The semantics of modals in Kordofanian Baggara Arabic
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Stefano Manfredi
Abstract
This paper aims at describing the forms and the meanings of modal items in Kordofanian Baggara Arabic, a Western Sudanic Arabic dialect spoken in Southwestern Sudan. It presents a polysemic analysis of modal items in light of the participant-oriented approach, and it shows how modality can be described in terms of gradable scales rather than discrete meanings. Beyond that, the paper deals with the hypothesis of the unidirectional development of modal meanings according to which deontic meanings precede epistemic ones and it eventually argues that Kordofanian Baggara Arabic presents an atypical path of grammaticalization from a participant-external possibility to a deontic possibility.
Abstract
This paper aims at describing the forms and the meanings of modal items in Kordofanian Baggara Arabic, a Western Sudanic Arabic dialect spoken in Southwestern Sudan. It presents a polysemic analysis of modal items in light of the participant-oriented approach, and it shows how modality can be described in terms of gradable scales rather than discrete meanings. Beyond that, the paper deals with the hypothesis of the unidirectional development of modal meanings according to which deontic meanings precede epistemic ones and it eventually argues that Kordofanian Baggara Arabic presents an atypical path of grammaticalization from a participant-external possibility to a deontic possibility.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
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Introduction
- Afroasiatic 1
-
Part I. Afroasiatic
- Did Proto-Afroasiatic have marked nominative or nominative-accusative alignment? 11
- The limits and potentials of cladistics in Semitic 23
- Lexicostatistical evidence for Ethiosemitic, its subgroups, and borrowing 41
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Part II. Forms and functions
- Reconsidering the ‘perfect’–‘imperfect’ opposition in the Classical Arabic verbal system 61
- The imperfective in Berber 85
- Condition, interrogation and exception 105
- The semantics of modals in Kordofanian Baggara Arabic 131
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Part III. Predication and beyond
- Insubordination in Modern South Arabian 153
- Possessive and genitive constructions in Dahālik (Ethiosemitic) 167
- The characterization of conditional patterns in Old Babylonian Akkadian 185
- Locative predication in Chadic 203
- Unipartite clauses 235
- The Interaction of state, prosody and linear order in Kabyle (Berber) 261
- Index 287
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
-
Introduction
- Afroasiatic 1
-
Part I. Afroasiatic
- Did Proto-Afroasiatic have marked nominative or nominative-accusative alignment? 11
- The limits and potentials of cladistics in Semitic 23
- Lexicostatistical evidence for Ethiosemitic, its subgroups, and borrowing 41
-
Part II. Forms and functions
- Reconsidering the ‘perfect’–‘imperfect’ opposition in the Classical Arabic verbal system 61
- The imperfective in Berber 85
- Condition, interrogation and exception 105
- The semantics of modals in Kordofanian Baggara Arabic 131
-
Part III. Predication and beyond
- Insubordination in Modern South Arabian 153
- Possessive and genitive constructions in Dahālik (Ethiosemitic) 167
- The characterization of conditional patterns in Old Babylonian Akkadian 185
- Locative predication in Chadic 203
- Unipartite clauses 235
- The Interaction of state, prosody and linear order in Kabyle (Berber) 261
- Index 287
