This book contains an investigation of the co-occurrence between the consonants in the triliteral and quadriliteral verbal roots of Arabic and Hebrew. The consonants are grouped on the basis of Manner or of Place. Both co-occurrence restrictions and co-occurrence preferences of consonants and of consonant groups are described in detail. The statistical test for pronomial proportions is used in order to determine the statistical significance of the results. These results are compared to those of earlier work by other authors on this subject. The findings are explained within the framework of generative phonology. The methods used are described in detail and the book contains a wealth of tabulated material which can be of great use to other investigators.

This lively introduction to Arabic linguistics provides students with a concise, vivid and engaging overview of the language's structure.

This book offers a wide range overview of current research issues in Arabic linguistics, extending from the general to the specific. It includes in depth investigations of theoretical and applied topics that are of interest to general and Arabic linguistics: computational analysis of Arabic, Arabic dialectology, acquisition of Arabic as a native language, learning and teaching Arabic as a first or foreign language, sociolinguistic analysis of Arabic, and the status of Arabic in European academe. Despite the seeming diversity of the topics, they fall thematically into two major inter-related categories, analysis and learning. Each chapter is a thoughtful reflection of a major current trend in the study of Arabic.

Aramaic has been spoken uninterruptedly for more than 3000 years, yet a generation from now most Aramaic dialects will be extinct. The study of the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) dialects has increased dramatically in the past decade as linguists seek to record these dialects before the disappearance of their last speakers. This work is a unique documentation of the now extinct Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Challa (modern-day Çukurca, Turkey). It is based on recordings of the last native speaker of the dialect, who passed away in 2007. In addition to a grammatical description, it contains sample texts and a glossary of the dialect. Jewish Challa belongs to the cluster of NENA dialects known as 'lishana deni' and reference is made throughout to other dialects within this group.

This Liber Amicorum discusses topics on the history of Arabic grammar, Arabic linguistics, and Arabic dialects, domains in which Kees Versteegh plays a leading role.

This volume contains a detailed grammatical description of Mehri, an unwritten Semitic language spoken in Oman and Yemen. It is the first grammar of its kind, and the first of any Modern South Arabian language in a century.

This book examines diglossia within the framework of code-switching through an analysis of negation, deixis, and mood marking in Arabic monologues. It reassesses theoretical approaches to diglossia and code-switching in the light of empirical data, and examines the discourse functions of code-switching and the factors that influence it.

This is a Festschrift volume for the British Semitist Edward Ullendorff. It contains papers written by leading scholars in the fields of Semitic philology and Near Eastern history and literature. The papers include linguistic, literary and historical studies of Ethiopian Semitic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic and Greek sources.

This volume deals with medieval comparative Semitic philology (Hebrew/Aramaic/Arabic) as practised by Hebrew philologists in the Arabic speaking lands, from Iraq to Spain, discussing its development through the generations, its technics and its theoretical basis. This research is based upon an analysis of over ten thousand occurrences of comparisons in linguistic works, biblical commentaries and the like, made by fourteen Hebrew scholars from the 10th-12th centuries CE, among them Saʿadiah Gaon, Judah b. Quraysh, David b. Abraham Alfasi, Jonah b. Janah and Isaac b. Barūn. Several aspects of this comparisons are presented and studied here for the first time.

This book presents a comprehensive portrait of the Kitāb Sībawayhi. It offers new insights into its historical and linguistic arguments and underlines their strong correlation. The decisive historical argument highlights al-Ḥīra’s role, not only as the centre of pre-Islamic Arabic culture, but also as the matrix within which early Arab linguistics grew and developed. The Kitāb’s value as a communicative grammar forms the crux of the linguistic argument. The complementarity of syntax and pragmatics is established as a condition sine qua non for Sībawayhi’s analysis of language. The benefits of a complementary approach are reflected in the analysis of nominal sentences and related notions of ibtidā’ and definiteness. The pragmatic principle of identifiability is uncovered as the ultimate determiner of word order.