Centre for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

A Syntax of Mehri

Professor Janet C. E. Watson

Project Overview

Supported by a British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship 2010 – 2011

The proposed research involves documentation of the syntax of Mahriyot, the eastern Yemeni dialect of Mehri, one of five extant Modern South Arabian Languages (MSAL) spoken in Yemen and Oman. (Bathari is now dead.) MSAL are the oldest extant members of the Semitic language family, but are by far the least studied. Initial work on sounds and lexis suggests MSAL will shed considerable light both on the development of Semitic languages and on ancient population movement and contact. Recent research shows Mehri may hold the key to the development of consonant systems in Semitic. This will be the first comprehensive syntax of Mahriyot and the fourth grammar of a Mehri dialect. The three major Mehri dialect groups–western Yemeni, Omani and eastern Yemeni–exhibit a range of systematic word- and clause-structure differences which promise to shed light on the development of southern Semitic syntax. The research aims to produce a comprehensive account of Mahriyot phrase, clause and text structure, a glossary to the Mehri texts (2009), and a community-accessible on-line database of oral texts.

Proposal

I propose to complete a syntax of Mahriyot, the eastern Yemeni dialect of Mehri, an endangered, unwritten Modern South Arabian languages (MSAL). This work forms part of a long-term documentation programme of two MSAL spoken either side of the Yemen-Oman border – Mehri and Hobyot.

Until 2003 I worked exclusively on the description and theoretical analysis of modern Arabic dialects. In Heidelberg during 2003–04 Alexander Sima introduced me to the sound system of Mehri. Following his untimely death in 2004, I took over his work on Mehri texts, learning Mehri through works of earlier researchers, reading and editing transcriptions of Sima’s texts, and checking oral recordings. I conducted 6 weeks fieldwork in Mahra in 2008, living with a Mehri family. The ensuing publication of Sima’s texts in 2009 more than doubled the textual material available on Mehri. Since 2008 I have also examined areal linguistic features within the south-west Arabian Peninsula. This initial research, published and disseminated in a variety of outputs, indicates that Mehri may hold the key to the development of Semitic sound systems and syntax, and on ancient population movement within the south-west Peninsula.

Need for research

Of the six MSAL, Bathari is now extinct (Miranda Morris p.c.) and the other five – Mehri, Jibbali, Soqotri, Harsusi and Hobyot – are in various stages of endangerment. The observation of linguistic behaviour within Mahra indicates that Mehri is critically endangered. Census figures give an ethnic Mehri population of c. 180,000, but this belies the linguistic situation: as a MSAL, Mehri is neither written nor a language of the media. The prestige of Arabic coupled with urban migration has led to many Mehris losing competence in Mehri; even those living in remote villages are becoming increasingly bilingual in Arabic. Schooling is conducted solely in Arabic and children are banned from speaking Mehri on school grounds. Immigration of Yemeni Arabs into the province since unification in 1990 and increasingly in recent years has forced Arabic to be the main language of communication in Mehri towns.

Research aims and methodology

In collaboration with native-speakers, I aim to complete a theoretically neutral account of Mahriyot phrase, clause and text structure with an introduction to the phonology and morphology. The work is structured as follows:

Introduction and history of research on Mehri
Phonological preliminaries
Morphological preliminaries
The noun phrase: Attribution; Annexion; Agreement
The verb phrase: Degrees of transitivity
The prepositional phrase
Negation
Predication and simple clauses
Coordination
Supplementation and complex clauses
Conclusion

This work will be the first comprehensive syntax of Mehri, the first grammar of Mahriyot and the first grammar within the last 100 years of a MSAL based on original fieldwork. Other grammars of Mehri have examined Mehriyyet in western Yemen (Jahn 1905, Wagner 1953) and Najdi Mehri in Oman (Rubin 2010). The latter two of these rely on the analysis of partially solicited narratives collected, transcribed and translated by other researchers many years earlier (the Viennese in the 1900s, Johnstone in the 1970s). The proposed work will provide material for future theoretical syntactic research and enable a typological comparison of the morphosyntax of the three major Mehri dialect groups. Observations to date show significant inter-dialectal differences in terms of:

Mood marking
Productivity/range of diminutive formation
Morphological marking of gender/number in verbs
Adjectival inflection
Dual number
Noun phrase formation
Definiteness
Negation

Alongside natural speech and recorded monologues, my data include lexical explanations, exclamations, greetings, games, rhymes and pictorial descriptions, and e-mails and sms messages in Arabic script. This wide-net approach to data highlights genre-specific features previously undescribed for Mehri, including diminutive numerals and ‘how x!’ phrases. 10% of the transcribed, translated and digitised data will be subject to interlinear morphemic glossing. Digitisation of the transcriptions will enable me to measure the frequency of certain morphosyntactic features in particular genres, and the percentage of Arabic words as part of an estimation of degree of language endangerment. Apparent anomalies and genre-specific features will be checked in interview with native speakers.

Related Publications

Watson, J.C.E. (in press). Translation, mistranslation and the seasons in Mahrah. Wiener Zeitschrift der Kunde des Morgenlandes.

Watson, J.C.E. & Bellem, A. (in press). ‘Glottalisation and neutralisation in Yemeni Arabic and Mehri: An acoustic study’. In: Arabic Instrumental Phonetics, ed. B. Heselwood & Z. Hassan, Benjamins: Amsterdam.

Watson, J.C.E. & Bellem, A. 2010. A detective story: Emphatics in Mehri. In Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 40: 345–356.

Watson, J.C.E. & Arnold, W. 2009, Mehri-Texte aus der jemenitischen Sharqiyyah, Alexander Sima, Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, Germany.

This work contains 110 transcribed and annotated texts in the Mehri dialect of the eastern province of Yemen with their German translations and an introduction to the language. The texts were collected and partially transcribed and translated by the late Alexander Sima. After Sima's tragic death in Yemen in September 2004, the texts were edited and prepared for publication by Janet Watson with Werner Arnold. This work was funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship 2007 – 2008: Publication was funded through a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Watson, J.C.E. 2009 'Annexion, attribution and genitives in Mahriyyot', in: Watson, J.C.E. & Retsö, J (eds.), Relative clauses and genitive constructions in Semitic, Oxford University Press, pp.229-244.

Asiri, Y. & Watson, J.C.E. 2007, 'Pre-pausal devoicing and glottalisation in varieties of the south-western Arabian peninsula', International Congress of Phonetic Sciences XVI.

Invited Lectures

Mehri, a Semitic language spoken in Yemen and Oman (Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat. 14th April 2010).
Mehri, an endangered Semitic language spoken in Yemen and Oman (Linguistic Circle, University of Oxford. 2nd March 2010).
Endangered Middle Eastern Languages (Living Traditions, Golden Web Foundation, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, November 2009). A joint presentation with Professors Geoffrey Khan (Cambridge) and Clive Holes (Oxford) on the documentation and description of the neo-Semitic languages - Neo-Aramaic, Modern South Arabian and peripheral Arabic dialects.
Fieldwork in Yemen (University of Tallinn, Estonia, June 2009). This invited lecture was part of a book presentation organised by Otto Harrassowitz Verlag and the University of Tallinn to coincide with the publication of Alexander Sima, Mehri-Texte aus der jemenitischen Sharqiyyah, introduced, edited and annotated by Janet C.E. Watson and Werner Arnold. Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden.
Aspects of a dialect of the Modern South Arabian language, Mehri (University of Cambridge, Semitic Philology Lecture, May 2009).
The phonetics and phonology of emphatics in Mehri (keynote speech presented with Alex Bellem at Workshop on Pharyngeals and Pharyngealisation, University of Newcastle, March 2009).

Conference Papers

Aspects of deixis and definiteness in Mehri. Presented at the Workshop on Deixis and Definiteness in Semitic. University of Salford. 30th April 2010

A detective story: Emphasis in the Modern South Arabian language Mehri. Presented with Alex Bellem at the Seminar for Arabian Studies, British Museum, London. July 2009.

Workshops and Conferences on Semitic

Relative clauses and attribution in Semitic. University of Salford. April 2007.
Genitive constructions in Semitic: Comparative and diachronic perspectives. University of Salford. 7th – 8th April 2008. . This conference was funded through a British Academy Conference Support Grant, sponsor grant code: BCG-47671.
Deixis and definiteness in Semitic. University of Salford. 30th April 2010.
Grammaticalisation in Semitic. To be held at the University of Salford. 6th May 2011.
Mehri language workshop. To be held at the University of Salford, 27th May 2011.