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The Perfect Tense Ending K(-) in the Spoken Arabic of Ta'izz

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

The occurrence of -k- in the conjugation of the verb in the perfect, instead of the expected -t- which marks the 2s., 2 pl., and 1s. in other Arabic dialects, was noted and discussed in two studies by Ettore Rossi. His aim was to offer a general classification of the Yemeni dialects, and he treated the occurrence of the personal suffixes in -k- in terms of their geographical extent. He found these suffixes in the area of the western slope of the Yemen plateau, and the parts stretching southward to Aden. As an illustration he gave for the dialect of Raymah:

This type of suffixation, as Rossi noted, falls into line with that of Ethiopic, and the Modern South Arabian languages, such as Mahri and Socotri.

Type
Notes and Communications
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1974

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References

1 Rossi, Ettore, ‘Appunti di dialettologia del Yemen’, Rivista degli Studi Orientali, XVII, 1938, 230–65Google Scholar, and ‘Nuove osservatzioni sui dialetti del Yemen’, ibid., 460–72.

2 These include Jabal Ḥarāz with the surrounding areas of Jabal Masār, Jabal Ṣaf'ān. Ūsil; Maḥwīt, north of Manākhah; al-'Ijz in Ḥaymah al-Khārijiyyah, east of Manākhah; Jabal Ḥufāsh, west of Manākhah; al-Khabt, north of Jabal Ḥufāsh, Jabal Milḥān, west of Jabal Ḥufāsh; Habbāt, west of Jabal Milḥān; the Raymah area; the Uṣāb area, south and south-east of Raymah; the Ta'izz area. Rossi, , ‘Appunti’, 255–62Google Scholar.

3 ibid., 259.

4 ibid., 247.

5 ibid., 258.

6 Mr. Abdalla al-Udhari, who had kindly supplied me with the corpus on which this article is based.

7 Haim Blanc uses this feature to classify Iraqi Arabic into qeltu and gelet dialects. See his Communal dialects in Baghdad, Cambridge, Mass., 1964, 5 fGoogle Scholar.