wide range of appli...
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Maciej Klimiuk (ed.): Semitic Dialects and Dialectology: Fieldwork—Community—Change. Heidelberg University Publishing, 2022
The three texts presented in this article were recorded in the Turkish city of Şanlıurfa and refl... more The three texts presented in this article were recorded in the Turkish city of Şanlıurfa and reflect an Arabic minority variety that belongs to the socalled Shawi dialects. Due to its isolation from other Arabic dialects, this variety has retained many features typical of the Bedouin-type dialects of the Syrian Desert and North Arabia (e.g. the consistent use of the dialectal tanwīn). Text 1 explains the different kinds of bags that are used for wheat, cotton, etc. Text 2 is about the production of a liquorice drink which is especially popular during Ramadan. Text 3 is a rather long description of how, in former times, the women of the region prepared various kinds of crushed wheat (bulgur) and how traditional bread is baked.
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Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik 70 , 2019
All Maghrebi dialects of Arabic make use of a number of discourse particles. Most common is the p... more All Maghrebi dialects of Arabic make use of a number of discourse particles. Most common is the particle ṛā-, which ultimately derives from the imperative of the Classical Arabic verb ‘to see, to look’. Earlier studies claimed that this particle is less frequent in the Arabic of Tunis than in those of Algeria and Morocco. However, this assessment has proven to be inaccurate.
Based on the analysis of a Tunisian corpus consisting mainly of conversations rather than narratives, we found that this particle is almost twice as frequent as in comparable data from Morocco. In this study, we present an overview of the most important formal settings of the particle’s possible environment and positions in an utterance. The introductory section is followed by an in-depth analysis of the particle’s functions in which we discuss the most striking differences between the usage of “inflected” forms, which bear pronominal suffixes, and the invariable form ṛā-hu. The former mainly focus on the predicate whereas the latter stands outside of the proposition and focuses on the utterance as a whole. We also found that in the contemporary Arabic of Tunis ṛā- is rarely used as a purely deictic presentative (like ‘Here/There it is!’), though in a study of the late 19th century this was described as very common. Modal functions, among them assertion, emphasis, contrast, and assumption, by far preponderate. Another frequent use is the introduction of the apodosis of a conditional clause. The result of our analysis is that the particle ṛā- shares many functions throughout the various Maghrebi dialects, but there are also significant differences in its usage.
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Journal of Semitic Studies, 2021
In the overwhelming majority of Arabic dialects, and even in Modern Standard Arabic, the nominal ... more In the overwhelming majority of Arabic dialects, and even in Modern Standard Arabic, the nominal feminine suffix /-at/ is pronounced without the final /-t/ unless it is in the construct state. This common development has apparently not—or at least only partially—occurred in some bedouin-type dialects of Arabia, particularly those of the Shammar confederation. This fact was discussed in a recent article by M. van Putten, who proposed the unusual sound shift *-t → -y to explain the Shammari pausal forms. This article challenges this view by discussing additional data from narratives and concludes that Shammari Arabic most likely took part in the usual development of Arabic. In the second part, dialects other than Shammari are analysed. These dialects either show a complete retention of /-t/ in feminine singular nouns in the absolute state except in pause, or a further development in which this phenomenon is restricted to noun-adjective phrases. In the conclusion it is argued that not all instances of the retention of /-t/ are archaic residues but in some cases are most prob-ably later innovations.
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Christopher Lucas & Stefano Manfredi (eds.): Arabic and contact-induced change, 83–114. Berlin: Language Science Press, 2020
This chapter covers the Arabic dialects spoken in the region stretching from the Turkish province... more This chapter covers the Arabic dialects spoken in the region stretching from the Turkish province of Mersin in the west to Iraq in the east, including Lebanon and Syria. The area is characterized by a high degree of linguistic diversity, and for about two and a half millennia Arabic has come into contact with various other Semitic languages, as well as with Indo-European languages and Turkish. Bilingualism, particularly with Aramaic, Kurdish, and Turkish, has resulted in numerous contact-induced changes in all realms of grammar, including morphology and syntax.
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Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of AIDA, held in Marseille from 30th May- 2nd June 2017 - https://books.openedition.org/iremam/4017, 2019
This paper presents a short overview of the formal aspects of diminutive forms used in the dialec... more This paper presents a short overview of the formal aspects of diminutive forms used in the dialect of Tunis and discusses whether or not the diminutive can still be regarded a productive morphological category. Based on the approach of comprehensive studies on the topic, such as Dressler & Merlini Barbaresi 1994, Jurafsky 1996, and Badarneh 2007, both the semantic and the pragmatic functions of diminutives are discussed in detail. It was found that the number of diminutives actually used has decreased during the past century. Moreover, it seems that diminutives serve primarily pragmatic functions and less often denote smallness on a purely semantic level. Our data further suggests that in Tunis diminutives are more often associated with positive feelings than with contempt and ridicule. The use of the diminutive is not restricted to the domains of familiarity and intimacy but is also appropriate in more formal settings, such as conversations in shops or restaurants.
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Arabic lexicography has a long tradition. However, at the time of writing this report, there exis... more Arabic lexicography has a long tradition. However, at the time of writing this report, there exist only a very few digital products, let alone products documenting Arabic dialects. Our paper presents the TUNICO project (Linguistic Dynamics in the Greater Tunis Area) and digital language resources which are being produced as part of the project. The TUNICO working group is working on a digital diachronic dictionary of Tunis Arabic which is being compiled as part of a larger linguistic endeavour to document the variety of the Tunisian capital. One of the interesting features of the project is that it draws on a number of heterogeneous sources: text books, grammatical descriptions and a corpus of spoken youth language which is currently being compiled. In this project, the dictionary is used as an analytical tool, as a research instrument, by integrating the various sources into one new coherent language resource thus allowing researchers to gain unprecedented insights in material that...
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Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches. Ed. by Clive Holes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 257-292, 2018
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The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia: An Areal Perspective. Edited by Geoffrey Haig and Geoffrey Khan. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 243-266 (The World of Linguistics 6), 2018
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The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia: An Areal Perspective. Edited by Geoffrey Haig and Geoffrey Khan. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 159-189 (The World of Linguistics 6), 2018
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Veronika Ritt-Benmimoun (ed.): Tunisian and Libyan Arabic Dialects Common Trends – Recent Developments – Diachronic Aspects, 2017
In this article we tried to find out the mechanisms of agreement with plural head nouns in Tunis ... more In this article we tried to find out the mechanisms of agreement with plural head nouns in Tunis Arabic. Our findings are based on the analysis of two corpora one of which built by our team in the framework of the Vienna-based project Linguistic Dynamics in the Greater Tunis Area: A Corpus-based Approach (TUNICO). Agreement patterns in Tunis Arabic are to a great extent structured according to an animacy hierarchy. Thus strict agreement is the default case for human and deflected agreement for abstract head nouns. Between these two poles there is a significant degree of variation in agreement that enables the speakers to choose between an individuated or collective perception of the quantity denoted by the plural noun. Besides these two main factors we detected several other semantic, syntactical, and morphological features which can have an effect on agreement in Tunis Arabic.
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Arabic Varieties: Far and Wide. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of AIDA – Bucharest, 2015. Edited by George Grigore and Gabriel Biţună, 2016
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In: Tal Davidovich, Ablahad Lahdo, and Torkel Lindquist (eds.). From Tur Abdin to Hadramawt: Semitic Studies Festschrift in Honour of Bo Isaksson on the occasion of his retirement. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 129–148., 2014
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Martine Haak et al.: Approaches to Arabic Dialects. A Collection of Articles presented to Manfred Woidich on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday. Leiden: Brill, 2004
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Brill’s Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (EALL), Update I 2011 (online edition).
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Papers by Stephan Procházka
This study shows that the so-called ‘definite article’ /l-/ is actually a general referential marker that mainly marks a noun as [-PREDICATIVE]. /l-/ and its augmented forms are specific and allow different readings ranging from anaphoric definiteness to specific indefiniteness. /waħd.l-/ is less an ‘indefinite article’ but marks ‘mirativity’, is pragmatically salient and thus often as a cataphoric function. Demonstratives are used in deictic function but also to evoke an already existing knowledge in the hearer. The system is extended by the referential marker /ʃi-/ restricted to mark non-specific items. The complexity of nominal determination is partly the result of the juxtaposition of typically Moroccan linguistic innovations and retentions of “common Arabic” structures.
This article analyzes typical examples and discusses the possibility of pluractional marking with collective nouns and strict cardinality. It also sheds light on factors in the dialects in question which seem to restrict the transition from PATTERN-I to PATTERN-II verbs. We conclude that the prototypical pluractional verb in the Arabic varieties investigated not only expresses distributivity over time and space, but also over arguments. The high degree of productivity, often negligible difference in meaning with regard to PATTERN-I verbs, and systematic agreement between plural object/subject and verbal pattern (besides agreement expressed by inflectional suffixes) allows us to refer to PATTERN-II verbs in these few dialects as a category, which lies between inflection and derivation.
Based on the analysis of a Tunisian corpus consisting mainly of conversations rather than narratives, we found that this particle is almost twice as frequent as in comparable data from Morocco. In this study, we present an overview of the most important formal settings of the particle’s possible environment and positions in an utterance. The introductory section is followed by an in-depth analysis of the particle’s functions in which we discuss the most striking differences between the usage of “inflected” forms, which bear pronominal suffixes, and the invariable form ṛā-hu. The former mainly focus on the predicate whereas the latter stands outside of the proposition and focuses on the utterance as a whole. We also found that in the contemporary Arabic of Tunis ṛā- is rarely used as a purely deictic presentative (like ‘Here/There it is!’), though in a study of the late 19th century this was described as very common. Modal functions, among them assertion, emphasis, contrast, and assumption, by far preponderate. Another frequent use is the introduction of the apodosis of a conditional clause. The result of our analysis is that the particle ṛā- shares many functions throughout the various Maghrebi dialects, but there are also significant differences in its usage.
This study shows that the so-called ‘definite article’ /l-/ is actually a general referential marker that mainly marks a noun as [-PREDICATIVE]. /l-/ and its augmented forms are specific and allow different readings ranging from anaphoric definiteness to specific indefiniteness. /waħd.l-/ is less an ‘indefinite article’ but marks ‘mirativity’, is pragmatically salient and thus often as a cataphoric function. Demonstratives are used in deictic function but also to evoke an already existing knowledge in the hearer. The system is extended by the referential marker /ʃi-/ restricted to mark non-specific items. The complexity of nominal determination is partly the result of the juxtaposition of typically Moroccan linguistic innovations and retentions of “common Arabic” structures.
This article analyzes typical examples and discusses the possibility of pluractional marking with collective nouns and strict cardinality. It also sheds light on factors in the dialects in question which seem to restrict the transition from PATTERN-I to PATTERN-II verbs. We conclude that the prototypical pluractional verb in the Arabic varieties investigated not only expresses distributivity over time and space, but also over arguments. The high degree of productivity, often negligible difference in meaning with regard to PATTERN-I verbs, and systematic agreement between plural object/subject and verbal pattern (besides agreement expressed by inflectional suffixes) allows us to refer to PATTERN-II verbs in these few dialects as a category, which lies between inflection and derivation.
Based on the analysis of a Tunisian corpus consisting mainly of conversations rather than narratives, we found that this particle is almost twice as frequent as in comparable data from Morocco. In this study, we present an overview of the most important formal settings of the particle’s possible environment and positions in an utterance. The introductory section is followed by an in-depth analysis of the particle’s functions in which we discuss the most striking differences between the usage of “inflected” forms, which bear pronominal suffixes, and the invariable form ṛā-hu. The former mainly focus on the predicate whereas the latter stands outside of the proposition and focuses on the utterance as a whole. We also found that in the contemporary Arabic of Tunis ṛā- is rarely used as a purely deictic presentative (like ‘Here/There it is!’), though in a study of the late 19th century this was described as very common. Modal functions, among them assertion, emphasis, contrast, and assumption, by far preponderate. Another frequent use is the introduction of the apodosis of a conditional clause. The result of our analysis is that the particle ṛā- shares many functions throughout the various Maghrebi dialects, but there are also significant differences in its usage.