A descriptive linguistic study of the spoken Arabic of Wadi Hadramawt, Yemen

Abstract or Introduction

This work begins with an introduction in which the area under investigation, Wādī Ḥaḍramawt is described, the dialect Ḥaḍramī Arabic (HA) is defined and previous work on HA is reviewed. In Chapter One the segmental phonology is dealt with by analysing the phonemic inventory of the dialect using three-term phonetic labels. Allophonic variants are also given at the end of each section and, where necessary, more phonetic details are given when comparing certain HA sounds with their counterparts in other Arabic dialects. Mention is also made of the sociolinguistic distribution of certain sounds peculiar to HA like the reflexes of <j>, <q>, <ḍ> and <đ̣>. The remainder of the chapter is on the prosody of the dialect including the effect of emphatic consonants on vowels, vowel harmony, syllable structure, stress, intonation and simplification.

Chapter Two is on the morphology of the dialect with verbal morphology in which verb patterns are discussed. These are transitive and intransitive verbs, comprising sound and weak verbs. Nominal morphology includes nouns derived from verbs, adjectives, pronouns, numbers etc. Also in this chapter, the main inflectional morpho-phonological processes are dealt with.
Chapter Three is concerned with the syntax of the dialect. Sentence types are dealt with, namely, nominal sentences, verbal sentences, equational sentences, complex sentences etc. Some particles peculiar to HA are dealt with and some of them are compared with their cognates in other dialects. Other sections include the passive, negation and co-reference in discourse.
Chapter Four is on vocabulary in which some lexical items of the dialect are dealt with, by reference to relations to other modern and old Arabic dialects, slang and neologism. Loan-words in HA are dealt with in some detail. The chapter ends with two lists of HA basic vocabulary in both Arabic and English entries. In Chapter Five there are transcripts, comments and translations of interviews recorded during fieldwork.