Project Details
Popular science description
VEGA provides a survey and description of the syntax of the verb - especially markers for tense, mood and aspect - in the Arabic variety spoken in southern Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, eastern Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The grammar of this dialect group is one of the least studied among Arabic vernaculars. A large database of recorded speech is used for the project.
VEGA explores the syntax of Gulf Arabic (GA), i.e. the variety of Arabic spoken in southern Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, eastern Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE. The main focus is on the dialects of Oman and the UAE. A corpus of linguistic data is collected through local informants and analyzed as to the use of finite and infinite verb forms and the relationship between sentence type and choice of verb form. In particular the dialect group’s methods for expressing tense/mode/aspect (TMA) distinctions is examined. The need for documentation of these dialects is immense and the collected corpus will be a valuable tool also for further research on Gulf Arabic.
VEGA is a functional typological study related to research on aspect and mode in other Arabic dialects as well as a contribution to general linguistic research within language typology. The results of the study are expected to increase our understanding of GA grammar, particularly verb syntax, thus creating material for comparative Arabic dialectological studies, but also to enhance our knowledge on language universal processes of grammaticalization for tense/mode/aspect.
VEGA explores the syntax of Gulf Arabic (GA), i.e. the variety of Arabic spoken in southern Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, eastern Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE. The main focus is on the dialects of Oman and the UAE. A corpus of linguistic data is collected through local informants and analyzed as to the use of finite and infinite verb forms and the relationship between sentence type and choice of verb form. In particular the dialect group’s methods for expressing tense/mode/aspect (TMA) distinctions is examined. The need for documentation of these dialects is immense and the collected corpus will be a valuable tool also for further research on Gulf Arabic.
VEGA is a functional typological study related to research on aspect and mode in other Arabic dialects as well as a contribution to general linguistic research within language typology. The results of the study are expected to increase our understanding of GA grammar, particularly verb syntax, thus creating material for comparative Arabic dialectological studies, but also to enhance our knowledge on language universal processes of grammaticalization for tense/mode/aspect.
Status | Finished |
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Effective start/end date | 2006/01/01 → 2011/12/31 |