The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic

Janet C. E. Watson

The Phonology of the World's Languages

320 pages | Line drawings | 234x156mm

978-0-19-922669-6 | Paperback | 01 November 2007

Also available as: Hardback

Price: £32.00

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The first comprehensive account of the phonology and morphology of modern spoken Arabic to be published in any language
Based largely upon the author's own research
Unique coverage of the little-studied dialect of San'ani Arabic
Theoretically innovative and aware, yet accessible to Arabic language specialists outside linguistics

This book is the first comprehensive account of the phonology and morphology of Arabic. It is a pioneering work of scholarship based on the author's research in the region.

Arabic is a Semitic language spoken by some 250 million people in an area stretching from Morocco in the West to parts of Iran in the East. Apart from its great intrinsic interest, the importance of the language for phonological and morphological theory lies, as the author shows, in its rich root-and-pattern morphology and its large set of guttural consonants. Dr Watson focuses on two eastern dialects, Cairene and San'ani. Cairene is typical of an advanced urban Mediterranean dialect and has a cultural importance throughout the Arab world; it is also the variety learned by most foreign speakers of Arabic. San'ani, spoken in Yemen, is representative of a conservative peninsula dialect. In addition the book makes extensive reference to other dialects as well as to classical and Modern Standard Arabic.

The volume opens with an overview of the history and varieties of Arabic, and the position of Arabic within Semitic. Dialectal differences and similarities are discussed in successive chapters which cover the phoneme system and the representation of phonological features; the syllable and syllabification; word stress; derivational morphology; inflectional morphology; lexical phonology; and post-lexical phonology. The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic will be of great interest to Arabists and comparative Semiticists, as well as to phonologists, morphologists, and linguists more generally.

Readership: Phonologists and morphologists of Arabic, Arab language specialists, comparative phonologists

The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.

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