An OT Account of Negation in Jordanian Arabic

Abstract

Jordanian Arabic exhibits three forms of negation: preverbal, discontinuous and post-verbal. In this paper, we show how these three forms of negation could be accounted for from an OT perspective. Concisely, our main goal is to find out form-specific ranking(s) of the set of universal constraints that condition negation in this dialect. We argue that negation is tense-dependent in this dialect (viz. different tense forms opt for different constraint rankings). We propose a set of universal constraints that constrain the native speaker’s choice of the negation pattern(s) with the verb form. Additionally, we demonstrate how these constraints militate against each other to let only the optimal forms surface with each tense. The paper found that one major difference between negated present and past tense is that NegFirst is ranked very low in present verbs but very high in past verbs. Second, *Neg2 and max 3μ interact to block future circumflex negation forms in future verbs. Third, the morph-syntactic expression of negation was found to be subject to weight in that the negators are maximally tri-moraic, a condition which explains why long ma: cannot be a viable alternative when circumflexing negation either with present or past verbs.