Numeral form selection and accommodation in Gulf Pidgin Arabic

Abstract

Abstract This study deals with the creation of cardinal numerals and accommodation in Gulf Pidgin Arabic (GPA) as it is spoken among foreign workers (FWs) and native Saudi Arabic speakers (Ss) in Saudi Arabia. Under the Feature Pool Hypothesis (Mufwene, 2001) and the Mutual Accommodation Theory (Thomason & Kaufman, 1988), this study looks at the features of gender and number agreement, and word order of the cardinal numeral and the noun. Data comes from interviews between Ss and FWs in GPA, and photo elicitation interviews used with Ss to identify how cardinals are used in Najdi Arabic. Through the lens of the Feature Pool Model, I offer a brief account of how cardinal numeral forms are selected in GPA. In particular, I examine how well cognitive factors account for the development and restructuring processes of the cardinal numeral system in GPA by taking into account factors such as frequency, perceptual salience (detectability), and pattern regularization, as well as the Foreigner-Talk register and accommodation. The results reveal strong tendencies of accommodation and conventionalization in numeral form selection.