When a General Classifier Acts as a Quantifier? The Case ofĦabbit'a Grain of' in Jordanian Arabic

Bibliographic Data

ID3136105
AuthorsAbdulazeez Jaradat (0009-0004-3822-3119, The Department of English Language and Translation, School of Arts & Science, The Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan), Marwan Jarrah (0000-0003-1528-7326, Department of English Language and Literature, School of Foreign Languages, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume68
Issue4
Pages422-438
Publication date2022-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWORD (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-7956 • E-ISSN: 2373-5112
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00437956.2022.2084664
OpenAlexW4312314531
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

This article offers a morphosyntactic account of the observation that the general dividing classifier ħabbit 'a grain of' in Jordanian Arabic (JA) can express another unpredictable interpretation when it is combined with non-count nominals. When ħabbit occurs with nominals that refer to [-animate] collectives (granular aggregates, legumes, nuts and seeds), it can give rise to individuation or paucal quantification. On the other hand, when it occurs with tiny atoms, it works as a quantifier. This essentially implies that the function of ħabbit as a divider or a quantifier in JA is determined with reference to the ontological properties of the nominal with which it combines. We propose that such readings are sensitive to whether Division Phrase (DivP) or Quantity Phrase (QP) is projected in the inflectional domain of the non-count nominals. When ħabbit merges under Div0, an individuation reading is resulted. By contrast, when ħabbit merges under Q0, paucal quantification reading is derived. Further, the dividing function of ħabbit in JA does not support Borer's (2005) proposal that division/classification is the only function of plural marking. It is rather ħabbit that divides, in line with Mathieu (2013) and Mathieu and Zareikar (2015) who propose that the plural can be counting

Arabic · Classifier (UML · Determiner · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Noun · Noun phrase · Phrase · Plural · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis · Mathematics · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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