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Part of
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXI: Papers from the annual symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Norman, Oklahoma, 2017
Edited by Amel Khalfaoui and Youssef A. Haddad
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 8] 2019
► pp. 181–204

Generic expressions in Tunisian Arabic

Beyond the definite article al-

Previous analyses of generic expressions in Arabic have focused on definite singular and plural DPs headed with the definite article al- (Fehri, 2004; Al-Malki et al., 2014). This study introduces an additional type of generic reference expressed with the Tunisian Arabic (TA) demonstrative hāk. Based on an analysis of naturally occurring discourse, this study shows that the felicity of this generic demonstrative is subject to a number of constraints. First, the generic demonstrative hāk always occurs with a plural count or singular non-count noun and a restrictive modifier in order to denote a familiar (i.e., in memory) kind set. Second, the evoked kind set must be a relatively subordinate and atypical (i.e., less central) kind set in accordance with Rosch (1978) and Lakoff’s (1987) principles of categorization.

Keywords: generic demonstratives, pragmatics, Arabic, cognitive linguistics, categorization, prototype theory, discourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Generic expressions in Arabic: An overview
  • 3.Previous work on generic demonstratives
  • 4.The current study: Generics expressed with the demonstrative hāk
    • The demonstrative hāk : Morphosyntactic and cognitive status features
    • Methodology
    • General constraints
    • Category variability
    • Level of categorization
    • Prototypicality
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.8.08kha
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