A Syntactic Analysis of Futurity in Jordanian Arabic Compared to English: Raising, Modality and Grammaticalization

Abstract

This paper investigates future forms in Jordanian Arabic (JA), particularly the temporal particles raħ and ra:yiħ as well as participle agentive NPs that appear to reveal universal characteristics in hinting at futurity while occurring in distinct syntactic and pragmatic contexts. The data consists of examples containing various future forms in JA given by the researchers and judged for their grammaticality by five faculty members. These examples were analyzed qualitatively relying on Chomsky’s Minimalist Program and Government theory. Similarities and differences between JA and its Arabic H variety, Standard Arabic (SA), are exemplified as well as those found compared to English. The findings show that there are some similarities and differences between futurity in JA and English in terms of raising and modality. raħ and ra:yiħ represent the similar English case; gonna and going expressing futurity. These Arabic and English items (raħ ‘gonna’, ra:yiħ ‘going’) are lexically derived from the verb “go”. They carry future tense, behave as a raising verb and c-select an infinitival clause. This paper shows that the particle raħ acts as a raising verb. It shows evidence that this particle underwent a grammaticalization process out of the participle NP ra:yiħ which shows identity in deep structure and similarity in its phonetic form. The study contributes to understanding the syntax of future in Arabic vernacular.