The structure of wh-exclamatives in Jordanian Arabic and beyond

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper presents an analysis of the characteristics of wh-exclamatives in Jordanian Arabic. I argue that exclamatives are not complete sentences because they are temporally deictic to the moment of utterance. In other words, they lack Tense specification and are considered tenseless expressions (i.e., root small clauses). Two notable complexities arise in wh-exclamatives in Jordanian Arabic, namely the obligatory presence of the demonstrative-like element ha- and fixed word order. These intricacies are attributed to the exclamative head’s requirement for a specifier. This requirement can be fulfilled either through the combination of a wh-form (external merge) or the movement of the degree phrase to the specifier position (internal merge). The study proposes that the demonstrative-like ha- functions as the actual manifestation of the Relator head which connects and establishes the relationship between the two constituents in exclamatives. Furthermore, based on the distinct semantic and distributional properties of the auxiliary kān ‘was’, the paper argues for the differentiation of the auxiliary in exclamatives from other typical auxiliaries that occupy verb or Tense nodes in sentences. Therefore, it suggests that exclamative auxiliaries encode and express the grammatical features of the functional head, labeled as Excl.KEYWORDS: Jordanian Arabicnonsentential analysissmall clausesverbless/tenseless expressionswh-exclamatives Abbreviations acc=accusativeAP=adjectival phraseD=determinerDemP=demonstrative phrasedef=definite articleDP=determiner phraseepp=extended projection principle featureexcl=exclamativeExclP=exclamative Phraseeval=evaluative forceindf=indefinite articleJA=Jordanian Arabicmasc=masculineMSA=Modern Standard Arabicneg=negationnom=nominativenw=nūn alwiqāya ‘preventive n’pl=pluralposs=possessiveprfx=prefixprs=presentpst=pastptcl=particleR=relatorRP=relator phrasesbj=subjectsg=singularTP=tense phraseVP=verb phraseAcknowledgementsI wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers and Sune Gregersen, the editor of the journal, for their thorough feedback and invaluable contributions, which significantly enhanced the quality of this paper. I am also deeply indebted to Phil Branigan and Nicholas Welch for providing invaluable insights that greatly enriched the content of this work.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This study relies on data from two sources: publicly available data from websites, especially from social media, and data elicited and judged by twelve native speakers of Jordanian Arabic, including the author.2 https://twitter.com/Onlyban11/status/1287235720038494209?lang=ar-x-fm (accessed April 16, 2023)3 https://m.facebook.com/100068094845832/videos/228506320675475/?__so__=permalink (accessed April 16/2023)4 ‘Jordanian Arabic’ is a cover term for various local dialects spoken in Jordan; these can be divided into Urban, Rural, and Bedouin Jordanian Arabic. Although these dialects can be differentiated by certain linguistic features, they are all mutually intelligible (Migdadi Citation2003, 9–10). For more information on JA, see Jaradat (Citation2018) and Abdelhady (Citation2019, Citation2021). According to the native speakers consulted, there are no linguistic differences in wh-exclamatives between the local dialects, and the constructions under discussion are similarly used in other Arabic varieties spoken in the Levant.5 https://www.aksalser.com/?page=view_articles&id=0628a8e272efdc9336957ad6c0206c67 (accessed April 14, 2023)6 https://twitter.com/mbuyabis/status/351045950082527234?lang=ar (accessed April 20, 2023)7 https://www.99fm.ae/shows/%D8%B4%D9%88-%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%88/ (accessed April 20, 2023)8 https://m.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=3355706364511981&id=433148246767822&locale2=ar_AR (accessed April 1, 2023)9 This -n- (called nūn alwiqāya ‘preventive n’ in Arabic grammar, abbreviated here as nw) is obligatorily inserted after the verb only when it is followed by the 1sg.sub/obj/poss suffix ‘I/me/my’.10 In contrast to the exclamative particle šū ‘how’, the interrogative kayf ‘how’ can be followed by a TP involving an overt verb that can be of any tense. As noted by Cantarino (Citation1976, 203), “supplying a verb would efface the exclamatory quality and thus the actual character of the phrase”. For that reason, šū and kayf cannot be used interchangeably. Moreover, as highlighted by a reviewer, kayf ‘how’ is a manner adverbial wh-word, therefore, it cannot be used in exclamatives (see, e.g., Rett Citation2008, Citation2011) For more information on wh-constructions in Jordanian Arabic, see Al-Daher (Citation2016).11 One of the syntactic operations used to derive a syntactic structure like a phrase or clause is agreement (Agree) or concord, which involves the interaction of matching features of lexical items. These features are divided into two categories, i.e., interpretable/uninterpretable features (which have or do not have a role in semantic interpretation) and valued/unvalued features (which are or are not assigned a grammatical value in advance). For a simplified view of these terms, see, e.g., Radford (Citation2009).12 The argument that the features [eval] and [excl] are bundled in the Excl head in JA exclamatives is not a requirement or a constraint that must exist in all languages as these features can be either bundled or decomposed into two separate heads (i.e., Excl and Eval) both across languages and language-internally (i.e., depending on the type of exclamative, e.g., whether it is a wh-exclamative, vocative-exclamative, or verbal-exclamatives, for an overview on these types, see Al-Bataineh Citation2021).13 For proposals about Arabic demonstratives, see Al-Bataineh (Citation2020, 351), and references therein.14 https://www.sahafahh.com/show9951066.html (accessed April 10, 2023)15 https://twitter.com/drhikmat5/status/1100164333781336064 (accessed April 22, 2023)16 http://salmiyaforum.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=26;t=000006;p=114 (accessed April 22, 2023)17 Relatedly, Zevakhina (Citation2015) finds that negative exclamatives are not allowed in a wide-scope reading in any of the investigated languages. Conversely, a narrow-scope reading is possible in a very limited number of Russian exclamatives involving gradable adjectives and quantity.18 https://www.jiosaavn.com/lyrics/whats-the-point-lyrics/RF5ZBAR7QVo (accessed September 23, 2023).19 https://www.donbalanzat.com/poetry (accessed September 23, 2023).