Cover not available
Commentary published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 4:1 (2014) ► pp.89–123
Commentary

Arabic plurals and root and pattern morphology in Palestinian and Egyptian heritage speakers

| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
| Utah State University
| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This study investigates heritage speakers’ knowledge of plural formation in their colloquial varieties of Arabic, which use both concatenative and non-concatentative modes of derivation. In the concatenative derivation, a plural suffix attaches to the singular stem (muhandis ‘engineer-sg.’ → muhandis-iin ‘engineer-pl’); in the non-concatenative, the relation between the singular (gamal ‘camel’) and the plural (gimaal ‘camels’) typically involves vocalic and prosodic alternations with the main shared similarity between the two forms being the consonantal root (e.g., g-m-l). In linguistic approaches, non-concatenative patterns have been captured in different ways, though the earliest and most recognizable approach involves the mapping of a consonantal root onto a plural template. We investigated heritage speakers’ knowledge of the root and pattern system in two independent experiments. In Experiment 1, oral narratives were elicited from 20 heritage speakers and 20 native speakers of Egyptian and Palestinian Arabic. In Experiment 2, another group of 24 heritage speakers and 24 native speakers of the same dialects completed an oral picture-description task. The results of the two experiments show that heritage speakers’ knowledge of the root and pattern system of Arabic is not target-like. Yet, they have a good grasp of the root and template as basic units of word formation in their heritage Arabic dialects. We discuss implications for debates about the acquisition of the root and pattern system of Arabic morphology.
Keywords: Arabic, heritage speakers, plural morphology, root and pattern
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Arabic morphology
  • 3.Plural morphology
  • 4.Knowledge of plural morphology in Arabic heritage speakers
  • 5.Experiment 1
    • 5.1Participants
    • 5.2Task
    • 5.3Results
  • 6.Experiment 2
    • 6.1Participants
    • 6.2Tasks
    • 6.3Results
  • 7.Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 February 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.4.1.04ben
References (68)
References
Albirini, A., & Benmamoun, E. (2012). Aspects of second language transfer in the oral production of Egyptian and Palestinian heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism. Advance online publication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Albirini, A., Benmamoun, E., & Chakrani, B. (2013). Gender and number agreement in the oral production of Arabic heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16(1), 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Albirini, A., Benmamoun, E., & Saadah, E. (2011). Grammatical features of Egyptian and Palestinian Arabic heritage speakers’ oral production. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 331, 273–303. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alijenaie, K., Abdalla, F., & Farghal, M. (2011). Developmental changes in using nominal number inflections in Kuwaiti Arabic. First Language, 31(2), 222–239. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arab American Institute. (2009). Demographics. In Arab American Institute, retrieved on 3 October 2013, from [URL] .Google Scholar
Au, T., Knightly, L., Jun, S., & Oh, J. (2002). Overhearing a language during childhood. Psychological Science, 131, 238–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Badawi, E.S., & Hinds, M. (1986). A dictionary of Egyptian Arabic. Beirut: Librairie Du Liban.Google Scholar
Badry, F. (1983). Acquisition of lexical derivational rules in Moroccan Arabic: Implications for the development of Standard Arabic as a second language through literacy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, CA.
Bat-El, O. (1994). Stem modification and cluster transfer in Modern Hebrew. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 121, 571–593. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benmamoun, E. (1999). Arabic morphology: The central role of the imperfective. Lingua, 1081, 175–201. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2003). Reciprocals as plurals. In J. Lecarme (Ed.), Research in Afroasiatic grammar II (pp. 53–62). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benmamoun, E., Abunasser, M., & Albirini, A. (2013). Plural formation in Arabic varieties: A corpus study. Manuscript in preparation.Google Scholar
Berent, I., Pinker, S., & Shimron, J. (1999). Default nominal inflection in Hebrew: Evidence for mental variables. Cognition, 72(1), 1–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boudelaa, S., & Gaskell, G.M. (2002). A re-examination of the default system for Arabic plurals. Language and Cognitive Processes, 171, 321–343. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boudelaa, S., & Marslen-Wilson, W. (2000). Non-concatenative morphemes in language processing: Evidence from Modern Standard Arabic. In J. McQueen & A. Cutler (Eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Spoken Word Access Processes (pp. 23–26). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute.Google Scholar
. (2001). Morphological units in the Arabic mental lexicon. Cognition, 811, 65–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2004). Allomorphic variation in Arabic: Implications for lexical processing and representation. Brain and Language, 901, 106–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brame, M. (1970). Arabic phonology: Implications for phonological theory and general Semitic. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Clahsen, H., Rothweiler, M., Woest, A., & Marcus, G. (1992). Regular versus irregular inflection in the acquisition of German noun plurals. Cognition, 451, 225–253. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cuza, A., & Frank, J. (2011). Transfer effects at the syntax-semantics interface: The case of double-que questions in heritage Spanish. Heritage Language Journal, 8(2), 66–89.Google Scholar
Daana, H.A. (2009). The development of consonant clusters, stress, and plural nouns in Jordanian Arabic child language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Essex, UK.
Frost, R., Forster, K., & Deutsch, A. (1997). What can we learn from the morphology of Hebrew? A masked-priming investigation of morphological representation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23(4), 829–856. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gadalla, H. (2000). Comparative morphology of standard and Egyptian Arabic. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Hulstijn, J. (2011). Language proficiency in native and nonnative speakers: An agenda for research and suggestions for second language assessment. Language Assessment Quarterly, 8(3), 229–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Idrissi, A. (1997). Plural formation in Arabic. In M. Eid & R. Ratcliffe (Eds.), Perspectives on Arabic linguistics X (pp. 123–145). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Idrissi, A., Prunet, J., & Béland, R. (2002). Metathesis errors in Arabic speech: Implications for the status of abstract roots in Arabic. Brain and Language, 831, 90–92.Google Scholar
. (2008). On the mental representation of Arabic roots. Linguistic Inquiry, 39(2), 221–259. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keating, G., VanPatten, B., & Jegerski, J. (2011). Who was walking on the beach? Anaphora resolution in Spanish heritage speakers and adult second language learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 331, 193–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Khouloughli, D. (1992). Basic lexicon of Modern Standard Arabic. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Lambert, W., & Tucker, G. (1972). Bilingual education of children: The St. Lambert experiment. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Levy, M. (1971). The plural of the noun in Modern Standard Arabic. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Lukyanchenko, A., & Gor, K. (2011). Perceptual correlates of phonological representations in heritage speakers and L2 learners. In N. Danis, K. Mesh, & H. Sung (Eds.), Proceedings from the 35th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 414–426). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Mayer, M. (1969). Frog, where are you? New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.Google Scholar
McCarthy, J. (1979). Formal problems in Semitic phonology and morphology. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Cambridge, MA.
. (1981). A prosodic theory of nonconcatenative morphology. Linguistic Inquiry, 121, 373–418.Google Scholar
McCarthy, J., & Prince, A. (1990). Foot and word in prosodic morphology: The Arabic broken plural. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 81, 209–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2008). Incomplete acquisition in bilingualism. Re-examining the age factor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2011a). Interfaces in bilingualism. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 41, 221–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2011b). Morphological errors in Spanish second language learners and heritage speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33(2), 155–161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2012). Is the heritage language like a second language? EUROSLA Yearbook, 121, 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., de la Fuente, I., Davidson, J., & Foote, R. (2013). The role of experience in the acquisition and production of diminutives and gender in Spanish: Evidence from L2 learners and heritage speakers. Second Language Research, 29(1), 87–118. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., & Ionin, T. (2010). Transfer effects in the interpretation of definite articles by Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(4), 449–473. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., & Sánchez-Walker, N. (in press). Incomplete acquisition of differential object marking in child and adult Spanish heritage speakers. Language Acquisition.
O’Grady, W., Kwak, H., Lee, O., & Lee, M. (2011). An emergentist perspective on heritage language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 331, 223–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Grady, W., Lee, M., & Choo, M. (2001). The acquisition of relative clauses by heritage and non-heritage learners of Korean as a second language: A comparative study. Journal of Korean Language Education, 121, 283–294.Google Scholar
Omar, M. (1973). The acquisition of Egyptian Arabic as a native language. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plunkett, K., & Nakisa, R. (1997). A connectionist model of the Arabic plural system. Language and Cognitive Processes, 12(5, 6), 807–836. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polinsky, M. (1997). American Russian: Language loss meets language acquisition. In W. Browne, E. Dornisch, N. Kondrashova, & D. Zec (Eds.), Proceedings from the Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Cornell Meeting (pp. 370–406). Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publishers.Google Scholar
. (2005). Word class distinctions in an incomplete grammar. In D. Ravid & H.B-Z. Shildrkrodt (Eds.), Perspectives on language and language development (pp. 419–436). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2006). Incomplete acquisition: American Russian. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 141, 191–262.Google Scholar
. (2008). Gender under incomplete acquisition: Heritage speakers’ knowledge of noun categorization. Heritage Language Journal, 6(1), 40–71.Google Scholar
. (2011). Reanalysis in adult heritage language: A case for attrition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 331, 305–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prunet, J., Béland, R., & Idrissi, A. (2000). The mental representation of Semitic words. Linguistic Inquiry, 311, 609–648. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ratcliffe, R. (1997). Prosodic templates in a word-based morphological analysis of Arabic. In M. Eid & R. Ratcliffe (Eds.), Perspectives on Arabic linguistics X (pp. 147–171). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2002). The broken plural system of Moroccan Arabic: Diachronic and cognitive perspectives. In D. Parkinson & E. Benmamoun (Eds.), Perspectives on Arabic linguistics XIII-XIV (pp. 87–110). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2003). The historical dynamics of the Arabic plural system: Implications for a theory of morphology. In J. Lecarme (Ed.), Research in Afroasiatic languages (pp. 339–362). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Ravid, D., & Farah, R. (1999). Learning about noun plurals in early Palestinian Arabic. First Language, 191, 187–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothman, J. (2007). Heritage speaker competence differences, language change, and input type: Inflected infinitives in Heritage Brazilian Portuguese. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 111, 359–389. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saadah, E. (2010). The production of Arabic vowels by English L2 learners and heritage speakers of Arabic. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL.
Sherkina-Lieber, M., Pérez-Leroux, A., & Johns, A. (2011). Grammar without speech production: The case of Labrador Inuttitut heritage receptive bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14(3), 301–317. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shimron, J. (2003). Semitic languages: Are they really root-based? In J. Shimrom (Ed.), Language processing and acquisition in languages of Semitic, root-based morphology (pp. 1–28). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, C. (1984). Semantic and pragmatic factors in syntactic change. In J. Fisiak (Ed.), Historical syntax (pp. 555–573). The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorace, A., 2004. Native language attrition and developmental instability at the syntax-discourse interface: Data, interpretations and methods. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7(2), 143–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ussishkin, A. (1999). The inadequacy of the consonantal root: Modern Hebrew denominal verbs and output-output correspondence. Phonology, 161, 401–442. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valdés, G. (2000). Introduction. In American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (Ed.), Spanish for native speakers, AATSP professional development series handbook for teachers, K-16 (Vol. 11, pp. 1–20). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt College.Google Scholar
Watson, J. (2002). The phonology and morphology of Arabic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cited by (28)

Cited by 28 other publications

Asli-Badarneh, Abeer, Kathleen Hipfner-Boucher, Xi Chen Bumgardner, Redab AlJanaideh & Elinor Saiegh Haddad
2023. Narrative microstructure and macrostructure skills in Arabic diglossia: The case of Arab immigrant children in Canada. International Journal of Bilingualism 27:3 ► pp. 349 ff. DOI logo
Jaradat, Abdulazeez
2023. Branching lexical plural into greater and paucal. Cogent Arts & Humanities 10:1 DOI logo
Jaradat, Abdulazeez
2023. When a Dual Marker Acts as a Paucal Marker: The Case of the Dual -e:n in Northern Rural Jordanian Arabic. Languages 8:3 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Khamis-Dakwar, Reem, Iman Salam, Amanda Nagler & Karen Froud
2023. Arabic and English plural formation in typically developing heritage speakers of Arabic. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXIV [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 12], ► pp. 231 ff. DOI logo
Uygun, Serkan, Lara Schwarz & Harald Clahsen
2023. Morphological generalization in heritage speakers: The Turkish aorist. Second Language Research 39:2 ► pp. 519 ff. DOI logo
van Baal, Yvonne
2023. Definiteness marking in American Norwegian: a unique pattern among the Scandinavian languages. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 27:1 DOI logo
Lưu, Alex, Pasha Koval, Sophia A. Malamud & Irina Y. Dubinina
2022. Creating a Large-Scale Audio-Aligned Parsed Corpus of Bilingual Russian Child and Child-Directed Speech (BiRCh): Challenges, Solutions, and Implications for Research. Bakhtiniana: Revista de Estudos do Discurso 17:4 ► pp. 223 ff. DOI logo
Lưu, Alex, Pasha Koval, Sophia A. Malamud & Irina Y. Dubinina
2022. A construção de corpus de larga escala da fala bilíngue de crianças e da fala bilíngue dirigida à criança, anotado e alinhado aos arquivos de áudio: desafios, soluções e implicações para a pesquisa. Bakhtiniana: Revista de Estudos do Discurso 17:4 ► pp. 223 ff. DOI logo
Alhawary, Mohammad T.
2021. Arabic Applied Linguistics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo
Benmamoun, Elabbas
2021. Heritage Language Research and Theoretical Linguistics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, ► pp. 375 ff. DOI logo
Pavlou, Natalia & Kleanthes K. Grohmann
2021. Heritage Languages in Southeastern Europe. In The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Karin Ryding & David Wilmsen
2021. The Cambridge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, DOI logo
Visonà, Mark Winston & Luke Plonsky
2020. Arabic as a heritage language: A scoping review. International Journal of Bilingualism 24:4 ► pp. 599 ff. DOI logo
Elizabeth Ijalba, Patricia Velasco & Catherine J. Crowley
2019. Language, Culture, and Education, DOI logo
Benmamoun, Elabbas & Abdulkafi Albirini
2018. IS LEARNING A STANDARD VARIETY SIMILAR TO LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE?. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 40:1 ► pp. 31 ff. DOI logo
Carreira, Maria & Olga Kagan
2018. Heritage language education: A proposal for the next 50 years. Foreign Language Annals 51:1 ► pp. 152 ff. DOI logo
Jegerski, Jill
2018. The processing of the object marker a by heritage Spanish speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism 22:6 ► pp. 585 ff. DOI logo
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen
2018. Bilingual acquisition. In Questioning Theoretical Primitives in Linguistic Inquiry [Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 76], ► pp. 245 ff. DOI logo
ALBIRINI, ABDULKAFI
2015. Factors affecting the acquisition of plural morphology in Jordanian Arabic. Journal of Child Language 42:4 ► pp. 734 ff. DOI logo
Albirini, Abdulkafi
2018. The Role of Age of Exposure to English in the Development of Arabic as a Heritage Language in the United States. Language Acquisition 25:2 ► pp. 178 ff. DOI logo
Albirini, Abdulkafi
2021. Arabic in North America. In The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, ► pp. 277 ff. DOI logo
Sekerina, Irina A & Antje Sauermann
2015. Visual attention and quantifier-spreading in heritage Russian bilinguals. Second Language Research 31:1 ► pp. 75 ff. DOI logo
Albirini, Abdulkafi & Elabbas Benmamoun
2014. Concatenative and Nonconcatenative Plural Formation in L1, L2, and Heritage Speakers of Arabic. The Modern Language Journal 98:3 ► pp. 854 ff. DOI logo
Albirini, Abdulkafi & Elabbas Benmamoun
2014. Concatenative and Nonconcatenative Plural Formation in L1, L2, and Heritage Speakers of Arabic. The Modern Language Journal 98:3 ► pp. 854 ff. DOI logo
Albirini, Abdulkafi & Elabbas Benmamoun
2022. Arabic Diglossia and Heritage Arabic Speakers. In Handbook of Literacy in Diglossia and in Dialectal Contexts [Literacy Studies, 22], ► pp. 361 ff. DOI logo
Montrul, Silvina
2014. Structural changes in Spanish in the United States: Differential object marking in Spanish heritage speakers across generations. Lingua 151 ► pp. 177 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Research Approaches to Heritage Languages. In The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, ► pp. 373 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Heritage Languages around the World. In The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics, ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.