Year: 1970
Type: article
Abstract: In several works (1998a;b, 2006/9, 2015), Professor J. Owens has developed a revisionist history of the Arabic system of nominal case inflection.Rather than reconstructing the case system of Classical Arabic, cognate with Akkadian and Ugaritic, for Proto-Arabic, he proposed several scenarios in favor of a caseless variety of Proto-Semitic from which the modern Arabic dialects descend.This article engages with the Owens' methodology, data, and claims in a defense of the traditional reconstruction -Proto-Arabic had a nominal case system similar to Classical Arabic that was lost in the modern dialects.We reconstruct a historical scenario to explain the eventual breakdown and disappearance of case in modern Arabic.
Source: Romano-Arabica
Authors: Al-Jallad, A., Putten, M. van
Institution: Leiden University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2981562858