Janet C.E. Watson

The Semitic languages : an international handbook

The handbook The Semitic Languages offers a comprehensive reference tool for Semitic Linguistics in its broad sense. It is not restricted to comparative Grammar, although it covers also comparative aspects, including classification. By comprising a chapter on typology and sections with sociolinguistic focus and language contact, the conception of the book aims at a rather complete, unbiased description of the state of the art in Semitics. Articles on individual languages and dialects give basic facts as location, numbers of speakers, scripts, numbers of extant texts and their nature, attestation where appropriate, and salient features of the grammar and lexicon of the respective variety. The handbook is the most comprehensive treatment of the Semitic language family since many decades.

Syllabification patterns in Arabic dialects : long segments and mora sharing*

In Classical Arabic and many modern Arabic dialects, syllables ending in VVC or in the left leg of a geminate have a special status. An examination of Kiparskys (2003) semisyllable account of syllabification types and related phenomena in Arabic against a wider set of data shows that while this account explains much syllable-related variation, certain phenomena cannot be captured, and several dialects appear to exhibit conflicting syllable-related phenomena. Phenomena not readily covered by the semisyllable account commonly involve long segments – long vowels or geminate consonants. In this paper, I propose for relevant dialects a mora-sharing solution that recognises the special status of syllables incorporating long segments. Such a mora-sharing solution is not new, but has been proposed for the analysis of syllables containing long segments in a number of languages, including Arabic (Broselow 1992, Broselow et al. 1995), Malayalam, Hindi (Broselow et al. 1997) and Bantu languages (Maddieson 1993, Hubbard 1995).

Tense and Aspect in Semitic: A Case Study Based on the Arabic of the Omani Šarqiyya and the Mehri of Dhofar

This chapter is a contribution towards understanding Semitic verbal systems by presenting an analysis of new data from conservative varieties of two Semitic languages spoken in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. It discusses the verbal system of the Arabic dialect of the Sarqiyya region of Oman and the verbal system of the Modern South Arabian language, Mehri. The Modern South Arabian languages (MSAL) are arguably the most conservative extant Semitic languages, since they preserve several features known to have existed in ancient Semitic languages that are lacking in other extant Semitic languages. The chapter begins by discussing the issue of tense and aspect in relation to Classical Arabic and the modern Arabic dialects. It considers the form, and then the function, of the different verbal inflections. Finally, the chapter examines the expression of tense and aspect in Sarqiyya Arabic and Mehri through the use of affixes and particles. Keywords: Sarqiyya; Mehri; modern Arabic dialects; Modern South Arabian language; Semitic verbal systems; tenses

C. Reviews: general

THE HISTORY OF AL‐TABARI. VOL. III: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. Translated by WILLIAM M. BRINNER. Albany, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1991. xii, 194 pp.

Arabic morphology: diminutive verbs and diminutive nouns in San’ani Arabic

44.00 (hb),

Pre-pausal devoicing and glottalisation in varieties of the south-western Arabian peninsula

14.95 (pb). THE HISTORY OF AL‐TABARI. VOL. XXXIII: STORM AND STRESS ALONG THE NORTHERN FRONTIERS OF THE ‘ABBASID CALIPHATE. Translated by C.E. BOSWORTH. Albany, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1991. xix, 239 pp.

Camel Culture and Camel Terminology Among the Omani Bedouin

57.50 (hb),

Arabic Teaching in Britain and Ireland

18.95 (pb). THE AWAKENING OF PERSIA: THE REIGN OF NASR AL‐DIN SHAH 1848–1896. By A.J. ABRAHAM. USA, Vande Vere Publishing, 1992. 64pp.

Arabic Language WEKA-Based Dialect Classifier for Arabic Automatic Speech Recognition Transcripts.

18.95. THE EMERGENCE OF KURDISH NATIONALISM AND THE SHAIKH SAID REBELLION, 1880–1925. By ROBERT OLSON. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1992. THE ARAB BUREAU: BRITISH POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST, 1916–1920. By BRUCE WESTRATE. University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. xvi, 240 pp.

Backing and glottalization in three SWAP Language varieties.

35. DIE TURKEI UND AGYPTEN IN DER WELTWIRTSCHAFTSKRISE 1929–1933. By CAMILLA DAWLETSCHIN‐LINDER. (Studien zur modernen Geschichte, 40). Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1989. xviii, 187 pp. 20 tables, 6 diagrams. DM...