The verb in northern Najdi Arabic

Abstract

The dialects spoken in the Najd of Saudi Arabia have striking features which not only are unknown or unreported in other dialects but also retain some characteristics of the 'Arabiyya and of ancient dialects of the peninsula reported by the Arab grammarians. On both these counts, they are of paramount importance for synchronic, comparative and historical dialectology. Yet little is known of them and published materials remain scanty. It is the purpose of this article to describe in some detail the morphology of the verb, i.e., the stem, the subject markers and the object pronouns, and in the process, present phonological features and processes, in a dialect spoken in the North of the Najd, specifically that of Hāyil. This is an important town on the edge of the Jabal Shammar mountains just south of the Nafud, and some 350 miles to the north-west of Riyādh. Although the dialect manifests features which are typically Najdi, in the sense that investigation shows them to exist in other dialects of the Najd, it also possesses peculiarities all its own.