Discourse-Pragmatic Functions of Ya3ni in Najdi Arabic Interaction

Abstract

The Arabic discourse-pragmatic feature ya3ni occurs frequently in natural interactional settings. Several studies have reported that ya3ni (lit. ‘I mean/it means’) has developed a wide range of discourse-pragmatic functions in many spoken Arabic varieties such as Egyptian Arabic (Elshimi, 1992; 1993; Marmorstein, 2016, 2021a), Gulf Arabic (Owens & Rockwood, 2008), Libyan Arabic (Gaddafi, 1990), and Syrian Arabic (Alkhalil, 2005; Habib, 2021). Although the formal and functional variability of ya3ni has been documented in the literature, ya3ni has not been studied in the context of spoken Najdi Arabic. This paper examines discourse-pragmatic uses of ya3ni in Najdi Arabic (NA) in the interactional situation and how the functional variation is constrained by its turn position. A total of 376 ya3ni tokens were extracted from a corpus of five hours of audio-recorded dyadic natural conversations with twelve native speakers of NA. Drawing on the conversation analytic approach within a variationist framework, multiple discourse-pragmatic functions of ya3ni are attested. For interpersonal meaning, speakers recruit ya3ni to introduce assessment and minimise the effect of disagreement, whereas recipients use it to check their understanding. For the textual meaning, it can be used by speakers to introduce expansion and elaboration, explain intention, change the topic, sum up, and hold the floor.