Running head: ASPECTS OF THE ARABIC MIDDLE
Aspects of the Arabic middle
- an exploration of voice, aspect and valency
Hanna Danbolt Ajer
Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge
June 2015
This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy
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This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of
work done in collaboration except where explicitly indicated in the text.
This dissertation contains 19,946 words.
With thanks to my supervisor, Professor Ian Roberts, for his support and advice.
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Table of contents
1 Introduction 5
2 Theoretical background 7
2.1 The Arabic verb 7
2.2 The middle voice 11
2.2.1 Clarifications of terminology 11
2.2.2 The approach of Kemmer (1993) 12
2.2.3 Affectedness 14
2.2.4 The analysis of the Arabic middle in Ajer (2014) 15
2.2.5 An extended notion of subject-affectedness in Arabic 20
2.3 Lexical aspect 28
2.3.1 Lexical aspect in Arabic 34
2.4 Valency 35
2.4.1 Valency in Arabic 40
2.5 A hierarchy of affectedness 42
3 Methodology 47
4 Analysis 52
4.1 Subject-affectedness in the middle Forms 52
4.2 A feature approach to the Arabic middle 53
4.3 The U-pattern 56
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4.4 Form VII 60
4.5 The I-pattern 63
4.6 Form VIII 67
4.7 Form V 72
5 Conclusion 76
6 Bibliography 80
7 Appendix A – Transliteration chart 82
8 Appendix B – Abbreviations used in example glosses 83
9 Appendix C – Key to data sample 84
10 Appendix D – Data sample 88
11 Appendix E – Questionnaire 89
11.1 Procedure 89
11.2 Consent form 90
11.3 Background information form 92
11.4 Questionnaire 93
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1 Introduction
This paper will provide an analysis of several derivational verb Forms in Modern Standard
Arabic, hereafter ‘Arabic’. The Forms in question are the ones I will term the U- and I-
patterns, as well as Forms V, VII and VIII.
All these Forms have previously been identified as encoding the middle voice. I will argue
that the middle Forms in Arabic are unified by always allowing affected subjects, and that the
distinctions between them mainly relate to differences in type of affectedness. In order to
account for the fact that these different types of arguments pattern as affected, the notion of
affectedness will need to be extended. It is hoped that the more fine-grained distinctions of
affectedness proposed here might inform our view of the middle voice.
As we will see, these affectedness distinctions are used to capture the different middle Forms
in Arabic. They might therefore also bring us closer to understanding the semantic and
syntactic contributions of Arabic verbal morphology, a matter which has long puzzled
Arabists.
Furthermore, I will seek to show how each Form’s valency and aspectual properties largely
follow from the type of affectedness it requires. It seems as though the middle in Arabic for
the most part does not impose restrictions on valency and aspect, but that these properties
rather arise as by-products of the middle readings favoured. Thus, the study also aims to
contribute to the discussion of the interaction between the three phenomena of aspect, voice
and valency.
The fact that there seems to be no requirement on valency is particularly notable, as middle
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formation is often analysed as a valency-reducing process. My findings show that this is not
always the case, and that this property therefore cannot be crucial to the middle.
Furthermore, my analysis of the middle Forms supports the idea that there is a distinction
between affected and non-affected objects, as the former seem to be more strongly transitive
than the latter. This indicates a need for developing a more complex notion of valency, which
takes into account both the number and type of arguments for which the verb s-selects.
In order to follow my analysis of the middle Forms, some theoretical background is needed.
This will be introduced in chapter 2. The chapter will open with an overview of Arabic verbal
morphology in 2.1, before turning to a discussion of the middle voice in 2.2. Thereafter, we
will look at the concepts of aspect and valency in sections 2.3 and 2.4 respectively. The idea
of affectedness and the need for extending it will appear throughout the chapter, before being
discussed more thoroughly on its own in 2.5.
Chapter 3 outlines the methodology used in the study at hand, before chapter 4 moves into
the analysis itself. Section 4.1 looks at how the property of subject-affectedness relates to the
Arabic middle. I then explore how a feature approach might be useful to the analysis of the
verb Forms in 4.2. After that, I go through each of the verb Forms in sections 4.3 to 4.7,
seeking to identify their key properties and showing which effects these properties have on
their syntactic and semantic behaviour.
Finally, chapter 5 concludes the paper.
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2 Theoretical background
2.1 The Arabic verb
Arabic has a root-based morphology, where verb stems are formed by combining the root
consonants with set derivational patterns of vowels and consonants. Most roots contain three
consonants, which in reference forms are represented by f, ʕ and l respectively (Wright
1962[1859-1862], vol. 1:pt. 2,§35). Thus, a root such as h r s can be combined with the
pattern faʕala, creating the verb harasa (“guard s.th.”).
It is important to note that most verbs have many different meanings, of which I can normally
only quote a few when giving examples. Unless otherwise specified, all example verbs are
from my sample, which can be consulted in Appendix D. The key to the sample is provided
in Appendix C, whereas a description of how it was constructed can be found in chapter 3.
The transliteration system adopted is laid out in Appendix A. It is based on the one used in
Hans Wehr’s Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (1979[1961]), henceforth ‘Wehr’.
Verbs created from the same pattern are said to belong to the same ‘Form’. The intuition is
that in addition to sharing the same derivational morphology, verbs of the same Form share
some component of meaning (Badawi, Carter, and Gully 2004:60). However, it is unclear
exactly what each Form contributes, and most grammars simply list some of the meanings
commonly associated with them. Furthermore, linguistic studies of the Forms are rare, though
the recent studies of Ajer (2014), Danks (2011) and Fehri (2012:chap. 2) all investigate some
of them. Their analyses of the Forms in question relate to the phenomena of the middle voice,
lexical aspect and verbal plurality respectively. Verbal plurality will not be discussed in the
present study, but the relevant literature on middle voice and lexical aspect will be reviewed
in 2.2 and 2.3. First, however, an overview of the most common verb Forms might be helpful.
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For three-consonant roots, there are considered to be fifteen different Forms, which Arabists
refer to using Roman numerals (Danks 2011:18). Our overview will include Forms I to X,
which are the ones that are still in common usage (Badawi et al. 2004:62; Danks 2011:19). A
majority of roots combine with several different Forms to create verb stems, though no root
gives rise to verbs in all Forms (Danks 2011:23,29).
Whereas the other Forms only have one pattern each, Form I gives rise to the three patterns
faʕala, faʕila and faʕula. Henceforth, I will term these the ‘A-pattern’, ‘I-pattern’ and ‘U-
pattern’ respectively. There is disagreement about whether there are any semantic and
syntactic differences between these three patterns (Badawi et al. 2004:60; Holes 2004:101;
Wright 1962, vol. 1:pt. 2,§37-38). Some of the supposed differences can be observed in Table
1, which presents some of the meanings most commonly attributed to Forms I-X. It is
important to note that the table gives a highly simplified picture of the meanings each Form
expresses.
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Table 1. Overview of the most important Arabic verb Forms and their meanings (based on
Badawi, Carter, and Gully 2004:59–62; Fehri 2012:32; Holes 2004:100–105; Ryding
2005:455–595; Wright 1962, vol. 1:pt. 2,§36–65).
Form Pattern Meaning Example Source of
example
I: A-pattern faʕala dynamic
reflects root meaning
ʾarasa (“till the land”) my sample
I: I-pattern faʕila temporary (change
of) state
jadila (“be happy”) my sample
I: U-pattern faʕula permanent (change
of) state
raquʕa (“be stupid”) my sample
II faʕʕala causative
intensive
ballaʕa (“make s.o. swallow s.th.”)
mazzaqa (“tear s.th. to pieces”)
my sample
III faʕala conative (attempting
to do s.th.)
qatala (“fight s.o.”, seen as
conative of qatala (“kill s.o.”))
Badawi et
al.
(2004:60)
IV ʾafʕala causative ʾajra (“cause s.th. to flow”) my sample
V tafaʕʕala reflexive tahaffaza (“prepare o.s.”) my sample
VI tafaʕala reciprocal tawafaqa (“come to an agreement”) Holes
(2004:103)
VII infaʕala passive inbahara (“be dazzled, blinded”) my sample
VIII iftaʕala benefactive ibtaʕa (“buy s.th.”) my sample
IX ifʕalla colours and physical
defects
ihmarra (“be or go red”) Badawi et
al.
(2004:61)
X istafʕala seeking s.th. istagfara (“ask pardon”) Wright
(1962, vol.
1:pt.
2,§63)
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To demonstrate how different Forms might modify the meaning of a root, we might take a
look at the verbs listed for the root h k m in Wehr. The root conveys a sense of judgement,
and the Form I verb hakama simply means to pass a judgement. The Form II verb hakkama
can be interpreted as a causative of Form I, as it means to make someone a judge. The Form
III stem hakama has the conative sense of prosecuting someone, whereas ʾahkama from Form
IV expresses the event of causing a state of firmness. The Form V verb tahakkama displays
the reflexive meaning of making oneself the judge over something, and the Form VI verb
tahakama has the reciprocal sense of bringing each other before the judge. The Form VIII
verb ihtakama can express a self-benefactive notion, as it can denote appealing for a legal
decision. Finally, the Form X verb istahkama means to be strengthened, and thus seems to
denote the result of the Form IV verb.
Even though the verbs derived from the root h k m exemplify many of the meanings
attributed to the Forms in Table 1, it is already clear that the generalisations about the Forms
are too simplified. For instance, the resultative meaning of the Form X verb does not fit the
sense of seeking something which was highlighted in the overview. The reality is that most
Forms can express a variety of meanings, which might be hard to unify.
In addition, the distinctions are obscured by the fact that all the above stems have various
readings, some of which are the same for different Forms. For instance, the verbs of both
Forms V and VIII include the meaning of having one’s way. My sample shows that a fair
amount of synonymy is not uncommon.
Many roots also give rise to meanings which seem unrelated. This is the case for the root q m
r, which is used to form the Form I verb qamara (“gamble”), as well as ʾaqmara (“be
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moonlit”). It can even be hard to see the link between different readings of the same stem, as
is evidenced by the verb qabbala (“kiss s.o., go south”). When analysing the verb Forms, we
must thus take care to make sure any characterisation of them is flexible enough to allow for
the above facts.
2.2 The middle voice
The term ‘middle voice’ has been used in many different ways across languages, and many
different approaches to it have been developed. We will start by looking at the approach of
Kemmer (1993) in 2.2.2, before moving on to the affectedness approach in 2.2.3. These are
the approaches most relevant to the study at hand, and we will look at how they might relate
to the middle Forms in Arabic. The ‘middle Forms’ investigated here will be Forms V, VII
and VIII, as well as the I- and U-patterns, which will also be referred to as ‘Forms’ for
convenience. I identified these Forms as belonging to the middle in Ajer (2014), a study
which will be discussed in its own right in 2.2.4. The chapter is concluded by section 2.2.5,
where I argue that the notion of affectedness we encountered in 2.2.3 should be expanded to
account for the different classes of middle subjects in Arabic.
Before embarking on a discussion of these approaches, however, some clarifications of
terminology are in order.
2.2.1 Clarifications of terminology
All predicates will be said to describe ‘eventualities’. This term subsumes both ‘events’,
which involve change, and ‘states’, which do not (Smith 1997:xiii–xiv).
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When referring to the thematic roles of the participants of an event, I will rely on the term
‘initiator’ to mean the entity effecting change, and ‘undergoer’ to mean an entity which
undergoes change as a result of the event (Ramchand 2008:24,64). My data does not seem to
justify more fine-grained distinctions between ‘agent’ and ‘causer’, and ‘patient’ and ‘theme’.
Thus, in (1) below, John is the initiator, and the cart the undergoer. The example is taken
from Ramchand (2008:64).
(1) John pushed the cart.
A participant benefiting from an event is a ‘beneficiary’, and one of which a state is
predicated to hold is a ‘stateholder’, (Carnie 2013:231; Kratzer 1996:123).
For reasons that will be explained in 2.4, I will not use the terms ‘external’ and ‘internal’
argument when referring to the specific roles of the arguments. I will rather rely on the terms
defined above. I will use the terms ‘subject’ and ‘object’ not only to mean the syntactic
subject and object of the verb in a given construction, but also to refer to those of the verb’s
arguments which are allowed to fill these syntactic positions. Unless otherwise specified, I
am referring to surface subjects and objects. In the discussion of the argument roles in
Ramchand (1997) in 2.4, reference will be made to deep subjects and objects. This will be
made clear by describing them as ‘canonical’.
2.2.2 The approach of Kemmer (1993)
Kemmer (1993:210) seeks to unify all the ‘middle voice’ phenomena across languages under
the notion of ‘low elaboration of events’. Verbs with this property are characterised by the
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fact that the different components of the events they describe are not properly distinguished
from each other. In Arabic, low elaboration of events seems to arise due to what she terms
‘low distinguishability of participants’ (Kemmer 1993:73).
According to Kemmer (1993:243), the core area of the middle is what she terms ‘inherently
reflexive verbs’, for which the roles of initiator and undergoer are expected to devolve upon
the same entity. This makes the two roles less conceptually distinct from each other than
usual, and thus gives rise to low participant distinguishability. As we saw in Table 1, Form V
is often associated with reflexive meanings. Many verbs of this Form are inherently reflexive,
as is the case for tatahhara (“clean o.s.”) (Kemmer 1993:66,72–73).
Kemmer (1993:142–145) identifies several other classes of verbs displaying low participant
distinguishability. One of these classes is ‘spontaneous verbs’, which assign no initiator role.
I will follow her in using that term rather than the term ‘anticausative’, as such verbs do not
necessarily have causative counterparts (Alexiadou and Doron 2012:24–25). Their low
participant distinguishability stems from the fact they construe the events as occurring
spontaneously, whereas there is always something bringing about events in the real world
(Kemmer 1993:144–145). The Form VII verb insaha (“pour forth”) is an example of a
spontaneous verb.
Kemmer’s semantic property of low elaboration of events is meant to encompass all
categories of verbs subsumed under the middle voice crosslinguistically. However, she
highlights the fact that languages vary as to which of these categories are marked
morphosyntactically as belonging to the middle voice (Kemmer 1993:21,238–239). In my
investigation of the Arabic middle Forms in Ajer (2014), which will be discussed in 2.2.4, I
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established that the Arabic middle seems to mark some of the categories Kemmer identifies
as having low participant distinguishability. The question is therefore which exact subset of
the semantic middle it is the Arabic middle Forms encode.
In this paper, I argue that the relevant subset can be picked out by the notion of ‘subject-
affectedness’, which applies to some categories within the semantic area of the middle
(Kemmer1993:73). We will therefore turn to a discussion of affectedness next.
2.2.3 Affectedness
As defined earlier, an undergoer argument is one the event causes a change in. Such
arguments have often been said to be ‘affected’ (Anderson 1979; Jaeggli 1986). For instance,
the Form II verb jallaka (“sharpen s.th.”) has an affected object, as the event leads to a
change in its property of sharpness. Likewise, the movement predicated of the object of the
Form I verb nabada (“remove s.o./s.th.”) is also seen as a type of change, and thus marks it
out as an affected object.
The notion of affectedness has often been related to the middle voice, for instance by Roberts
(1987). According to his analysis, the subject of the English middle must be an affected
argument (1987:187–192,210). This can be demonstrated by the middle construction in (2),
which is taken from Roberts (1987:206). The baseball is the subject of the verb, and is an
affected argument as it undergoes movement in the event.
(2) This baseball throws well.
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The subjects of some middle verbs in Arabic seem to fit this notion of affectedness. For
instance, we see that the subject of the Form V verb taraddada (“be thrown back”) would be
affected. As we will see in 2.2.4, however, the middle Forms in Arabic contain many verbs
where the subject does not undergo change as a direct result of the event. Some middle
subjects do not undergo change at all, which is the case for subjects of stative verbs, of which
the Form VIII verb ibtaraza (“be conspicuous”) is an example. Such stateholder subjects
would not fit Anderson’s (1979) idea of an affected argument, yet we will see that stative
verbs are common across the middle Forms.
It is thus clear that middle subjects in Arabic cannot be unified by this traditional notion of
affectedness. Rather than abandoning it, however, I argue in 2.2.5 that the notion of
affectedness must be extended to account for the different types of middle subjects found in
Arabic.
The approaches we have looked at so far seem either too broad or too narrow to capture the
Arabic middle. In order to see what characterises the middle voice in Arabic, we will now
take a look at the analysis of Ajer (2014).
2.2.4 The analysis of the Arabic middle in Ajer (2014)
When investigating the Arabic middle in Ajer (2014), I focused on Forms V, VII and VIII. It
seemed likely that these Forms belong to the middle, as many of the meanings associated
with them in the Arabic grammars seem to fit Kemmer’s notion of low event elaboration.
For instance, they are all mentioned to have reflexive meanings (Ryding 2005:530,555,565;
Wright 1962, vol. 1:pt. 2,§47,52,57). As we have seen, reflexive verbs are characterised by
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low event elaboration, as the roles of initiator and undergoer overlap. All these Forms are
also claimed to give rise to resultative verbs (Ryding 2005:555,565; Wright 1962, vol. 1:pt.
2,§47,57). Resultatives encode states which have been brought about by an initiator, though
the focus is on the states themselves rather than on what caused them (Kaufmann
2007:1683,1700). These verbs might be exemplified by the Form V verb tahaddada (“be
determined”). The fact that the initiator is ignored gives rise to low event elaboration.
The descriptions of several other verb Forms make it seem as though they might also express
middle meanings. For instance, we have seen that Form VI is said to encode reciprocals, a
category Kemmer (1993:112) relates to the middle. However, I chose to look at Forms V, VII
and VIII, as these seemed to have the strongest connection to the middle (Ajer 2014:12-13).
For comparison, I also included Forms I, II and IV in my study.
I found that Forms V, VII and VIII, as well as the I- and U-patterns of Form I, seem to
encode the middle. An overwhelming majority of the verbs of these Forms in my sample
conform to Kemmer’s criterion of low event elaboration. It seems that low event elaboration
in Arabic middle verbs arises either through the lack of an initiator, or through the fact that
the initiator also plays another role in the event (Ajer 2014:14,40-41). In other words, the
subjects of these verbs are not prototypical initiators.
By contrast, Forms II and IV have a strong tendency to express active meanings. The A-
pattern, however, commonly encodes both active and middle meanings (Ajer 2014:34,41). As
it is widely assumed that the A-pattern gives rise to the readings which are the closest to the
root readings, as we saw in section 2.1, this indicates that the middle voice is as basic as the
active, rather than being derived from it. A similar viewpoint has been argued by Kaufmann
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(2007:1687) and Klaiman (1991:24) among others.
Even though Forms V, VII and VIII and the I- and U-patterns all seem to encode the middle
voice, my findings indicate that there are some differences between them.
Form V is the only of the middle Forms to include many verbs where the initiator and
undergoer overlap, which are the core readings of the middle according to Kemmer. A
reflexive verb such as tarawwaha (“fan o.s.”) can exemplify this class of verbs. However,
Form V can also convey a variety of other middle meanings. It commonly expresses events
which involve no initiator, which is the case for stative, resultative and spontaneous verbs. In
addition, many Form V verbs denote events which benefit the subject, or in which the subject
is emotionally involved (Ajer 2014:24–26). These types of verbs will be discussed below.
Form VII verbs mainly encode events that are construed as having no initiator, with
resultative, stative and spontaneous readings being the most common. The intransitive verb
insalaʕa (“split, break open”) has a spontaneous meaning typical of this Form (Ajer 2014:22).
Stative and spontaneous verbs are also common in Form VIII. However, most Form VIII
verbs are what I will term ‘involved’ verbs (Ajer 2014:19). One type of involved verbs
denote events that take place in the mind of the subject. Examples are cognition verbs such as
ihtasaba (“take into account”) and emotion verbs such as ihtadda (“be furious, agitated”). As
it is often not specified what brings about these eventualities, they are characterised by low
event elaboration (Ajer 2014:5,19–20; Kemmer 1993:128–130).
Another type of involved verbs is those I term ‘emotive’ verbs. Even though the events
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described by these verbs take place outside the subject’s mind, they are still associated with
the emotions or cognition of the subject. For instance, a verb such as ihtala (“strive”) entails
that the subject is working hard, and thus encodes a more concrete, physical event than an
emotion or cognition verb. However, part of the verb’s meaning is that the subject is
particularly committed to the action, or is working towards a specific goal. Thus, the event of
striving differs from the event of working in that only the former implies a mental
involvement on the part of the subject (Ajer 2014:19–20).
Kemmer (1993:133) notes that emotionally charged speech acts might belong to the middle,
but it seems as though all types of emotionally charged actions pattern with the middle in
Arabic (Ajer 2014:24). Emotive verbs also seem to fit conceptually with the idea of the
middle. As the emotional or cognitive capacities of the subject are tied up in the event, some
effect in the subject is associated with it. Thus, it might be construed as being affected by the
event as well as initiating it. It can therefore be argued that the subject plays more than one
role in emotive acts, giving rise to low event elaboration (Ajer 2014:15).
A last type of involved verbs is verbs with benefactive meanings, such as ibtaʕa (“buy”) or
istama (“bargain, haggle”). As these actions are normally construed as being carried out for
the subject’s benefit, the subject is benefactor as well as initiator, giving rise to low event
elaboration (Ajer 2014:20; Kemmer 1993:74,78). Further evidence that self-benefactive
readings might belong to the middle comes from Ugaritic, which is another Semitic language
with a verbal system very similar to that of Arabic. In addition to reflexivity and reciprocity,
the middle Forms in Ugaritic are reported to express actions that benefit the initiator (Pardee
1997:138).
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The subject might be construed as being particularly motivated for carrying out self-
benefactive acts, and these events might therefore also be associated with mental involvement
on the part of the subject. For this reason, I class them as involved verbs (Ajer 2014:20).
As we have seen, the unifying property of involved verbs is that the subject’s mental
involvement is associated with the event. The idea that this could be syntactically relevant
might seem unusual. However, one of the theta system primitives proposed by Reinhart
(2002:231) is a feature specifying that a participant is in a mental state which might motivate
the event. I am therefore not the first to propose such an idea.
We have now seen the typical readings for Forms V, VII and VII, as analysed by Ajer (2014).
The I- and U-patterns were also identified as belonging to the middle, and similarly to Form
VII, they normally express events which lack initiators. Spontaneous verbs are common, but
states are predominant (Ajer 014:33-35).
As shown by Table 1, the I- and U-patterns are sometimes said to encode temporary and
permanent states respectively. This corresponds to the distinction between stage-level and
individual-level predicates, which goes back to Carlson (1977). While it is true that the U-
pattern is mainly used for individual-level states such as hasuba (“be highborn”), it also
contains some stage-level states such as batuʾa (“be slow”). Furthermore, both stage-level
states such as kariya (“be asleep”) and individual-level ones such as lahina (“be intelligent”)
are common in the I-pattern. It therefore does not seem as though the notions of stage- and
individual-level states can help us distinguish between the two patterns.
My analysis in Ajer (2014) indicates that there are good reasons to assume that Forms V, VII
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and VIII and the I- and U-patterns of Form I encode the middle voice. Even though these
Forms express many of the same middle readings, it varies from Form to Form which
readings seem to be preferred.
What remains to be seen, however, is what the syntactically relevant property of the middle is
in Arabic. Which subset of verbs with low event elaboration do they pick out? Furthermore,
what are the syntactically relevant differences between the Forms? In the current study, I will
therefore continue investigating the middle Forms identified in Ajer (2014), and address these
questions.
From the discussion above, it is clear that the property of low event elaboration in the Arabic
middle arises as the verbs do not have prototypical initiators as subjects – either their subjects
are not initiators at all, or they are both initiating the action and experiencing some change or
mental involvement in relation to it. Crucially, our theory of the Arabic middle needs to
capture this observation. Establishing that the subjects of middle verbs are not prototypical
initiators is the first step towards an analysis. The next step is to figure out what these
subjects have in common, so that we can describe them in positive terms. Is there any
property which holds of all of these subjects? This is what we will look at next.
2.2.5 An extended notion of subject-affectedness in Arabic
A prototypical initiator is characterised by bringing about the event, and is not construed as
experiencing its effects. Middle subjects do not share this property of non-affectedness.
Whether they initiate the eventualities in question or not, we will see that they all seem to be
affected by it in some way. I will therefore argue that the crucial property of the Arabic
middle is that it must be able to have an affected argument as subject.
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However, as has already been alluded to, I will propose that an extended notion of
affectedness is the relevant one for our analysis. I have identified three subclasses of affected
subjects in Arabic, based on how they are construed to be affected. I term these classes
‘directly influenced’, ‘mentally influenced’ and ‘lastingly influenced’ respectively. The
reason I use the term ‘influenced’ rather than ‘affected’ in the names of these classes, is that
languages might differ as to which of them pattern as affected. We will come back to this
point in 2.5. We will now look at how the different types of middle subjects in Arabic fall
into these classes, and try to define each class.
Many of the middle readings involve undergoer subjects. These conform to the typical idea of
affected arguments, as they undergo change as a result of the event. Reflexive, resultative and
spontaneous readings normally have such undergoer subjects. The subject arguments in these
readings undergo change as a direct result of the eventuality, which is why I term them
‘directly influenced’. They can be defined as follows:
(3) A directly influenced argument is one which undergoes change as a result of the
eventuality.
The change in a directly influenced argument might be a change in property, such as that
which is predicated of the subject of the Form VII verb insalaʕa (“split, break open”). The
subject of this spontaneous verb clearly changes in the event, as it goes from being whole to
being split open.
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Movement might also constitute such a change. The subject of the spontaneous Form VII
verb insaha (“pour forth”) is directly influenced, as the event leads it to undergo movement.
The change in a directly influenced argument might also relate to it being created or
destroyed in the event, which can be called a change in its ‘physical extent’ (Ramchand
1997:76,117). It is such a change in physical extent which makes the subject of the resultative
Form VIII verb imtahaqa (“be destroyed”) a directly influenced argument.
There are certain subjects I analyse as directly influenced, which undergo a change that is not
as readily apparent. For instance, it might be hard to see why the subject of the reflexive
Form V verb tarawwaha (“fan o.s.”) should pattern as directly influenced. However, the
fanning event leads the subject to feel the air touching its skin, and this in itself might be
construed as a change in property. In addition, the normal objective of fanning oneself is the
more obvious change in property of cooling oneself down, and it could be that this effect and
the direct effect of the fanning itself are conflated. I therefore view the subject of this verb as
directly influenced, as the subject feels an impact from the movement of the air itself, and this
impact might lead to a change in the subject’s body temperature.
Now that we have reviewed directly influenced subjects, it is time to look at the mentally
influenced ones. From the discussion of the Arabic middle in 2.2.4, it is clear that some effect
in the subject might be associated with an eventuality, without necessarily being a direct
result of it. The emotive, self-benefactive, emotion and cognition verbs that together make up
the class of involved verbs, display this subtler type of affectedness. The events described by
these verbs are associated with the mental involvement of the subject, leading the subject to
be construed as more affected than it would have otherwise. It is this type of affected
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argument I term ‘mentally influenced’, and it can be defined as follows:
(4) A mentally influenced argument is one whose mental involvement is associated with
the eventuality.
We have already seen that the emotive Form VIII verb ihtala (“strive”) entails commitment
and effort on the part of the subject, meaning that the subject is really putting its mind to the
task. It is this mental involvement which makes it a mentally influenced argument.
It is similarly obvious that the subject of a self-benefactive verb such as the Form VIII istama
(“bargain, haggle”) has particular goals in mind it is trying to achieve. Thus, it is clear that it
has the property of mental involvement which defines a mentally influenced argument.
However, it might not be as easy to see that mental involvement is implied by all other self-
benefactive verbs. This can be demonstrated by the Form VIII ibtaʕa (“buy”), which does not
seem to be associated with a particular mental state in the subject. Nevertheless, self-
benefactive verbs do seem to pattern as though their subjects are mentally influenced,
regardless of whether their mental involvement is made clear or not. This might be attributed
to the fact that self-serving motives might be expected when the initiator itself benefits from
the action, leading this argument to be seen as mentally invested.
The Form VIII verbs ihtasaba (“take into account”) and ihtadda (“be furious, agitated”) have
already been used to exemplify cognition and emotion verbs. As these events take place in
the minds of the subjects, there is no doubt that they are mentally influenced. I will also argue
that perception verbs such as the I-pattern verb našiqa (“smell”) have mentally influenced
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subjects, as such sensory experiences clearly influence the mind.
It is possible for a subject to be both directly influenced and mentally influenced at the same
time. This is the case for the subject of the Form VIII verb irtajafa (“tremble, shudder”). The
movement predicated of the subject makes it directly influenced, and it is in addition
associated with mental involvement, as trembling is often brought on by fear. Thus, the
subject can also be construed as being mentally influenced.
The last class of affected subjects in Arabic are the lastingly influenced ones. This property
holds of the subjects of stative verbs. It might seem hard to reconcile stative readings with the
idea of affectedness, as affectedness is often tied to the notion of change. Stative readings, on
the other hand, by definition express unchanging situations. However, it is clear that stative
readings belong to the middle, as they are common in all the middle Forms and rare in the
active Forms (Ajer 2014:28–30). The question is thus how stative subjects can be tied to the
notion of affectedness.
When looking more closely, stateholders are not as different from undergoers as they may
seem. Whereas the main effect predicated by a dynamic event is a change in the undergoer
argument, the main effect predicated by a stative situation is a lack of change in the
stateholder. Whatever it was that brought the state about, it has had a continued effect on the
stateholder argument, and the stative verb predicates that this effect still holds of its subject.
Interpreted in this way, it seems natural to analyse also the lack of change predicated of an
argument as a type of affectedness. I have termed the subjects of stative verbs ‘lastingly
influenced’, as these verbs predicate that the effect of some previous event on the subject is
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still lasting. They can thus be captured by the following definition:
(5) A lastingly influenced argument is an argument of which it is predicated that the
effect of some previous event, whether obvious or not, still holds.
It is certainly true that stage-level verbs predicate that the subject is still in a state brought
about by a previous event. This can be demonstrated by the I-pattern verb kariya (“be
asleep”). Clearly, the state of being asleep is the result of a previous event of falling asleep,
and the stative verb predicates that the effect of this event still holds of its subject. It should
thus be uncontroversial to class the subject of such a verb as lastingly influenced.
It might seem as though a distinction should be made between stage- and individual-level
states, as we normally do not think of the latter as having been caused by any particular
event. Thus, the subject of an individual-level verb such as the U-pattern verb hasuba (“be
highborn”) might not appear to be lastingly influenced. However, it seems as though
individual- and stage-level states display the same patterning in my data. It is also worth
noting that every state holding in the world will have been brought about by something. For
instance, it is the event of being born into a noble family which leads to the state of being
highborn. Thus, we have seen that stage- and individual-level verbs pattern alike, and that
also individual-level states can be reconciled with the idea of predicating that the effect of a
previous event is still holding. I will therefore treat the subjects of both types of stative verbs
as lastingly influenced, and will not make a distinction between them.
An argument cannot be both directly influenced and lastingly influenced at the same time. As
only predicates expressing change give rise to directly influenced arguments, and only those
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expressing a lack of change can give rise to lastingly influenced ones, it is a logical
impossibility for these two types of arguments to arise in the same reading.
However, a verb may have one reading which requires a directly influenced argument, and
another requiring a lastingly influenced one. This is the case for the Form VII verb inbagata
(“be taken by surprise, be aghast”), whose subject is a directly influenced argument in the
former, eventive reading, whereas it is a lastingly influenced argument in the second, stative
reading. It is worth noting that both readings imply the mental involvement of the subject,
which is thus also mentally influenced in each case. It is therefore clear that mentally
influenced arguments are compatible with both the other types of affectedness.
The three types of arguments defined so far can all be construed to be affected in some way.
As we will see in chapter 4, the subjects of the middle verbs in my sample belong to one of
these classes, with very few exceptions. I therefore argue that all arguments belonging to any
of these three classes pattern as affected in Arabic.
Affected arguments contrast with arguments which are not construed as affected. In Arabic,
subjects falling under this class are the ones which bear the role of initiator, without being
construed as undergoing change or as being particularly mentally involved. I will call these
non-influenced arguments. This last class subsumes all arguments which do not belong to any
of the previously defined categories. The subject of the Form IV verb ʾanʕasa (“make
sleepy”) is a typical non-influenced argument, as it initiates change in another argument,
without any implication that it is particularly mentally invested in the event.
We have now extended our notion of affectedness to subsume the three classes of directly
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influenced, mentally influenced, and lastingly influenced arguments. Using this notion of
affectedness, it seems as though middle verbs in Arabic can be characterised by having
affected subjects. My findings, which will be presented in chapter 4, support this position.
The idea of the three different types of subject-affectedness will be explored more in that
chapter, as well as in 2.5.
In my analysis in chapter 4, I will not only seek to establish what unifies the middle Forms,
but also what differentiates them. It has already been argued that the middle in Arabic can be
unified by the overarching property of subject-affectedness. As this unifying property can be
divided into three subcategories, it seems plausible that the differences between the Forms
might relate to differences in type of affectedness. This idea will be pursued in my analysis.
By investigating how the middle voice is instantiated in Arabic, and using empirical data
from Arabic to inform an extended theory of subject-affectedness relevant to the middle, this
study seeks to increase our understanding of the middle voice in general.
I will also investigate whether lexical aspect might play a role in the middle Forms. The
analysis of Danks (2011), which we will look at in the next section, indicates that this
phenomenon might be relevant to Arabic verb Forms. It seems a worthwhile pursuit to look
into the interaction between aspect on the one hand, and the middle and affectedness on the
other, as these phenomena have been tied to each other in the literature (Kemmer 1993:x;
Roberts 1987:213; Tenny 1987:2).
In addition, I will look at how the middle meanings and aspectual properties of the different
Forms affect their valency, as there are indications that the three phenomena might be linked
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(Borer 2005:53; Dixon and Aikhenvald 2000:7,12; Kemmer 1993:210; Ramchand 1997:114-
115,128-130; Tenny 1987:69-72). As will be seen in section 2.4.1, my analysis in Ajer (2014)
also points to a connection between the middle and valency.
A more thorough treatment of the middle verb Forms in Arabic might therefore increase our
knowledge of the phenomena of voice, lexical aspect and valency, as well as the interplay
between them. It might also elucidate our understanding of the function of derivational verbal
morphology in Arabic. This will of course be of particular interest to students and researchers
of Arabic, but should also be of interest to other linguists, as it is widely assumed that
morphemes are meaning-bearing (Danks 2011:23). One would therefore expect that when a
root can enter into so many different Forms, the choice of Form should signal some
difference in meaning.
Before we get to the analysis of the middle Forms, however, it is necessary to review the
relevant literature on aspect and valency.
2.3 Lexical aspect
As it is the contributions of derivational verbal morphology we are investigating, it is only
lexical and not grammatical aspect which will concern us here. For simplicity’s sake, I refer
to lexical aspect simply as ‘aspect’.
Lexical aspect, or ‘aktionsart’, refers to how inherent properties of a predicate and its
arguments influence the way the event is viewed as unfolding in time. What this means will
become clear when we go through the aspectual classification famously argued for in Vendler
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(1957). In this classification, a distinction is made between the four classes of ‘states’,
‘activities’, ‘accomplishments’ and ‘achievements’.
Eventualities such as knowing and loving are states. Verbs of this class are characterised by
the fact that they describe unchanging situations. Due to the lack of change, they are ‘stative’
rather than ‘dynamic’. Furthermore, these eventualities are not instantaneous but hold over
time, and are therefore said to be ‘durative’. Durative adverbials such as “for many years” are
often used to test for durativity, and (6) shows that this adverbial can indeed be combined
with the state “know”. States can further be distinguished from durative, dynamic
eventualities by the fact that they are largely incompatible with continuous tenses, as can be
seen in (7) (Vendler 1957:144,146-149).
(6) I knew him for many years.
(7) *I was knowing him for many years.
The other three classes all involve change, and thus express dynamic eventualities, or
‘events’ (Vendler 1957:144,149). Activities are durative events, which are also characterised
by being atelic, meaning that they have no set terminal point. An event such as running in the
park is atelic, as we are given no indication as to when it will come to an end. Its atelicity is
demonstrated by the fact that it cannot be combined with the completive adverbial “in an
hour”, as shown by (8). We also see that it is compatible with the durative adverbial “for an
hour”, as well as with continuous tenses, showing that it is durative and dynamic (Vendler
1957:144-146,149). Thus, it is clear that this event is an activity.
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(8) He ran/was running in the park (for an hour/*in an hour).
Accomplishments are similar to activities in that they are durative events, but they differ in
that they have a set terminal point. They are thus ‘telic’. An accomplishment such as running
to the store will necessarily be complete once the store has been reached. Its dynamicity and
durativity is shown by its compatibility with continuous tenses, as can be observed from (9).
(Vendler 1957:145–148). It is clear from (10) that it is telic, as it can occur with the
completive adverbial “in an hour”. However, it is incompatible with the durative adverbial
“for an hour”, as it is non-completive.
(9) He was running to the store.
(10) He ran to the store (*for an hour/in an hour).
Achievements, which are the last of Vendler’s classes, are also telic. Contrary to
accomplishments, however, they are not portrayed as unfolding over time. Rather, they are
seen to be instantaneous. They are therefore often called ‘punctual’ events. An event of
recognising someone is an achievement, as the subject changes from not having to having
recognised the person from one moment to the next. Achievements often sound strange with
continuous tenses, but are compatible with punctual adverbials such as “at what moment”, as
(11) and (12) demonstrate. (Vendler 1957:144,146–147,149)
(11) ? I was recognising her.
(12) At what moment did you recognise her?
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Achievements are sometimes contrasted with punctual events which do not lead to new result
states, such as sneezing. These are called ‘semelfactives’, and they are normally analysed as
being unbounded (Smith 1997:29). However, my data does not seem to support an opposition
between punctual events which lead to a new result state and those which do not. As the
event is completed in either case, I will treat all punctual events as bounded, and will not
distinguish between them. Thus, I will refer to ‘punctual events’ rather than achievements
and semelfactives.
As Ramchand (1997) points out, the above classification is concerned with the aspectual
properties emerging from the VP or sentence as a whole, rather than from the properties of
the verb itself (Ramchand 1997:4-5). This can be demonstrated by the fact that even though
the same verb is employed in (8) and (10) above, (8) is an activity and (10) an
accomplishment.
For this reason, Ramchand seeks to develop a theory of aspect which looks at the contribution
the verb itself makes to the overall aspectual classification (Ramchand 1997:4,108). As we
are concerned with the contribution of derivational verbal morphology, Ramchand’s
approach seems appealing.
In her system, one of the most important aspectual properties of a verb is its internal temporal
structure, which refers to how many distinct conceptual moments the eventuality it expresses
contains (Ramchand 1997:126–7). On these grounds, there is reason to uphold the distinction
between states and punctual events, as the two types of eventualities clearly involve different
timelines. Whereas a state consists of a single undifferentiated time interval, the timeline of a
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punctual event is broken up by an abrupt change (Ramchand 1997:120–4,127,131).
Ramchand dispenses with Vendler’s classes of activities and accomplishments, as they are
distinguished by whether other elements in the sentence give rise to telicity. It is information
contributed by the PP which leads (8) above to be classed as an activity and (10) as an
achievement, whereas the verb is the same in both instances. Thus, such a distinction has no
place in Ramchand’s theory, and she proposes that the two classes should rather be viewed as
one. She classes them together, as the timelines of both activities and accomplishments
contain several distinct conceptual moments (Ramchand 1997:120,123-4,131). As they
therefore encode gradual change, I will term them ‘gradual events’. In my analysis, I will rely
on the three different classes of states, punctual events and gradual events, as identified by
Ramchand.
One obvious way in which the properties of the verb’s temporal structure interact with the
middle, is that a stative verb will always have a lastingly influenced subject. Thus, verbs with
this property must necessarily have an affected subject and must therefore belong to the
middle.
The question is whether there are other, less obvious ways in which the aspectual properties
of the verb interact with the roles it assigns to its arguments. Are there any correlations
between the aspectual properties of a verb and the roles it assigns to its subject? If so, does
the connection between aspectual properties and argument roles stem from separate
requirements imposed by the verbal morphology, or is there a causal relation between the
two? These issues will be explored in the analysis in chapter 4.
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Ramchand (1997:126-128,191,213) also takes into account the fact that the aspectual
properties of the verb interact with the argument roles it assigns, and proposes a set of
argument roles she views as relevant to the overall aspectual classification of the VP. Her
argument roles and their relevance to my analysis of the Arabic verb Forms will be discussed
in chapter 2.4.
Ramchand’s theory is not only concerned with aspectual properties related to how many
conceptual moments an event has, but also with whether it has a set endpoint or not. If it has
a set endpoint at sentence level, she terms the event ‘telic’, whereas she calls it ‘bounded’ if
the verb and its arguments provide it with an endpoint (Ramchand 1997:136-137). Only the
latter is relevant to her theory, and as this is indeed the relevant notion to our investigation as
well, I will follow her in using the term ‘boundedness’ rather than the term ‘telicity’.
The temporal structure of the event partly determines its properties for boundedness. States
are necessarily unbounded, as an endpoint would lead to the time interval becoming
differentiated. Punctual events, on the other hand, will all be treated as bounded, as the
change they describe is construed to take place from one moment to the next, providing them
with an inherent endpoint (Ramchand 1997:123,131).
The situation is less straightforward for gradual events, as their boundedness depends on the
properties of the verb’s arguments (Ramchand 1997:128-30). If such verbs are most
commonly used with arguments that give rise to boundedness, I will classify them as
bounded in my sample, whereas I will classify them as unbounded if the opposite is the case.
In order to see the overall patterning of the different Forms and middle meanings for
boundedness, all the verbs needed to be classified in this way. However, as will become clear
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in chapter 4, my analysis does not rest heavily on whether these gradual verbs are interpreted
as bounded or unbounded.
As we have seen, Ramchand’s system allows for boundedness to arise as a result of the
verb’s temporal structure, or through the interaction of the verb and its arguments. However,
she also postulates that the verb itself might impose boundedness restrictions. She argues that
what we think of as a verb can be decomposed into one unit containing lexical information,
and one introducing aspectual requirements. In her analysis, Scottish Gaelic verbs contain
such an aspectual head, which serves to impose boundedness requirements. However, it is
possible to imagine that an aspectual head might impose restrictions on the verb’s temporal
structure as well (Ramchand 1997:142–3,146,158,165).
This begs the question of whether the Arabic verb Forms might introduce aspectual
requirements like the aspectual heads in Scottish Gaelic. If this is the case for the middle
Forms, a further question is whether the affectedness requirements and aspectual
requirements associated with them are separate from each other, or whether one follows from
the other.
These questions presuppose that there is reason to believe that the Arabic verb Forms might
have bearing on aspect. The findings of Danks (2011), which we will turn to next, seem to
indicate that this is indeed the case.
2.3.1 Lexical aspect in Arabic
The topic of aktionsart in Arabic is discussed by Danks (2011), who appeals to it in his
analysis of Forms III and VI. As the Form III pattern is faʕala and the Form VI pattern
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tafaʕala, the two Forms are clearly morphologically related. Danks therefore sets out to
investigate their syntactic and semantic relationship (Danks 2011:23,83). He argues that the
unifying property for Forms III and VI is unboundedness, as nearly all verbs of these Forms
that are in actual usage allow unbounded readings (Danks 2011:191,211,255).
That Forms III and VI might be characterised by a compatibility with unboundedness is an
interesting finding, as it suggests that the verb Forms might encode aspectual properties.
However, I fear that the property of unboundedness might be too general to set these two
Forms apart from all the other Forms, and that one might also need to appeal to other
properties in their description. I will briefly touch on this in chapter 4.
Danks investigates not only what Forms III and VI have in common, but also how they can
be distinguished from each other. He argues that the difference between them is that Form VI
normally has a reduced valency as compared to Form III (Danks 2011:129). The concept of
valency and its relevance to the study at hand will be discussed in the next section.
2.4 Valency
The term ‘valency’ is used in syntax to refer to the number of direct arguments a verb
requires, or ‘s-selects’. A verb such as “sleep”, which only s-selects for one argument, is
called ‘monovalent’. In the same way, a verb like “hit” which s-selects for two arguments is
called ‘divalent’, and so forth.
However, valency oppositions might not be as clear-cut as they seem, as there are indications
that some objects have a closer relationship to the verb than others. Building on Krifka (1989;
1992), Ramchand (1997:114-115) proposes an opposition between ‘real’ objects and
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‘pseudo’-objects, to which we will now turn.
Real objects are characterised by having ‘aspectual’ roles, meaning that the properties of the
roles they are assigned contribute to the overall aspectual classification of the VP. For
instance, if a change in physical extent is predicated of the object, boundedness only arises if
it is quantised (Ramchand 1997:128-130). Thus, the quantised object “a house” makes (13)
bounded, whereas (14) is unbounded due to the unquantised object “houses”. This can be
seen from the fact that (13), but not (14), is compatible with the completive adverbial “in a
week”. The opposite is the case for the durative adverbial “for a week”, which implies
unboundedness (Vendler 1957:145).
(13) Danny built a house (in a week/*for a week).
(14) Danny built houses (*in a week/for a week).
Real objects correspond to directly influenced arguments in our terms. They are characterised
by the fact that they undergo a change which is mapped to the timeline of the event
(Ramchand 1997:115,127). In the above examples, this is demonstrated by the fact that the
house or houses in question are created as the event proceeds in time. The object of the Form
VIII verb ibtaʕa (“buy”) is a real object, as it goes from being in the possession of one person
to being in the possession of another as the event unfolds. Ramchand (1997:127)
distinguishes between different aspectual roles for canonical objects, but these do not seem
relevant to the Arabic middle. I will therefore not distinguish between different types of real
objects in my analysis.
Real objects contrast with pseudo-objects, which are assigned a non-aspectual role. Such
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objects undergo no change which is relevant to the verb’s timeline, and have no bearing on
the aspectual classification of the VP. They merely serve to modify the event (Ramchand
1997:124-128). The difference in how a real object and a pseudo-object is perceived can be
demonstrated clearly by the I-pattern verb taʕima. The verb can express the event of eating,
in which case there will be a change in the physical extent of the object which is impossible
to overlook. In this reading, the verb requires a real object. However, it can also have the
meaning of tasting or enjoying, in which case no change in the object is clearly and
necessarily implied. This means that the object is a pseudo-object in the second reading.
Ramchand (1997:47,88,111-112,220) identifies different properties for real objects and
pseudo-objects in Scottish Gaelic which indicate that the opposition between them might be
syntactically relevant. If not all objects are equal, this suggests that determining a verb’s
valency might not be as simple as adding up the number of arguments it has, but that also the
types of arguments might play a role. The behaviour of these objects in Scottish Gaelic point
to the fact that a verb might be more strongly transitive if it has a real object than if it has a
pseudo-object (Ramchand 1997:168,220). As will be seen in chapter 4, this seems to hold in
Arabic, as pseudo-objects appear to be more compatible than real objects with Forms which
are normally intransitive.
Ramchand (1997:191) also postulates different roles for canonical subjects. The distinctions
she makes do not seem to fit the distinctions that are relevant to the Arabic middle Forms,
and they will therefore not be discussed here. However, I wish to discuss the terms ‘external’
and ‘internal’, which she applies to her canonical subject roles and object roles respectively
(Ramchand 1997:127,191). I will now outline why I do not think these notions are useful to
the analysis of the Arabic middle.
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Whereas the roles assigned to initiators and stateholders are classified as external, the roles
assigned to directly influenced canonical object arguments are seen as internal (Ramchand
1997:127,191). However, neither the class of external nor internal roles can subsume all the
roles assigned to the subjects of the middle Forms. As we touched on in 2.2.5, and as will be
seen more fully in 2.5 and chapter 4, the defining property of the Arabic middle seems to be
that the subject must be affected. Not only directly influenced subjects pattern as affected, but
also lastingly and indirectly influenced subjects seem to belong to this class. Stateholders are
necessarily lastingly influenced arguments, whereas even initiators can be indirectly
influenced. Thus, both these supposedly external roles are compatible with affectedness, a
property which has often been linked to internal argumenthood (Roberts 1987:210; Tenny
1987:69–70).
This might lead the reader to wonder whether I should expand the notion of an internal role,
as I have expanded that of affectedness. However, not all affected subjects could be classified
as internal arguments. This can be demonstrated by the Form VIII verb iddaʕa (“accuse
s.o.”), which takes a directly influenced object as well as an indirectly influenced initiator
subject. As this verb has an affected object, it is hard to argue that the affected initiator could
really be an internal argument. Thus, it would be more natural to classify the subject as
external, showing that its affectedness cannot arise from internal argumenthood. It would be
just as strange to postulate that all affected arguments are external, as we would then have to
argue that both the subject and the object of the above verb are really external arguments. It is
therefore clear that the property of affectedness is independent of internal or external
argumenthood, and that middle subjects in Arabic cannot be unified by appealing to such
notions.
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We have thus seen that the notions of external and internal roles do not seem to be relevant in
analysing the Arabic middle, and that they are independent of the property of affectedness,
which unifies the argument roles assigned to middle subjects. In light of this, the use of the
terms ‘external’ and ‘internal’ roles would be especially problematic, as the terms seem to
imply that the properties of the roles derive from their structural position. For that reason,
these terms will not be used here.
This is not to deny the existence of any structural asymmetries, however. Whereas I argue
that there are three types of affected subject arguments – directly influenced, indirectly
influenced and lastingly influenced – the object position seems to be more restricted in the
types of affected arguments it allows. This will be discussed in 2.5.
As already mentioned, Ramchand’s research indicates that there might be a syntactic reality
to the difference between real objects and pseudo-objects, and that a verb which takes a real
object might be more strongly transitive than one which only allows a pseudo-object. A more
complex notion of valency, which takes into account both the type and the number of
arguments a verb s-selects for, might be relevant to studies of the middle voice.
The middle voice has been claimed to be valency-reducing as compared to the active voice,
and is often linked to intransitivity (Croft, Shyldkrot, and Kemmer 1987:184; Dixon and
Aikhenvald 2000:1,12). The difference between real objects and pseudo-objects raises
questions regarding whether the supposed valency-reduction in the middle voice only relates
to the number of arguments, or also the types of arguments. Could it be that middle verbs
which have the same numerical valency as their active counterparts might still differ from
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them in not allowing real objects? Do middle verbs resist transitivity per se, or only real
objects?
If the middle is sensitive to a distinction between real objects and pseudo-objects, which as
we have seen differ in their aspectual properties, this would highlight an interesting
connection between the middle voice, aspect, and valency. However, future research will
have to determine whether this more complex idea of valency might elucidate our
understanding of the valency-reducing properties of the middle. A thorough comparison of
middle and active verbs would be necessary to answer such a question, which is beyond the
scope of this study.
Nevertheless, my analysis in chapter 4 might have bearing on the question, as I will appeal to
the difference between real objects and pseudo-objects in my investigation of the valency of
the different middle Forms. As we will see, it seems as though it is the different readings,
rather than the middle itself, which to varying degrees resist transitivity. These readings,
however, do indeed seem to be sensitive to the distinction between real objects and pseudo-
objects.
I also highlighted a possible connection between a Form’s valency and the types of readings
it gives rise to in Ajer (2014), where I explored the sheer numerical valency-reduction and
intransitivity associated with the middle Forms. We will now move on to a discussion of this.
2.4.1 Valency in Arabic
Whereas Forms V, VII and the U-pattern are described as intransitive in the literature, it is
claimed that Form VIII and the I-pattern are compatible with both transitivity and
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intransitivity (Holes 2004:101; Ryding 2005:114,565).
My analysis in Ajer (2014:37-38) shows that all the middle Forms have a tendency to yield
intransitive verbs, and that they normally have a reduced valency as compared to the active
Forms. However, there is considerable variation in how strong these tendencies are, which
largely supports the claims made in the Arabic grammars. In order to explain these
differences, I noted that each Form’s likelihood of being transitive corresponds with their
likelihood of having an initiator argument which does not overlap with the undergoer.
According to my analysis, Form VII is the least likely to allow an initiator and is also the
most strongly intransitive Form, whereas Form VIII is the most compatible with initiator
subjects and is fairly often transitive. The other Forms fall somewhere in between (Ajer
2014:39).
It should be noted that the data for the I- and U-patterns in Ajer (2014) might be obscured by
the fact that verbs which occur in several of the three Form I patterns with no change in
meaning were included in the analysis for each of the patterns they occur in. As we will see
in chapter 3, such verbs will be excluded from analysis in the current study, as they seem to
pattern differently than other verbs of these patterns.
We have thus seen that the findings from Ajer (2014) indicate that the Arabic middle seems
to favour intransitivity, and that the strength of this tendency in each Form might be
explained by the types of middle readings they commonly display. In my analysis in chapter
4, I will explore whether the extended subject-affectedness approach to the middle might
inform our understanding of the link between middle readings and valency.
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Before we turn to that, however, it is necessary to develop the theory of affectedness further.
That is what the next section will deal with.
2.5 A hierarchy of affectedness
So far, I have extended the notion of affectedness, and argued that the subject of an Arabic
verb patterns as affected if it is directly influenced, mentally influenced or lastingly
influenced. The definitions of these three subclasses of affected arguments, given in (3), (4)
and (5), are repeated below for your convenience.
(3) A directly influenced argument is one which undergoes change as a result of the
eventuality.
(4) A mentally influenced argument is one whose mental involvement is associated with
the eventuality.
(5) A lastingly influenced argument is an argument of which it is predicated that the
effect of some previous event, whether obvious or not, still holds.
Any argument which does not fall into any of these three classes is a non-influenced
argument, and is not construed to be affected by the eventuality.
We have also seen that Ramchand makes a distinction between pseudo-objects and real
objects. The former seem to be non-influenced arguments in our terms, and therefore pattern
as non-affected, whereas the latter seem to be directly influenced and thus affected. This
raises the question of whether it is possible for an object to belong to any of the other classes
of affected arguments.
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In my Arabic data, lastingly influenced objects do not seem to exist. On the other hand, there
are objects which might be construed as being mentally influenced. This is the case for the
object of the Form IV verb ʾazʕaja (“alarm s.o.”), of which the event predicates a change
from being calm to being alarmed. As this change is in the object’s mental state, it is mentally
influenced. However, the object is clearly directly influenced as well, due to the change in
property. In fact, all the objects which might be construed as mentally influenced are also
directly influenced. The question is therefore whether the notion of being mentally influenced
is useful to the analysis of objects. In order for it to be relevant, one would need to show that
objects which are both directly and mentally influenced pattern differently from those which
are only directly influenced. I will leave this issue for future research.
Either way, the most crucial property of real objects is that they are directly influenced. The
fact that this notion is relevant to both subjects and objects, whereas the notions of mentally
and lastingly influenced arguments mainly seem to be relevant to subjects, point to an
asymmetry between directly influenced arguments and the other classes.
When taking a closer look, it seems as though there is an asymmetry between mentally and
lastingly influenced arguments as well. As the referent of a mentally influenced argument
must be construed as being mentally involved in the event, it must be an animate entity.
Furthermore, the arguments of the Arabic verbs in my data are never merely mentally
influenced, they are always either initiators, or directly or lastingly influenced arguments as
well. Similar restrictions do not hold of lastingly influenced arguments, revealing an
asymmetry between lastingly and mentally influenced arguments.
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As already mentioned, the reason the terms for these three subclasses contain the word
‘influenced’ rather than ‘affected’, is that there might be cross-linguistic differences as to
whether all these classes of arguments pattern as affected. The analysis Roberts (1987:187–
192,210) proposes for the English middle constructions makes it seem as though this
prediction might hold, as these constructions appear to only allow directly influenced
subjects. This is yet another indication that directly influenced arguments are less restricted
than mentally and lastingly influenced ones.
I therefore postulate that there is a hierarchy of influenced arguments, based on the
asymmetries observed above. It ranges from the types of arguments which are the most likely
to pattern as affected cross-linguistically, to those which are the least likely to pattern as
affected. I also predict that the higher an argument is in the hierarchy, the less restricted
should its behaviour be in phenomena where affectedness is relevant.
(15) Hierarchy of affectedness
directly influenced > lastingly influenced > mentally influenced > non-
influenced
We have also seen that I have identified the following classes as affected and non-affected in
Arabic:
(16) Affected arguments
Directly influenced
Lastingly influenced
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Mentally influenced
(17) Non-affected arguments
Non-influenced
I chose the more neutral term ‘influenced’ rather than ‘affected’ to describe the subtypes of
affected and non-affected arguments, so as not to prejudice cross-linguistic analyses of
affectedness. However, as I will henceforth only discuss how these classes pattern in Arabic,
I will call the types of affected arguments ‘directly affected’, ‘lastingly affected’ and
‘mentally affected’, and the non-influenced arguments ‘non-affected’.
We have already seen that direct affectedness is a property of the undergoer role, lasting
affectedness a property of the stateholder role and mental affectedness a property of the role
of involved argument. As it is the affectedness properties of the roles which seem relevant to
my analysis, I use the terms for the types of affectedness as a shorthand for the roles
themselves.
We have now seen that there seem to be three different types of affectedness relevant to
Arabic, and that they can be arranged in a hierarchy. All three properties seem to be relevant
to the analysis of subjects, whereas it is the property of direct affectedness which seems
crucial to the definition of a real object. Direct affectedness holds the highest position in the
affectedness hierarchy, and this property should therefore be the least restricted. The
hierarchy also makes predictions about how these types of arguments might pattern cross-
linguistically.
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The fact that the notion of direct affectedness seems important to both subjects and objects,
might lead the reader to wonder whether a verb might have a directly affected subject at the
same time as a directly affected object. A directly affected argument undergoes change as a
direct result of the event, so the question is whether an event can predicate change of two
different arguments at the same time. This is indeed possible. For instance, the I-pattern verb
taʕima has both a directly affected subject and object when it expresses the event of eating. In
this event, the object undergoes a change in property related to its physical extent, whereas
the subject undergoes a change in property related to its fullness. However, even though it is
not disallowed for a verb to have two directly affected arguments for the same reading, it
seems to be dispreferred. This can be seen from the fact that out of the 367 middle verbs in
my sample which allow a directly affected argument, only 21 allow there to be two for the
same reading.
Even though we can construe an event as leading to change in two different arguments at
once, we tend to construe them as mainly affecting one argument at a time. For instance, in
the event of a man building a house, we see the main result of the event to be that the house
comes into existence. The event might result in a change in the man as well, as the hard work
might for instance make him stronger, but this is not the main outcome we associate with the
event. Thus, I argue that most events are seen as directly effecting change in only one
argument, and I think this is where the dispreference for having more than one directly
affected arguments stems from.
The first step towards an extended theory of affectedness is to motivate the need for
extending it, by identifying grammatically relevant categories and show why and how they
should be unified with the notion of affectedness. That is what I am trying to achieve in this
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paper. The second step is formalising the definitions of these categories, and coming up with
diagnostics for reliably identifying them. I will have to leave this second step for future
research.
In my analysis in chapter 4, I will motivate the different types of affectedness I have
postulated by showing that they are relevant to the analysis of the Arabic middle. First,
however, it is time to look at how I undertook my analysis.
3 Methodology
In my analysis of the Arabic middle Forms, I relied on a data sample I developed. This
sample built on the one used for Ajer (2014), which we will examine, before turning to how
the current sample was created.
For the reasons outlined in 2.2.4, I included verbs of Forms I, II, IV, V, VII and VIII in my
sample for Ajer (2014). The sample was organised in a spreadsheet, and contains 1247 verbs.
This amounts to 19% of the verbs Wehr lists for these Forms. It was intended to be small
enough for me to manage, but still big enough that I might be able to reveal trends in these
verb Forms. In order to get a reasonably random sample, I included every 20th verb in Wehr,
along with other verbs from the same root which belong to one of the relevant Forms (Ajer
2014:16-17).
For each verb, I compiled information from Wehr regarding its meaning and valency,
comparing its properties to those of other verbs from the same root. The verbs were then
classed as active, middle or passive, and categorised according to the types of readings they
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give rise to, particularly drawing on Kemmer’s middle categories (Ajer 2014:13-18). These
classifications will not concern us here, however, as a different approach to the middle is
used.
When undertaking the current study, it seemed sensible to focus on the Forms which had
been analysed as belonging to the middle in Ajer (2014). This was the case for Forms V, VII,
VIII and the I- and U-patterns of Form I. Looking at Forms which had already been identified
as middle Forms meant that I could take the analysis a step further, and look at what unifies
and distinguishes them. Due to the limited time available, I also chose to build on the sample
used in Ajer (2014), instead of constructing a completely new sample.
The current sample can be found in appendix D, and includes all the information found in the
sample of Ajer (2014). In addition, I have classified the verbs of the middle Forms according
to argument roles and aspectual properties.
As already mentioned, the middle Forms investigated in this study are Forms V, VII and VIII,
and the I- and U-patterns. Before we proceed, it is worth noting that not all verbs displaying
the I- and U-pattern will be analysed as belonging to these Forms. When the same root occurs
in different Form I patterns with no change in meaning, I will consider there to be one verb
which belongs to a ‘mixed pattern’, rather than to the different patterns it displays. Such
mixed-pattern verbs contrast with ‘single-pattern’ verbs, which cannot be used synonymously
in different patterns. As the different patterns of mixed-pattern verbs are non-contrastive, we
would predict that their behaviour might differ from that of single-pattern verbs. This does
indeed seem to be the case, and mixed-pattern verbs will therefore be excluded from the
analysis. Henceforth, when referring to I- and U-pattern verbs, I am thus only referring to
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single-pattern verbs.
All verbs belonging to one of the middle Forms will be termed ‘middle verbs’. In order to get
an idea of the number of middle verbs in my sample, the reader can refer to Table 2 below. In
total, my sample includes 479 middle verbs.
Table 2. Number of verbs in sample compared to total of verbs in Wehr, as reported by
Danks (2011:28).
My sample Wehr Proportion of verbs in Wehr
included in my sample
I-pattern 68 - -
U-pattern 17 - -
Form V 198 953 21%
Form VII 55 267 21%
Form VIII 141 606 23%
In the rest of the paper, the numbers and percentages given relate to the total number of verbs
of the relevant Form(s) in my sample, unless otherwise specified. For convenience, all
percentages have been rounded up or down to the closest whole number.
The middle verbs in my sample were categorised according to their aspectual properties and
the argument roles they assign. I relied on the aspectual classes of states, punctual events and
gradual events, as well as on a distinction between verbs allowing bounded and unbounded
readings. For the definitions of these categories, the reader is referred to 2.3. The subject
roles employed were those of initiator, directly affected, mentally affected and lastingly
affected, as discussed in 2.2.1 and 2.5. When a verb allows several of these roles to hold of its
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subject, whether they all hold at the same time or different roles hold in different readings, I
will say that it allows an ‘overlap’ of roles. Furthermore, transitive verbs were classed
according to whether they allow real objects or pseudo-objects, as defined in 2.4.
Many verbs have different readings with different properties, which might make them or their
arguments fall under several of the different categories above. We also know that the subject
roles are not all mutually exclusive. This is important to bear in mind when interpreting the
percentages given. As many verbs belong to several different categories for the same
property, in that they for instance can have different readings belonging to different aspectual
classes, the percentages for the different categories will not add up to 100%.
In addition to assigning the verbs in my sample to the different classes discussed, I also
constructed a questionnaire to further investigate the aspectual properties and valency of
some of the verbs. The questionnaire used, as well as details about how it was administered,
can be found in appendix E. The methodology used in making and administering the
questionnaire is based on that of Danks (2011).
Modern Standard Arabic has no native speakers, and it is mainly a language of education and
formal communication. One would therefore expect that the speakers who have the firmest
grasp of its grammar are native speakers of an Arabic colloquial who have undertaken their
education in Modern Standard Arabic. I approached several people who fit these criteria, but
due to the limited time available, only two people returned the completed questionnaires to
me.
Due to the low number of participants, and the low number of verbs and constructions tested,
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the questionnaire responses should not be used to make generalisations about the data.
However, they might still provide us with some indication of which constructions seem to be
more or less acceptable for the verbs in question. Sentences from the questionnaire will
therefore be used in my analysis to exemplify the trends observed in my data, but no
conclusions will be made solely on the basis of these sentences.
The translations of questionnaire sentences are my own. The key to the abbreviations used in
the glosses can be consulted in appendix B. A sentence will be treated as acceptable only if
both my participants found it to be fully acceptable, whereas sentences that either of my
participants had doubts about will be treated as less acceptable.
From the comments, it seemed as though many sentences were rejected due to the verbs
being uncommon. This seemed to be the case for three verbs, which occurred in thirteen
sentences. In the time available, it was not possible to rectify this, and the sentences thus had
to be discarded from the analysis. To avoid this problem in future studies, it should be made
sure that the verbs tested are in common usage. It would also be useful to be able to ask the
participants more follow-up questions.
In future research, the usage of the different verbs should be tested with more participants, so
that the trends seen in the responses can give a better indication of the way these verbs are
generally used. If the responses are to be used to generalise about the Forms themselves, a
higher number of verbs and constructions need to be tested. In the current study, I could only
test a limited number of verbs in a limited number of constructions, in order to make it
manageable for my participants to fill in the questionnaires.
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This concludes the discussion of the background to this study, as we have now looked at both
the theoretical concepts underpinning it and the methodology used. It is therefore time to turn
to the analysis itself.
4 Analysis
4.1 Subject-affectedness in the middle Forms
In section 2.2.5, I proposed that the defining property of the Arabic middle is that it must
allow an affected subject. It is clear from Table 3 that this generalisation fits the middle verbs
in my sample well.
Table 3. Subject-affectedness.
Affected
Nr. %
I-pattern 68 100%
U-pattern 17 100%
Form V 196 99%
Form VII 55 100%
Form VIII 136 96%
The table shows that nearly all the verbs of each Form have at least one reading where the
subject is affected. Whether they also allow other readings seems irrelevant. Thus, even
though a verb such as the Form VIII iqtada (“lead, be led”) has a non-affected subject in the
first reading, the affected subject in the second reading ensures that it complies with the
restriction on the middle.
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All the verbs of the I- and U-patterns and Form VII obey this restriction, and nearly all Form
V and VIII verbs do. As 99% of the verbs of the middle Forms in my sample allow affected
subjects, the few verbs that do not satisfy this requirement will be treated as lexical
exceptions.
Thus, it seems that what unifies middle Forms is the requirement that they allow affected
subjects. However, we must also figure out what distinguishes them. As we have established
that this defining property of affectedness consists of several categories, it would be
conceptually pleasing if we could postulate different requirements for each Form related to
type of affectedness.
We will see if this is possible when we try to come up with requirements particular to each
Form in sections 4.3-4.7. Before we turn to that, it might be useful if we look at how such
requirements might be formalised, as understanding how the requirements could be imposed
might make them clearer. However, the reader should note that what I mainly wish to argue
for in this paper are the requirements themselves, rather than any particular formalisation.
4.2 A feature approach to the Arabic middle
We will start by looking at how the general requirement on the middle might be formalised. I
propose that the middle in Arabic arises when there is a middle voice head present, which is a
voice head introducing a [+affected] feature. This feature is assigned to the subject.
(18) Middle voice head: Voice [+affected]
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I postulate that such a middle voice head is introduced by the morphology of each of the
middle Forms. Furthermore, I will argue that in addition to the [+affected] feature, the middle
voice heads in the different Forms introduce other features particular to them.
It does not make a great difference to the argument whether the features that will be proposed
here are independent of each other, or whether some are diacritics of others. I do not wish to
take a strong view on this point, but will for simplicity’s sake treat all features as
independent. All features proposed will be positive and privative, as postulating binary
features would allow for more possibilities than seems to be needed.
In the following sections, we will identify properties for the I- and U-patterns and Form VII
which unify the class of verbs belonging to each Form. However, we will not arrive at any
property which can be used to capture the whole class of Form V or VIII verbs. The question
is therefore how one can account for these Forms.
The answer might of course be that they are defined by properties not considered here. It
would therefore be desirable for these two Forms to be investigated in more detail in future
research. If no defining property can be found, however, the answer might lie in diachrony. It
might be that the middle voice heads of these Forms imposed absolute requirements at some
earlier stage in the language, but that these requirements have later been relaxed and are thus
not as active synchronically.
This hypothesis might be supported by the fact that the Arabic verb Forms do not seem to be
fully productive, as you cannot necessarily use the verb Forms to derive new verbs from any
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root you wish. However, they do not seem to be completely fossilised either, as new verbs
and loanwords can be made to fit into the different Forms (Cuvalay-Haak 1997:89). If the
morphology of the middle Forms introduce a middle voice head, one would thus expect that
this head might not be completely active anymore.
It therefore might be that Forms V and VIII verbs have originally constituted unified classes,
but that they have started allowing new readings as the requirements have been relaxed,
eventually obscuring their properties. This is what I will tentatively assume here.
A diachronic view might inform our understanding of the middle Forms in general. As we
have seen, the middle verbs must at least have one reading which complies with the subject-
affectedness requirement imposed by the middle voice head, but they also allow other
readings. Similarly, we will see that the verbs of the I- and U-patterns and Form VII can have
other readings in addition to those that fit their respective requirements. This can be
explained if we assume that only readings adhering to these requirements were allowed at the
outset, but that the verbs have gradually taken on more readings through lexical extension.
One might wonder why it should be of interest to investigate requirements which might not
be syntactically active and which might not capture the different verb Forms fully. However,
I argue that postulating possible original requirements for each Form might shed light on the
issues explored in this study, even if they do not hold perfectly synchronically. Firstly, an
investigation into these requirements might still bring us closer to explaining the distribution
of verbs across these Forms. Furthermore, the different kinds of middle heads proposed might
contribute equally much to the discussion of the middle voice, regardless of whether the
requirements they impose are synchronic or diachronic. Lastly, the effects of these
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requirements might still be observed in the semantic and syntactic behaviour typical of each
Form, as will be seen in the following sections.
We will now go through each Form, and look at their properties regarding type of
affectedness, aspect and valency. After identifying the key characteristics of each Form, I will
try to postulate what the original requirements might have been, and assess how well they
seem to hold synchronically. I will further look at how these requirements might explain the
rest of each Form’s properties.
We will start from the Forms which can be captured most easily. In the tables given,
particularly interesting results will be highlighted in blue.
4.3 The U-pattern
Table 4. Argument roles assigned by U-pattern verbs
Direct Mental Lasting Real object Pseudo-object
Nr. 8 2 17 0 0
% 47% 12% 100% 0% 0%
Table 5. Aspectual properties of U-pattern verbs
Unbounded Bounded State Punctual event Gradual event
Nr. 17 2 17 0 10
% 100% 12% 100% 0% 59%
As the key property of the middle is subject-affectedness, it would be preferable if the
specific requirements we identify for each Form relate to type of affectedness. It does indeed
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seem like such a requirement holds of the U-pattern, as all the verbs of this pattern in my
sample allow lastingly affected subjects, as is shown by Table 4.
We see that verbs such as saʕuba (“be difficult”), garuba (“be a stranger, be strange”) and
katura (“be numerous, increase”) obey this requirement, as all of them have at least one
reading where the subject is lastingly affected.
Thus, I postulate that the following middle voice head is introduced by the U-pattern
morphology:
(19) The middle voice head of the U-pattern: Voice [+affected][+lasting]
However, it is clear from Table 4 that synchronically, the U-pattern allows other readings in
addition to stative ones. After stative readings, change of state readings are the most
common. The verb katura (“be numerous, increase”) exemplifies such a reading. It is easy to
see how these readings might have developed, as it seems logical for a verb expressing a state
to be extended to express the change resulting in that state as well.
The information collected from Wehr and from the different grammars indicate that the U-
pattern is indeed defined by the stative readings to which it gives rise (Badawi et al. 2004:60;
Holes 2004:101; Ryding 2005:457; Wright 1962, vol. 1:pt. 2,§38). However, one of my
participants notes that the stative readings of many of the U-pattern verbs seem archaic, and
that these verbs are now more commonly used to express changes of state. This might
indicate that the Form’s focus is shifting away from lastingly affected subjects.
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Even if it is correct that the stative readings of U-pattern verbs are becoming less common, I
will still focus on the proposed original requirement of allowing lastingly affected subjects.
This is because it seems as though it is this requirement which can give us the most insight
into what might unify U-pattern verbs, as well as into the semantic and syntactic properties
they typically display. Furthermore, if the middle voice heads in Arabic were only fully
active at a previous stage, investigating their properties at that point in time is what might
contribute to our understanding of the middle.
As Table 5 shows, all U-pattern verbs in my sample must allow unboundedness. This can
easily be explained by a requirement of allowing lastingly affected subjects, as this means all
verb must have stative readings, which are by definition unbounded. The Form’s focus on
lasting affectedness might lead it to be associated with unboundedness overall. It is therefore
unsurprising that boundedness should be dispreferred also for the change of state readings,
and that none of the U-pattern verbs in my sample encode punctual events. The verb katura
displays behaviour typical of a U-pattern verb in this respect, as the change of state it can
denote is the unbounded event of increasing.
However, even though boundedness is rare, some U-pattern verbs do allow bounded
readings. This is expected if the strong tendency for unboundedness is an effect of the
requirement of lasting affectedness, rather than being a requirement in itself. Example (20)
shows that the verb samura (“be brown, turn brown”) can give rise to a bounded reading, as it
can co-occur with the completive adverbial fi saʕat-in (“in an hour”).
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(20) samura al-haql-u fi saʕat-in
turn.brown.PF.3MSG DEF-field-NOM in hour-NOM.INDEF
“The field turned brown in an hour.” (Questionnaire: 3)
We have thus seen that a requirement of lasting affectedness can account for the aspectual
properties of the U-pattern. The last property which warrants explanation, is the fact that the
Form seems to disallow objects.
It would of course not be possible for the verbs to have real objects in the stative readings, as
no change could be predicated of the object. The fact that the core readings of the U-pattern
are incompatible with real objects, might be expected to lead to an association with
intransitivity in general. I will argue that this is the reason none of the other readings seem to
allow real objects either, and the reason why pseudo-objects seem to be rejected as well.
Thus, it seems as though a very strong preference for intransitivity has developed in the U-
pattern due to the relative intransitivity imposed by the requirement of lasting affectedness. I
see the Form’s intransitivity as a result of this preference, rather than as a requirement in
itself.
In this section, we have seen that the U-pattern’s preference for unboundedness, its lack of
punctual readings, and its intransitivity, might all be seen to follow from a requirement of
lastingly affected subjects. I take this as support for my proposal that the morphology of the
U-pattern introduces such a requirement. It also indicates that the type of middle voice head
present in a middle verb might strongly influence its valency and aspectual properties,
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without separate restrictions of this kind being imposed on it.
4.4 Form VII
Table 6. Argument roles assigned by Form VII verbs
Direct Mental Lasting Real object Pseudo-object
Nr. 53 15 26 0 0
% 96% 27% 47% 0% 0%
Table 7. Aspectual properties of Form VII verbs
Unbounded Bounded State Punctual event Gradual event
Nr. 39 40 26 37 27
% 71% 73% 47% 67% 49%
It seems as though Form VII might also be characterised by a requirement on type of
affectedness, as Table 6 shows that 96% give rise to directly affected subjects.
Form VII verbs such as insaha (“pour forth”), inzaʕaja (“be stirred up, feel uneasy”) and
infajara (“go off, explode”) fit this generalisation, as they can all have directly affected
subjects. This is clearly displayed in (21), where the nominative subject dimaʾun (“blood”)
undergoes movement as a result of the event, meaning that it is directly affected.
(21) insah-at dimaʾ-un min il-jurh-i
pour.forth.PF-3FSG blood-NOM.INDEF from DEF-wound-GEN
“Blood gushed from the wound.” (Questionnaire: 10)
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However, the verbs inkataba (“subscribe”) and inkaffa (“abstain”) do not seem to give rise to
directly affected subjects. As these seem to be the only exceptions in my sample, they will be
treated as lexical exceptions, and disregarded in the further discussion of the Form.
I therefore postulate the following voice head for Form VII:
(22) The middle voice head of Form VII: Voice [+affected][+direct]
The fact that Form VII verbs have directly affected subjects means that they predicate some
change of them. It seems natural that verbs expressing change might be extended to express
the result of that change as well. This might explain why Form VII verbs commonly convey
stative meanings as well, as shown in Table 7. The verb inzaʕaja (“be stirred up, feel
uneasy”) is an example of a verb which can describe both a change in the subject and its
resultant state. The existence of such verbs demonstrates that Form VII allows other types of
affectedness to hold of its subjects synchronically, as long as all verbs have at least one
reading where the subject is directly affected.
The changes in the subject argument which are the core readings of Form VII, might as easily
be construed as bounded or unbounded. It is therefore unsurprising that both bounded and
unbounded readings are common in this Form, as Table 7 shows. We see that whereas insaha
(“pour forth”) expresses an unbounded event, and infajara (“go off, explode”) a bounded one,
inzaʕaja (“be stirred up, feel uneasy”) allows both.
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We further see that it is particularly common for Form VII verbs to express punctual events,
an aspectual class which we will see is much rarer in the other middle Forms. The events
encoded by both inzaʕaja (“be stirred up, feel uneasy”) and infajara (“go off, explode”) are
punctual, as the event of being stirred up and the event of exploding are construed as
instantaneous.
The reason punctual readings are dominant in Form VII might have to do with the fact that
most of the other Forms seem unsuitable for predicating a punctual change in the subject, as
will be clear from the discussion of each Form. Several of them might readily express a
gradual change in the subject, however. Even though both types of change should be equally
compatible with Form VII, the fact that only gradual change in the subject is commonly
expressed by other Forms, might have lead punctual readings to become prevalent in Form
VII.
If one wishes to emphasise the fact that the subject undergoes change, having an object which
also undergoes change might obscure this focus. Moreover, we saw in section 2.5 that it is
rare for a verb to have two directly affected arguments. As the core property of Form VII is
the direct affectedness of its subjects, it is therefore unsurprising that it seems to disallow real
objects. This resistance to real objects seems lead to an overall association with intransitivity,
leading the Form to reject pseudo-objects as well. Thus, the focus on directly affected
subjects in Form VII seems to be the cause of its intransitivity.
We have therefore seen that the valency of Form VII, and to some extent its aspectual
properties, follow from its requirement of allowing directly affected subjects.
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4.5 The I-pattern
Table 8. Argument roles assigned by I-pattern verbs
Direct Mental Lasting Real object Pseudo-object
Nr. 32 26 54 5 11
% 47% 38% 79% 7% 16%
Table 9. Aspectual properties of I-pattern verbs
Unbounded Bounded State Punctual event Gradual event
Nr. 66 15 54 11 34
% 97% 22% 79% 16% 50%
Unlike verbs of the U-pattern and Form VII, it is clear from Table 8 that the class of I-pattern
verbs cannot be captured by a requirement on type of affectedness. It seems as though the
property of unboundedness is the one which comes closest to unifying all verbs of this Form.
Only the verbs rahiqa (“overtake”) and naqida (“escape”) seem to resist an unbounded
interpretation, and might thus be viewed as lexical exceptions. I therefore propose that the I-
pattern is characterised by requiring all verbs to have unbounded readings.
Postulating an unboundedness requirement might seem strange, as the requirements proposed
so far relate to the notion of affectedness. As there are many middle Forms, however, it is not
surprising that they might not all be distinguished from each other based on type of
affectedness alone. Thus, it seems plausible that the different Forms might also introduce
other types of requirements.
It might also be objected that a [+unbounded] feature appears somewhat unnatural. However,
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I view this as an artefact of the terminology used. The last question raised by an
unboundedness restriction on the I-pattern, is whether it is imposed by the middle voice head
or an aspectual head. I will not take a strong position on this issue, but the interactions seen
between aspect and affectedness in 2.3 make it seem plausible that the same functional head
might introduce restrictions related to both phenomena. For convenience, I will therefore
assume that all the features I propose are introduced by the middle voice head.
I therefore argue that the I-pattern is underspecified for type of affectedness, and that
unboundedness is its defining property. Thus, I postulate the following voice head for the I-
pattern:
(23) The middle voice head of the I-pattern: Voice [+affected][+unbounded]
It is important to note that whereas the [+affected] feature is assigned to the subject, the
[+unbounded] feature pertains to the verb itself. However, as this technicality is not central to
the argument at hand, it is not indicated in the notation.
The fact that the I-pattern is underspecified for type of affectedness but unified through
unboundedness, can be demonstrated by the verbs tariya (“become wealthy”), salifa
(“boast”) and naziha (“be respectable”). The verbs differ from each other in that the subject
of tariya is directly affected, that of salifa is mentally affected and that of naziha is lastingly
affected. However, we see that they all display the unbounded readings required by the I-
pattern. Examples (24) and (25) indicate that tariya is indeed unbounded, as my participants
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found it to be acceptable with the durative adverbial tiwala sanatin (“for a year”), whereas it
was less acceptable with the completive adverbial fi sanatin (“in a year”).
(24) tariya ar-rajul-u tiwala sanat-in
become.wealthy.PF.3MSG DEF-man-NOM throughout year-NOM.INDEF
“The man got wealthier for a year.” (Questionnaire: 34)
(25) ? tariya ar-rajul-u fi sanat-in
become.wealthy.PF.3MSG DEF-man-NOM in year-NOM.INDEF
? “The man got wealthy in a year.” (Questionnaire: 8)
As already mentioned, the requirement of unbounded readings does not prevent bounded
ones from occurring as well. For instance, the verb darima can both express the unbounded
event of burning, or the bounded, punctual event of catching fire.
Though neither bounded nor punctual events are disallowed in the I-pattern, it is clear from
Table 9 that they are not very common. It seems as though boundedness in general, and
punctuality in particular, are dispreferred in the I-pattern. This is natural, as one would expect
the requirement of allowing unbounded readings to lead to an association with
unboundedness, making the Form more resistant to readings that go against this association.
It is therefore also unsurprising that gradual verbs such as tariya (“become wealthy”) occur
more commonly.
As stative eventualities are the only ones which are necessarily unbounded, they might be
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seen as the most strongly unbounded eventualities. A Form such as the I-pattern, which has
an unboundedness focus, should therefore be particularly compatible with states. Tables 8
and 9 show that this is indeed the case. The verb naziha (“be respectable”) is an example of a
stative I-pattern verb.
We would not expect the unboundedness requirement of the I-pattern to have any direct
effect on its valency. However, we have seen that this property is the reason for the
prevalence of stative readings, which are not compatible with real objects. Furthermore, there
are also many I-pattern verbs which have directly affected subjects, and we know that such
verbs tend to resist real objects as well. This seems to associate the I-pattern with
intransitivity, and it is therefore unsurprising that intransitive verbs such as tariya (“become
wealthy”) are predominant, as evidenced by Table 8.
However, as there is no direct connection between intransitivity and the Form’s core property
of unboundedness, it is natural that the association with intransitivity should be weaker than
for the U-pattern and Form VII. This is evidenced by the fact that objects are allowed in the I-
pattern, even though they are rare. As the main readings of the Form are mainly resistant to
real objects, it is also expected that pseudo-objects should be more common. The verb hawiya
(“love s.o./s.th.”) is an example of the former, whereas qabila (“accept s.o./sth., receive s.o.)
is an example of the latter.
It therefore seems as though a requirement of allowing unbounded readings can unify the
verbs of the I-pattern, in addition to shedding light on its valency and aspectual properties.
However, in order to determine whether such an unboundedness requirement is enough to
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distinguish the I-pattern from all other Arabic middle Forms, the potentially middle Forms
not investigated in this paper must be researched further. As we saw in 2.3.1, Danks
(2011:191,211) uses unboundedness to capture Form VI, a Form which seems as though it
might be connected to the middle. Thus, it might be that Form VI is also a middle Form
characterised by unboundedness. However, as seen in 2.1 and 2.2.4, reciprocity is often seen
as a core reading of Form VI. One might speculate that there could be some property related
to affectedness underlying reciprocity, which might be used to unify the class of Form VI
verbs, distinguishing them from I-pattern verbs. Thus, until further research into this matter
has been undertaken, I will tentatively assume that the middle voice head of the I-pattern
contributes an unboundedness requirement.
4.6 Form VIII
Table 10. Argument roles assigned by Form VIII verbs
Direct Mental Lasting Real object Pseudo-object
Nr. 82 95 56 51 20
% 58% 67% 40% 36% 14%
Table 11. Aspectual properties of Form VIII verbs
Unbounded Bounded State Punctual event Gradual event
Nr. 105 87 56 75 87
% 74% 62% 40% 53% 62%
It is clear from Tables 10 and 11 that Form VIII cannot be unified by type of affectedness, or
by any aspectual property. The question is thus what might characterise this Form.
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As already mentioned, there do not seem to be enough types of affectedness for each middle
Form to be distinguished on these grounds. We have also seen that it is common for the verbs
of the other middle Forms to allow several different subject roles. It might be that such an
overlap is more common in the Forms which do not have a strong preference for one type of
affectedness, and that this could be what distinguishes Form VIII. If the Form does have a
preference for overlapping roles, another question is whether it makes any difference which
roles it is that overlap. Table 12 therefore presents information on overlapping roles in Form
VIII.
Table 12. Overlapping roles in Form VIII
Overlapping roles Direct + other role Mental + other role Lasting + other role
Nr. 126 77 95 51
% 89% 55% 67% 36%
We see that 89% of Form VIII verbs assign several roles to their subjects. Though this means
that there are too many exceptions for all the Form’s verbs to be unified by this property, it is
the closest we have come to capturing Form VIII. I therefore hypothesise that there might
have been an original requirement of overlapping roles on the Form, which has later been
obscured as new readings have arisen.
However, in the next section, I propose that this is also the case for Form V. As both these
Forms seem to be characterised by favouring overlapping roles, I will term them ‘overlapping
Forms’. The two overlapping Forms seem to be distinguished by which roles they prefer to be
part of the overlap. As we see from Table 12, 67% of Form VIII verbs have a mentally
affected subject which is also assigned another role. Thus, it seems as though Form VIII does
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not only prefer that its verbs assign several subject roles, but also that one of them is mentally
affected. This might be the result of an original requirement such as that in (26). The [+role]
feature is an underspecified feature which can stand in for any argument role, affected or not.
(26) The middle voice head of Form VIII: Voice [+affected][+mental][+role]
If it is indeed correct that there was originally a requirement of overlapping subject roles on
Forms V and VIII, it is easy to see why these Forms should be the ones to develop the most
readings that do not satisfy the original requirements. If they always required at least two
roles, of which one was underspecified, they would have given rise to a greater variety of
readings from the outset than what the less flexible requirements of the other Forms would
allow. New verbs might have been derived by analogy with the different kinds of readings
they allowed, and in this way, the semantic area they encoded might have been gradually
expanded. It seems natural that eventually some of the new verbs derived would not have any
of the readings initially permitted. This could therefore be the reason why the verbs of these
Forms seem harder to unify.
If they are overlapping Forms, this might also explain why Forms V and VIII give rise to a
much higher number of verbs than the other middle Forms. As the overlapping Forms would
allow for more flexibility than the other Forms in deriving new verbs, they would also expand
more rapidly.
I will therefore assume that the restrictions imposed by the middle voice head in (26) initially
held in Form VIII, but that they have later been obscured due to lexical extension. Even so,
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the original requirement has led to a preference for verbs with mentally affected subjects
which are also assigned another role, a preference which can be observed synchronically.
This can be demonstrated by the verbs ihtawaja (“need s.th.”), intaqama (“take vengeance
for”) and iddaraʕa (“arm o.s.”). The subjects of these verbs are all mentally affected. In
addition, the subject of ihtawaja is lastingly affected, that of intaqama is the initiator, and that
of iddaraʕa is directly affected as well as being the initiator.
However, we also see that some Form VIII verbs have readings which are not at all related to
the original core readings, as we speculated might happen in overlapping Forms. The verb
igtassa (“be overcrowded”) is such a verb, as it only assigns one role, which is that of
stateholder.
It is now time to turn to the aspectual properties of Form VIII. Whereas it seems to favour
gradual verbs such as iddaraʕa (“arm o.s.”), states and punctual events are common as well,
as shown by Table 11. The fact that it allows verbs belonging to such a variety of aspectual
classes might be explained by its property of being an overlapping Form, as this results in it
giving rise to a variety of readings. However, its preference for gradual verbs is unexplained.
It also seems that it has a slight preference for unboundedness, without the reason for this
being obvious.
Having aspectual properties which are hard to account for, might actually be another result of
the overlap favoured by Form VIII. As overlapping Forms pattern less clearly for type of
affectedness and thus have less clear core properties, it might also be less clear how the rest
of their properties arise.
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It is easier to understand why Form VIII should be the only middle Form which commonly
gives rise to transitive verbs. We have seen that the other middle Forms predominantly have
lastingly and directly affected subjects, whose resistance to real objects leads to an
association with intransitivity. The mentally affected subjects preferred by Form VIII,
however, do not cause any such association. This is because the mental involvement
characteristic of them can hold equally well of an initiator, as of a stateholder or undergoer.
Thus, Form VIII is the middle Form which can most easily express an event in which an
initiator acts on another entity, giving rise to more active-like readings.
It is also worth noting that real objects such as that required by intahara (“drive s.o. away”)
or ibtalaʕa (“swallow s.th.”), are favoured over pseudo-objects such as that required by
ištamma (“smell s.th.”). Example (27) demonstrates that ibtalaʕa takes an object, whereas
(28) shows that this object can become the passivised subject, indicating that it is indeed a
real object (Danks 2011:154-155,239).
(27) ibtalaʕa ar-rajul-u al- ʾakl-a
swallow.PF.3MSG DEF-man-NOM DEF-food-ACC
“The man swallowed the food.” (Questionnaire: 14)
(28) ubtuliʕa al- ʾakl-u
swallow.PASS.PF.3MSG DEF-food-NOM
“The food was swallowed.” (Questionnaire: 17)
In Ajer (2014:37), it was noted that an overwhelming majority of the verbs of the active
Forms II and IV have objects, and these mainly seem to be real objects. The fact that Form
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VIII favours real objects over pseudo-objects is thus another trait which makes it reminiscent
of the active Forms.
However, Form VIII clearly differs from the active Forms in that many of its subjects are also
directly or lastingly affected. As we have seen, readings with these types of subjects often
show a relative resistance to transitivity. It is therefore unsurprising that Form VIII should
favour intransitive verbs overall, as we see from Table 10. The verbs intaqama (“take
vengeance for”) and iddaraʕa (“arm o.s.”) are examples of intransitive Form VIII verbs.
We have thus seen that a possible original requirement of mentally affected subjects might
explain the valency of Form VIII. However, we have not arrived at a property which can
unify the whole class of Form VIII verbs, as well as explain the aspectual properties of the
Form. Further research is needed to determine whether such a property exists. If no such
property can be found, this might be due to the fact that Form VIII seems to be an
overlapping Form. As such, it easily lends itself to lexical extension, which might have
obscured the core properties of the Form.
4.7 Form V
Table 13. Argument roles assigned by Form V verbs
Direct Mental Lasting Real object Pseudo-object
Nr. 153 79 97 14 26
% 77% 40% 49% 7% 13%
Table 14. Overlapping roles in Form V
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Overlapping roles Direct + other role Mental + other role Lasting + other role
Nr. 159 126 79 87
% 80% 64% 40% 44%
Table 15. Aspectual properties of Form V verbs
Unbounded Bounded State Punctual event Gradual event
Nr. 175 93 97 78 132
% 88% 47% 49% 39% 67%
Table 13 shows that Form V cannot be unified by a requirement on type of affectedness,
whereas Table 14 indicates that it seems to favour overlapping roles, as mentioned in 4.6.
This tendency is weaker than for Form VIII, but it still seems to be the most characteristic
property of the Form. Rather than preferring one of the roles to be mentally affected, Form V
seems to prefer that one of them is directly affected.
Thus, I propose that the middle voice head of Form V might originally have imposed the
following requirements:
(29) The middle voice head of Form V: Voice [+affected][+direct][+role]
The verb tabarrara (“justify o.s., be justified”) displays the core properties of Form V, as it
cannot only have a directly affected subject, but can also assign the roles of initiator, mentally
affected and lastingly affected.
As for Form VIII, the fact that Form V is an overlapping Form seems to have led it to take on
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readings which are further and further from the core readings, making it hard to unify the
whole class of Form V verbs. The core readings seem particularly distant from verbs whose
subjects are neither directly affected nor have overlapping roles, as is the case for tawajjaba
(“be necessary”).
As Table 15 shows, Form V is also similar to Form VIII in having a preference for
unboundedness and gradual events. The aspectual properties of the verb taqassa
(“investigate”) is thus typical, as it expresses a gradual, unbounded event. It is not evident
why Form V should display such a preference. However, as we saw for Form VIII, the less
clear core properties of the overlapping Forms might make it hard to account for their
aspectual properties. This does indeed seem to be the case for Form V.
For valency, on the other hand, Forms V and VIII do not pattern alike. As Form V has a focus
on directly affected subjects, we would expect it to have a stronger association with
intransitivity, and thus a stronger resistance to objects. As Table 13 shows, this prediction
seems to hold.
The resistance is not as strong as for Form VII, however. This might be because the focus on
directly affected subjects is somewhat obscured by the fact that it is an overlapping Form.
Thus, transitive Form V verbs occur, but they are not common.
As the focus on directly affected subjects mainly leads to real objects being disfavoured, it is
unsurprising that more Form V verbs give rise to pseudo-objects than real objects. The verb
tahassa (“drink s.th. noisily”) has a real object, whereas tajannaba (“avoid”) requires a
pseudo-object. The fact that tajannaba takes an object is demonstrated in (30), whereas (31)
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shows that this object cannot become the passivised subject. This points to the fact that it is
indeed a pseudo-object.
(30) tajannaba al-walad-u mudarris-a-hu
avoid.PF.3MSG DEF-boy-NOM teacher-ACC-3MSG.POSS
“The boy avoided his teacher.” (Questionnaire: 24)
(31) * tujunniba al-mudarris-u
avoid.PASS.PF.3MSG DEF-teacher-NOM
* “The teacher was avoided.” (Questionnaire: 31)
We have thus seen that the active Forms and Form VIII seem to favour real objects over
pseudo-objects, whereas the opposite is the case for the I-pattern and Form V. This means
that the Forms which more commonly give rise to transitive verbs have a preference for real
objects, while the Forms more strongly associated with intransitivity are less resistant to
pseudo-objects. It therefore seems as though real objects are more strongly transitive than
pseudo-objects. This indicates a need for a more complex notion of valency, which accounts
for both the number and type of the verb’s arguments, an idea which was discussed in 2.4.
However, further developing the idea of complex valency is beyond the scope of this paper. I
merely wish to highlight that my findings seem to support a distinction between real objects
and pseudo-objects, of which the former pattern as more transitive.
We have seen that the valency of Form V seems to follow from its focus on directly affected
subjects, which is somewhat weakened by the fact that it seems to be an overlapping Form. If
my hypothesis about it being an overlapping Form is correct, it is unsurprising that it seems
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hard to find a property which can unify all the verbs of the Form and account for its aspectual
properties. However, further research must determine whether this is indeed the case.
5 Conclusion
In this paper, I have provided considerations that motivate an extension of the notion of
affectedness. The traditional sense of affectedness relates to a change in an argument which
happens as a direct result of the event. I have termed this type of argument ‘directly
influenced’. In addition to directly influenced arguments, I argue that there are two other
types of arguments which might pattern as affected. These are ‘lastingly influenced’
arguments, of which a state is predicated to hold, and ‘mentally influenced’ arguments, which
experience a particular mental involvement in the event. Future research should formalise
these types of affectedness and identify diagnostics which pick out each type, as well as
investigate whether relevant subtypes exist.
I have proposed that these possible types of affectedness might be organised in a hierarchy, in
which directly influenced arguments are the most likely to pattern as affected, followed by
lastingly influenced and then mentally influenced ones. Cross-linguistic research is needed to
determine whether such a hierarchy of affectedness can be observed in other languages, and
which asymmetries there are between the different types.
The extension of affectedness is motivated by my analysis of five middle Forms in Arabic:
the I- and U-patterns and Forms V, VII and VIII. I propose that the Arabic middle is unified
by requiring all middle verbs to allow affected subjects. All the Forms discussed satisfy this
requirement, with only a handful of verbs violating it.
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I have further shown that directly, lastingly and mentally influenced subjects all pattern as
affected in Arabic. The middle Forms seem largely to be distinguished by the type of
affectedness they require of their subjects. Whereas the U-pattern must allow lastingly
influenced subjects, Form VII must allow directly influenced ones. I hypothesise that Forms
V and VIII might originally have required their subjects to have overlapping roles. For Form
V, one of these roles must have been directly influenced, whereas it must have been mentally
influenced for Form VIII. Only the I-pattern seems to be underspecified for the type of
affectedness required. It rather seems to be characterised by the fact that its verbs must allow
unbounded readings.
Furthermore, I tentatively propose that these requirements might be imposed by different
middle voice heads introduced by the morphology of each Form. The requirements mainly
arise as the voice heads assign features to the subject. Whereas they might have been absolute
requirements in the beginning, they seem to have been relaxed over time, allowing a certain
amount of lexical extension in all Forms. The lexical extension seems to have been taken
particularly far in Forms V and VIII due to their affinity for overlapping subject roles, which
might be the reason why it is hard to unify all the verbs of each of these Forms. However, it
might also be the case that a more extensive investigation of these two Forms will reveal
other properties which will be more successful in capturing them. I will have to leave this
question for future research.
There are other Arabic verb Forms which might also encode the middle voice. Further
research is needed to determine whether these are characterised by always allowing affected
subjects as well, and whether the types of affectedness identified here might be relevant to
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these Forms too. It should also seek to establish whether other properties are needed to
account for the Arabic middle Forms. Furthermore, the system of middle voice heads
introducing different types of requirements should be extended to the other middle Forms if
possible. Ultimately, it would be desirable if all the verb Forms in Arabic could be captured
by postulating different sorts of voice heads.
As is evidenced by the unboundedness requirement of the I-pattern, aspectual requirements
might be imposed on the middle Forms. A certain aspectual property might also arise as a
necessary consequence of the type of affected subject required. This is demonstrated by the
U-pattern, which must always allow stative and unbounded readings, as it must always be
compatible with lastingly influenced subjects. Other aspectual properties seem to be favoured
due to an association with the core readings of the Form in question. Thus, though it appears
to be possible for aspectual requirements to hold of middle Forms, the aspectual properties of
the middle mainly seem to be effects of the requirements related to affectedness.
Contrary to what is often claimed of the middle voice, it does not seem to place any
restrictions on valency in Arabic. Rather, the varying degrees of intransitivity of the middle
Forms seem to follow from the affectedness requirements imposed on them. This means that
the function of the middle in Arabic is not to reduce the verb’s valency, but that valency
reduction is instead often a by-product of different middle readings. I leave open the question
of whether the middle might serve to reduce valency in other languages. However, as this
does not seem to be the case in Arabic, it seems doubtful that valency reduction can be the
main function of the middle.
My analysis finds support for distinguishing between non-affected objects or ‘pseudo-
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objects’, and affected objects or ‘real objects’. Real objects seem to be more strongly
transitive in Arabic, and are therefore rarer in the middle Forms. It thus seems that a more
complex notion of valency is useful to the description of the Arabic middle. Future research
should look into whether the middle makes a distinction between the two types of objects
cross-linguistically.
By showing how valency and aspectual properties seem to follow from the affectedness
properties of the Arabic middle Forms, I have in this paper sought to elucidate the interaction
between aspect, voice and valency. Furthermore, the extended notion of affectedness
proposed might contribute to our understanding of the middle voice in itself, and possibly
other phenomena which have been linked to affectedness as well.
Lastly, my aim has been to increase our knowledge of the properties of the Arabic verb
Forms. It is my hope that the requirements identified for the Forms here will be a first step
towards a better characterisation of them.
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———. 1992. “Thematic Relations as Links Between Nominal Reference and Temporal
Constitution.” In Lexical Matters, edited by Ivan A. Sag and Anna Szabolcsi, 1
edition, 29–83. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information
CSLI.
Pardee, Dennis. 1997. “Ugaritic.” In The Semitic Languages, edited by Robert Hetzron, 131–
44. Routledge Language Family Descriptions. London: Routledge.
Ramchand, Gillian. 1997. Aspect and Predication: The Semantics of Argument Structure.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
———. 2008. Verb Meaning and the Lexicon: A First Phase Syntax. Cambridge Studies in
Linguistics 116. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reinhart, Tanya. 2002. “The Theta System – An Overview.” Theoretical Linguistics 28 (3):
229–90.
Roberts, Ian. 1987. The Representation of Implicit and Dethematized Subjects. Linguistic
Models 10. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
Ryding, Karin C. 2005. A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Smith, C. S. 1997. The Parameter of Aspect. 2nd ed. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy
43. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Tenny, C. 1987. “Grammaticalizing Aspect and Affectedness.” Ph.D. dissertation, Oberlin
College.
Vendler, Zeno. 1957. “Verbs and Times.” The Philosophical Review 66 (2): 143–60.
doi:10.2307/2182371.
Wehr, Hans. 1979. A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic: Arabic-English. Edited by J.
Milton Cowan. 4th ed. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
http://archive.org/details/Dict_Wehr.pdf.
Wright, William. 1962. A Grammar of the Arabic Language. Edited by William Robertson
Smith and Michael Jan de Goeje. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
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7 Appendix A – Transliteration chart
The Arabic letters are listed alphabetically.
Arabic letter Transliteration Notes
ʾ My transliteration differs from that of Wehr in that I do not ء
omit ʾ at the beginning of words
a ا
b ب
t ت
t ث
j ج
h ح
k خ
d د
d ذ
r ر
z ز
s س
š ش
s ص
d ض
t ط
z ظ
ʕ The symbol ʕ is used instead of Wehr’s ʻ in order to avoid ع
confusion with ʾ
g غ
f ف
q ق
k ك
l ل
m م
n ن
h ه
w, u or u و
y, i or i ي
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8 Appendix B – Abbreviations used in example glosses
3 = 3rd person M = masculine
ACC = accusative NOM = nominative
DEF = definite PASS = passive
F = feminine PF = perfect
GEN = genitive POSS = possessive
INDEF = indefinite SG = singular
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9 Appendix C – Key to data sample
General notes: all verbs are listed alphabetically after root according to the Arabic
alphabet. The only exception is the “Form I – mixed” sheet, where
verbs displaying the same patterns are grouped together. Within each
group, the verbs are listed alphabetically.
see chapter 2.2-2.5 and chapter 3 for definitions of the aspectual
properties and argument roles appealed to. For the full details of what
the different labels used in the other columns mean and how they were
applied, see Ajer (2014:12-18,47-49). The “Semantic class”, “Voice”,
“Transitivity” and “Valency change” columns are not relevant to the
present study.
Columns
Root: gives the verb’s radicals.
Form: gives the number of the morphological Form of the verb.
Verb: gives the transliteration of the Arabic verb.
Meaning: gives the meaning of the verb in English.
Relation: shows how the meaning of the verb relates to that of other verbs from
the same root. If a verb is synonymous or almost synonymous with
another verb from the same root, this will always be listed. Apart from
this, each verb is generally compared to its counterpart. This means
that verbs of Forms II, IV, VII and VIII are all compared to Form I
verbs. Form VII verbs might be compared to Form IV verbs when this
is more suitable, whereas Form V verbs is compared to Form II verbs.
When a verb has a counterpart, its relation to it will always be given. If
it has no counterpart or an unrelated counterpart, I will list its relation
to other verbs when relevant. Form I verbs are only compared to other
Form I verbs from the same root, if there are any.
Semantic class: lists the applicable semantic labels I found useful when categorising
the verbs.
Aspect: lists which aspectual classes the verb’s readings belong to, and which
boundedness properties they have. Appears in all sheets, except for the
“All Forms” sheet.
Roles: lists the subject and object roles a verb assigns. Appears in all sheets,
except for the “All Forms” sheet.
Voice: lists whether a verb’s meaning is associated with the active, middle or
passive voice. It can be associated with more than one voice.
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Transitivity: encodes the number of complements each verb has. If it can have
prepositional complements, the respective prepositions are given in
brackets.
Valency change: encodes the difference in valency between the verb and its counterpart.
If the verb has a counterpart, it is always compared to this. If not, it
will be compared to other verbs from the same root where relevant.
See “Relation” for more details.
Nr.: gives the value 1 for each verb, in order to make the number of verbs
easy to count when analysing.
Abbreviations and symbols used
Column it is used in Abbreviation or symbol Explanation
Meaning, Transitivity,
Aspect and Roles - Separates senses of a verb which have
different transitivity values in the “Meaning”
column, as well as their respective values in
the “Transitivity” column. Used to separate
aspectual class from boundedness properties
in the “Aspect” column, and subject roles
from object roles in the “Roles” column.
Relation, Voice,
Transitivity and
Valency change
/ When the verb in question has the same
relation to different verbs in terms of meaning
and valency change, the slash separates the
numbers indicating their Forms. It also
separates the different voices the verb is
associated with. When the same sense or
group of senses of a verb can have different
transitivity values or be used with different
prepositions, a slash is used to separate these.
Transitivity + When a verb takes more than one
prepositional complement, a plus sign is used
to separate them.
Relation and Valency
change
A space followed by
roman numerals
The numerals indicate the Form of the verb
which the verb in question is compared to.
Relation S Synonymous
Relation AS Almost synonymous
Relation R Related
Relation VR Vaguely related
Relation UR Unrelated
Semantic class Reflexive Reflexive middle
Semantic class Indirect Indirect middle
Semantic class Caus. Causative. Within brackets the type of event
or situation caused is indicated.
Semantic class Anticaus. Anticausative
Aspect s State
Aspect p Punctual event
Aspect g Gradual event
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Aspect u Unbounded
Aspect b Bounded
Roles i Initiator
Roles l Lastingly affected
Roles d Directly affected
Roles m Mentally affected
Roles r Real object
Roles p Pseudo-object
Voice A Active voice
Voice M Middle voice
Voice P Passive voice
Voice P (HW) Used when the verb is indicated as passive by
Wehr.
Transitivity I Intransitive. The verb has no complements.
Transitivity T Transitive. The verb takes a direct object.
Transitivity 2T Doubly transitive. The verb takes two direct
objects.
Transitivity P Prepositional. The verb takes a prepositional
complement.
Transitivity 2P Doubly prepositional. The verb takes two
prepositional complements.
Transitivity TP Transitive and prepositional. The verb takes a
direct object and a prepositional complement.
Transitivity 2TP Doubly transitive and prepositional. The verb
takes two direct objects and a prepositional
complement.
Valency change S Same. The verb has the same valency as the
verb it is compared to.
Valency change H Higher. The verb takes one direct object more
than the verb it is compared to.
Valency change L Lower. The verb takes one direct object less
than the verb it is compared to.
Valency change 2H Double increase. The verb takes two direct
objects more than the verb it is compared to.
Valency change 2L Double decrease. The verb takes two direct
objects less than the verb it is compared to.
Valency change SP Same with preposition. The verb has the same
valency as the verb it is compared to, but it
takes a prepositional complement more.
Valency change SmP Same minus preposition. The verb has the
same valency as the verb it is compared to,
but it takes a prepositional complement less.
Valency change S2P Same with two prepositions. The verb has the
same valency as the verb it is compared to,
but it takes two prepositional complements
more.
Valency change Sm2P Same minus two prepositions. The verb has
the same valency as the verb it is compared
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to, but it takes two prepositional complements
less.
Valency change HP Higher from preposition. The verb takes a
direct object where the verb it is compared to
takes a prepositional complement.
Valency change LP Lower to preposition. The verb takes a
prepositional complement where the verb it is
compared to takes a direct object.
Valency change HaP Higher and preposition. The verb takes one
object and one prepositional complement
more than the verb it is compared to.
Valency change LaP Lower and preposition. The verb takes one
object and one prepositional complement less
than the verb it is compared to.
Valency change H2P Higher from two prepositions. The verb takes
one direct object where the verb it is
compared to takes two prepositional
complements.
Valency change L2P Lower to two prepositions. The verb takes
two prepositions where the verb it is
compared to takes one direct object.
Valency change 2LP Double decrease to preposition. The verb
takes one prepositional complement where the
verb it is compared to takes two direct
objects.
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10 Appendix D – Data sample
The data sample can be found by following this link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gipduncjjijv70r/Appendix%20D%20for%20Hanna%20Danbolt
%20Ajer%27s%20thesis%20-%20Data%20sample.xlsx?dl=0
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11 Appendix E – Questionnaire
11.1 Procedure
The questionnaire, consent form and procedure were all based on those of Danks (2011).
Two participants took part in the study. Both were male and had undertaken their whole
education or part of their education in Modern Standard Arabic, and had also taught it at
university. They were native speakers of different Arabic colloquials.
The participants were sent the consent form, the background information form and the
questionnaire, which can be found in 11.2, 11.3 and 11.4 respectively. They were encouraged
to let me know if they had any questions or comments. After completing the forms and the
questionnaires, they sent them back to me, and one participant was asked some follow-up
questions regarding one of the judgments. In accordance with the information given in the
consent form, the background information form and the original questionnaires have been
destroyed.
The questionnaire given in 11.4 contains a summary of the acceptability judgments, with ‘1’
indicating that the sentence is acceptable, ‘2’ that it is doubtful and ‘3’ that it is unacceptable.
It does not contain any of the comments made by the participants. Any sentence which
seemed to be rejected for other reasons than the fact that the verb could not occur in the
construction in question, have been discarded from the analysis, and marked with an ‘X’.
Some of the sentences were fillers, which were included so that it would not be too obvious
which constructions I wanted to test.
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11.2 Consent form
Information and consent form for the questionnaire on Arabic verb forms
I am currently conducting research related to the verb forms of Modern Standard Arabic for
my MPhil thesis. In order to assess the contemporary usage of some of the verbs, I need
native Arabic speakers with a high level of proficiency in Modern Standard Arabic to judge
the acceptability of the 40 example sentences in the questionnaire.
Please put a number from 1 to 3 next to every example to indicate its acceptability. 1 means
that the example is completely acceptable, 2 that the example might not be fully acceptable or
might sound a bit strange, and 3 that the example is unacceptable. If you have any comments
as to why you find certain sentences to be less acceptable, please write them next to each
example. I am especially interested in which constructions the different verbs can and can’t
be used in.
The questionnaire will help me determine which usages are acceptable for the different verbs.
It is not a test of your personal intelligence or ability.
It would also be useful to me if you could fill in a background information form about your
age, gender, which Arabic colloquial you are a native speaker of, and your educational level
in Modern Standard Arabic.
Your responses to the questionnaire and background information form will only be seen by
me and my supervisor. None of the responses you provide me with will be identifiable by
name in any research papers and presentations that result from this work. Your background
information forms and the original questionnaires will be destroyed once I have finished my
ASPECTS OF THE ARABIC MIDDLE
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thesis research.
Your participation is voluntary, and you may refuse to answer certain questions on the
questionnaire or the background information form. You can withdraw from the study at any
time with no penalty. This does not waive your legal rights. Please keep a copy of this form
for your own record. If you have further questions related to this research, please email me at
[email protected]. You can also contact me via this email address after 01.07.2015 if you are
interested in finding out about the results of the research.
Please sign below if you are willing to take part in the research, and return the signed form to
me via email if possible. If you prefer not to submit via email, please contact me to agree on
an alternative arrangement.
Thank you for your participation!
Hanna Danbolt Ajer,
Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge
Your signature below indicates that you are over 18 years of age and have understood the
information about this questionnaire and consent to your participation.
Signed:
Name:
Date:
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11.3 Background information form
1. Please state your gender:
2. Please underline the age range you are in:
Under 25 25-50 Over 50
3. Please state where the Arabic colloquial you are a native speaker of is from (i.e.
Lebanon, Morocco, etc.):
4. Please state your educational level in Modern Standard Arabic, or the professional
background in which you use or have used it (i.e. completed your primary education
in it, studied it at university, have taught it at university etc.):
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11.4 Questionnaire
Questionnaire on Arabic verb forms
1 = acceptable 2 = doubtful 3 = unacceptable
Comment 1/2/3
جل 1 1 1 أدب الر
ب المطر التربة 1 1 خص طوال ساعة
2
3 سمر الحقل في ساعة 1 1
X انسرق الكتاب بعد الدرس
4
جل طوال 1 1 أدب الر سنة
5
X جل طوال ح الر ترو ساعة
6
جل بسبب 1 2 ثري الر الحرب
7
جل في سنة 1 2 8 ثري الر
جل األكل 1 2 ابتلع الرظهرا ١٢الساعة بط بالض
9
انساحت دماء من 1 1 الجرح
10
X انسرق الكتاب في دقيقتين
11
جل 1 3 12 أفقرت الر
X جل في ح الر ترو ساعة
13
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جل األكل 1 1 14 ابتلع الر
X جل ح الر 15 ترو
X الساعة انسرق الكتاببط ١٢ ظهرا بالض
16
17 ابتلع األكل 1 1
X جل على استام الر الخبز طوال ساعة
18
ب المطر التربة 1 3 خص في ساعة
19
X جل الساعة ح الر تروبط ١٢ ظهرا بالض
20
انساحت دماء من 1 1 الجرح طوال ساعة
21
سمر الحقل كامله في 1 1 ساعة
22
جل األكل 1 1 ابتلع الر طوال دقيقتين
23
سه 1 1 24 تجنب الولد مدر
جل يأدب 2 2 25 كان الر
سمر الحقل طوال 1 2 ساعة
26
X الكتاب انسرق 27
رقة ممنوعة 1 1 28 الس
X جل على استام الر الخبز في ساعة
29
X جل على استام الر ١٢الخبز الساعة بط ظهرا بالض
30
س 2 3 31 تجنب المدر
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32 سمر الحقل 1 1
جل أفقرت األزمة 1 1 الرظهرا ١٢الساعة بط بالض
33
جل طوال 1 1 ثري الر سنة
34
X جل على استام الر الخبز
35
X انسرق الكتاب طوال دقيقتين
36
جل 1 1 37 ثري الر
سمر الحقل بسبب 1 1 الشمس القوية
38
جل الساعة 1 2 أدب الربط ١٢ ظهرا بالض
39
جل بعد 1 1 ثري الر الحرب
40
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