Perspectives On Arabic Linguistics: Papers From The Annual Symposium On Arabic Linguistics. Volume Xvii–xviii: Alexandria, 2003 And Norman, Oklahoma 2004

PERSPECTIVES ON ARABIC LINGUISTICS XVII–XVIII AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E.F. KONRAD KOERNER (Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung, Berlin) Series IV – CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY Advisory Editorial Board Lyle Campbell (Salt Lake City); Sheila Embleton (Toronto) Brian D. Joseph (Columbus, Ohio); John E. Joseph (Edinburgh) Manfred Krifka (Berlin); E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.) Joseph C. Salmons (Madison, Wis.); Hans-Jürgen Sasse (Köln) Volume 264 Mohammad T. Alhawary and Elabbas Benmamoun (eds) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVII–XVIII Papers from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Annual Symposia on Arabic Linguistics PERSPECTIVES ON ARABIC LINGUISTICS XVII–XVIII PAPERS FROM THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL SYMPOSIA ON ARABIC LINGUISTICS Edited by MOHAMMAD T. ALHAWARY The University of Oklahoma ELABBAS BENMAMOUN University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA 8 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-984. Mohammad T. Alhawary and Elabbas Benmamoun (eds.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVII–XVIII. Papers from the seventeenth and eighteenth annual symposia on Arabic linguistics. Alexandria, 2003 and Norman, Oklahoma 2004. (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763 ; v. 267) ISBN 90 272 478  (Hb; alk. paper) © 2005 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 36224 • 020 ME Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 2759 • Philadelphia PA 98-059 • USA CONTENTS Editorial Note vii Introduction Mohammad T. Alhawary and Elabbas Benmamoun ix The Length of Stem-final Vowels in Colloquial Arabic John J. McCarthy 1 Moraic Syllable Structure and Edge Effects in Arabic Abdessatar Mahfoudhi 27 The Structure of Arabic Intonation: A preliminary investigation Khaled Rifaat 49 Phonological Processes in Connected Speech in Colloquial Egyptian Arabic Hanaa Salem 69 Root Formation and Polysemic Organization in Arabic Lexicon: A probabilistic model Lazhar Zanned 85 Light Verbs in Standard and Egyptian Arabic Amr Helmy Ibrahim 117 Rethinking Lexical Aspect in Egyptian Arabic Mustafa Mughazy 133 CONTENTS Building a Computational Lexicon for Arabic: A corpusbased approach Sameh Al-Ansary 173 Political Transition, Linguistic Shift: How a political communiqué (bayaan) has come to be what it is Naima Boussofara-Omar 195 Agreement Alternations: How optional patterns of agreement arise Heidi Lorimor 225 Acquisition of Arabic Word Formation: A multi-path approach Fatima Badry 243 L2 Acquisition of Arabic Morphosyntactic Features: Temporary or permanent impairment? Mohammad T. Alhawary 273 Index of Subjects 313 EDITORIAL NOTE The papers in this volume were presented at the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Annual Symposia on Arabic Linguistics, held in Alexandria, Egypt in May of 2003 and at the University of Oklahoma in March of 2004, and sponsored by the University of Alexandria and the University of Oklahoma, respectively. Of the forty-one papers presented at both symposia, twelve are published here.