Morphological Description of Passive Verbs in Najdi Qassimi Arabic

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to determine if passive constructions are still being used in the Najdi Qassimi Arabic (NQA), a sub-dialect of Najdi Arabic. In addition to that, there are the following two objectives: The first goal is to detect whether or not /ʔɪnfeʕal/ is an innovative pattern and whether it encodes a passive meaning. The second goal is to determine whether weak roots exhibit morphophonological (irregular) changes by describing the patterns of triliteral perfect passive weak verbs (TPPWVs) used by NQA speakers. The data for this study was extracted from 10 native NQA speakers who were born in four different generations (the 1970s – 1980s-1990- 2000s). The study shows that only the pattern /fʕel/ retains the passive voice, whereas the pattern /ʔɪnfeʕal/ is neither an innovative pattern nor does it encode a passive voice. Also, the results reveal that TPPWVs have certain irregularities that alter the root’s elements to derive the passive verb. Moreover, the production of recent generations suggests that there is a possibility of morphological levelling in NQA. Passive voice has been replaced by morphologically more transparent alternatives such as active verbs with impersonal subjects.