Verbs of Pretending and Augmentative Constructions in Hā’ili Arabic: A Construction Morphology Approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33806/ijaes1171Keywords:
augmentative, construction morphology, Hā’ili Arabic, nonconcatenative morphology, verbs of pretendingAbstract
This study applies Construction Morphology (CxM) (Booij 2010b) to a set of nonconcatenative morphological constructions in the Ha'ili dialect of Arabic (HD), a northern Najdi variety spoken in the Hā'il region of Saudi Arabia. Focusing on verbs of pretending and augmentative formations, the analysis draws on systematically elicited and naturally occurring data collected from native speakers of the dialect. The study investigates whether these constructions are best characterized as root-based templatic derivations or as word-based formations. The findings reveal a principled division between the two: verbs of pretending instantiate a root-based constructional schema in which consonantal roots map onto a fixed prosodic template, whereas augmentative forms are derived in word-based manner from diminutive counterparts. The coexistence of root-based and word-based mechanisms provides empirical support for a layered constructional architecture, in line with CxM, where abstract schemas and lexeme-based constructions interact within the morphological system of the dialect. More broadly, the HD data demonstrate that Arabic dialectal morphology cannot be reduced to a single derivational principle, but instead exhibits both root-based and word-based organization. The study therefore contributes to Arabic morphological theory by showing how CxM offers a unified framework for capturing systematic form-meaning correspondences in Semitic nonconcatenative morphology.
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