Cited by 5Language, Linguistics, Cultural AnalysisArchaeology and Historical StudiesLinguistics and language evolution

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 38 of the 39 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 2 of the 44 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Fresh Analysis of the Origin and Diachronic Development of “Dialectal Tanwīn” in Arabic

Open access
Stokes, Philip W.·2021·Journal of the American Oriental Society

Abstract

Scholars of Arabic dialects have long noted the occurrence of a morpheme in a widespread number of dialects, realized -ən or -an, frequently suffixed to morphologically indefinite nouns, especially when followed by an adjective. Separately, another morpheme, realized -un or -u, is attested with a slightly different distribution in the dialects of western Yemen. Traditionally, scholars have interpreted both morphemes as reflexes of an etymological case vowel + tanwīn (Blau 1981), traditionally labeled “dialectal tanwīn.” In this paper, I offer a new reconstruction of the origin and diachronic development of this morpheme. Throughout I integrate data and insights from comparative Semitics, as well as recently studied pre-Islamic epigraphic and textual materials, in order to break the familiar Classical Arabic / dialectal Arabic dichotomy and reframe the way in which historiography of features in the dialects is conducted.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

The paper defends the traditional view that the Arabic morpheme known as dialectal tanwīn comes from an etymological case vowel plus tanwīn, not from a separate linking morpheme. It proposes that case vowels merged before tanwīn and that non-Tihama and Tihama distributions reflect different pausal developments.

Key findings

  • The author argues that dialectal tanwīn derives from case vowel + tanwīn; the alternative *-Vn linking morpheme is rejected as otherwise unattested in Semitic and unable to account for adverbial and verbal-participle uses in the same dialects.
  • Non-Tihama dialectal tanwīn typically attaches to an indefinite noun followed by an attributive adjective, clause, or prepositional phrase and usually does not occur utterance-finally; Tihama dialects often attach it to any eligible indefinite noun, with realizations such as -in or -u(n), and Bal-Qarn/Banī ʿAbādil show nonpausal -in versus pausal -u.
  • The reconstruction proposes merger of short case vowels before tanwīn, e.g. *-un/*-in/*-an becoming a high vowel plus n or a dialect-specific nonphonemic vowel, with accusative sometimes remaining distinct; this loss of phonemic contrast may have contributed to the breakdown of case.
  • The paper links the two distributions to two Classical Arabic pause patterns, muṭlaqa and muqayyada, and argues that case and tanwīn are reconstructible to proto-Arabic; pre-Islamic Safaitic, Nabataean, and Ḥismaic materials mostly lack tanwīn, and the Qurʾānic consonantal text lacks it except for kaʾayy-in.

Methods

  • Comparative-historical linguistic reconstruction integrating comparative Semitic evidence (Akkadian, Ugaritic, Ancient South Arabian), pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabic materials, and historical and contemporary Arabic dialect data.
  • Data include Judaeo-Arabic attestations from at least the early ninth century, Cairo Geniza letters from the eleventh to nineteenth centuries, Andalusi examples from the eleventh century and Ibn Quzmān in the twelfth century, plus modern dialects from the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, the Levant, sub-Saharan Africa, Anatolia, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan.
  • The analysis reviews earlier proposals (Nöldeke, Birkeland, Cantineau, Blau, Owens) and evaluates them against syntactic distribution, pausal/nonpausal forms, vowel quality, and Semitic nasalization and case patterns.

Limitations

  • The paper states that detailed dialect descriptions and complete texts are scarce, especially for Tihama -u(n) dialects and Najdi/Central Arabian dialects, and that pausal distribution is often incomplete because of data-collection methods.
  • The author acknowledges a degree of circularity: if one does not accept that case and tanwīn are reconstructible to proto-Arabic, the argument’s starting point is not shared.
  • Evident from the text: many claims rely on secondary sources and limited examples, some tables are incomplete or lack data, and the mapping of Tihama versus non-Tihama data onto specific pause patterns is not fully resolved.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.3.0637

Cites

38 of 38 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

62 Own interpretation · 44 No basis given · 29 Sources not found · 13 Own result · 9 No full text of the sources · 9 Not checked yet · 2 Partly supported · 1 Own method · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 94 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 29
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 59
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 1
75 of 75
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    In Classical Arabic, indefinite nouns ending in nominative -un and genitive -in have pausal allomorphs ending in Ø.

    “In ClAr, indefinite nouns ending in nominative -un and genitive -in have pausal allomorphs that end in Ø:”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    In Classical Arabic, the accusative singular -an loses tanwīn and lengthens a to ā in pausal form.

    “The accusative singular an, however, loses tanwīn and the a vowel is lengthened to ā: nonpausal pausal bayt=an bayt=ā”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Etymological tanwīn and case vowels existed in earlier Arabic.

    “I will argue that the current distribution of DT in both non-Tihama and Tihama dialects is perfectly compatible with a derivation from etymological tanwīn.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The modern Arabic dialect data used are sufficiently reliable and representative to support historical reconstruction of DT.

    “I propose that these data suggest a situation in which short vowels in final closed, unstressed position merged, via different paths.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The QCT rasm orthography can be used to infer phonological case endings.

    “van Putten and Stokes (2018) argue that the orthography of the QCT (rasm) suggests that the so-called pausal forms typical of ClAr prose are in fact attested in all contexts of the Quran.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The Psalm Fragment is a reliable witness to a dialect in which the genitive persisted nonword-final.

    “A parallel, in which the genitive appears to have persisted longest when nonword-final, is to be found in the Psalm Fragment.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Parsimony is a valid criterion for choosing between historical explanations.

    “I would submit, finally, that it is more parsimonious to derive attested morphemes from other known morphemes if possible, rather than introducing an otherwise unknown one.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Classical Arabic is an artificial collection of features from sources that early Islamic grammarians considered trustworthy.

    “Indeed, as is well known, ClAr itself is an artificial collection of features, treated together because they come from sources that early Islamic grammarians considered trustworthy.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The most common breath-group is noun plus adjective, where the adjective can be nominal or clausal.

    “The most common breath-group is N + ADJ, where ADJ can be a nominal or clausal attribute.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The dialect data used in the analysis are sufficiently representative and accurately transcribed to support historical reconstruction.

    “Discussion of the quality of vowels in the dialects is complicated by the fact that dialectologists often transcribe a particular vowel phonemically and with reference to the ClAr triad of vowels, transliterated u, i, and a.”
10 of 10

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

3 of 3

Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. ---. 2020. The Damascus Psalm Fragment: Middle Arabic and the Legacy of Old Ḥigāzī. LAMINE, vol. 2. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago.
  2. Asiri, Y. 2008. Relative Clauses in the Dialect of Rijal Almaʿ (South-West Saudi Arabia). Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 38: 71-74.
  3. ---. 2006. Problems of Noun Inflection in Arabic: Reflections on the Diptote Declension. In Bib- lical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives, ed. S. E. Fassberg and A. Hurvitz. Pp. 27-32. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
  4. ---, ed. 2018a. Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  5. ---. 2018b. Arabic Dialects of the Gulf: Aspects of Their Historical and Sociolinguistic Develop- ment. In Holes 2018a. Pp. 112-47.
  6. Huehnergard, J. 2004. Afro-Asiatic. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Lan- guages, ed. R. Woodard. Pp. 138-59. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  7. Retsö, J. 1994. ʾIʿrāb in the Forebears of Modern Arabic Dialects. In Actes des premières journées internationales de dialectologie arabe de Paris, ed. D. Caubet and M. Vanhove. Pp. 333-42. Paris: INALCO.

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Metadata

Authors
Stokes, P. W.
Affiliations
University of Tennessee at Knoxville (US)
Corresponding author
Stokes, Philip W.
Venue
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Published
2021-09-19
Volume
140
Issue
3
ISSN
  • 0003-0279 (ISSN-L)
  • 2169-2289
OpenAlex
W3088901489
Cited by
5
References
39
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 2
FWCI
4.01
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
Journal of the American Oriental Society (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology (arts and humanities) › Archaeology and Historical Studies
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Linguistics and language evolution
Keywords
Arabic dialects, suffix -an, diachronic development, etymology, Classical Arabic

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