Description
Book SynopsisThis book contains a comprehensive grammatical description of Mehri, an unwritten Semitic language spoken in the Dhofar region of Oman, along with a corpus of more than one hundred texts. Topics in phonology, all aspects of morphology, and a variety of syntactic features are covered. The texts, presented with extensive commentary, were collected by the late T.M. Johnstone. Some are published here for the first time, while the rest have been newly edited and translated, based on the original manuscripts. Semitists, linguists, and anyone interested in the folklore of southern Arabia will find much valuable data and analysis in this volume, which is the most detailed grammatical study of a Modern South Arabian language yet published.
Trade Review"To conclude, this book is undoubtedly a very important work for MSAL and Semitic studies as a whole." - Fabio Gasparini, Orientalische Literaturzeitung, Vol. 114, Iss. 6, 2019, pp. 463-466
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements List of Texts Abbreviations and Symbols Text Citation A Note on Transcription and Translation Grammar 1 Introduction 1.1 Previous Scholarship on Mehri and MSA 1.2 Dialects of Mehri 1.3 The Position of Mehri within MSA 1.4 The Position of MSA in Semitic 1.5 Johnstone’s Mehri Texts 1.6 Johnstone’s Audio Material 1.7 This Grammar 2 Phonology 2.1 Mehri Consonants 2.2 Mehri Vowels 2.3 Word Stress 3 Pronouns 3.1 Independent Personal Pronouns 3.2 Suffixed Pronouns 3.3 Direct Object Pronouns (t-) 3.4 Demonstratives 3.5 Indefinite Pronouns 3.6 Reflexives 3.7 Reciprocals 3.8 Relative Pronouns 4 Nouns 4.1 Gender 4.2 Duals 4.3 Plurals 4.4 Definite Article 4.5 Diminutives 4.6 Construct State 5 Adjectives 5.1 Agreement 5.2 Declension 5.3 Substantivization 5.4 Comparatives 5.5 Quantifiers 6 Verbs: Stems 6.1 G-Stem 6.2 D/L-Stem 6.3 H-Stem 6.4 Š-Stems 6.5 T-Stems 6.6 Quadriliterals 6.7 Quinqueliterals (Qw- and Qy-Stems) 7 Verbs: Tenses and Forms 7.1 Verbal Tenses and Moods 7.2 Weak Verbs 7.3 The Irregular Verb ḥōm ‘want’ 8 Prepositions 8.1 ar ‘except, but’ 8.2 b- ‘in, at; with; for; on’ 8.3 bād ‘after’ 8.4 bǝrk ‘in(to), inside; among’ 8.5 ð̣ār ‘on; about’, mǝn ð̣ār ‘after’ 8.6 fǝnōhǝn ‘before; in front of; ago’ 8.7 ġayr ‘except’, mǝn ġayr ‘without’ 8.8 h- ‘to; for’ 8.9 hāl ‘at, by, beside’ 8.10 (ǝl-)hīs ‘like, as’ 8.11 k- (š-) ‘with’ 8.12 l- ‘to; for’ 8.13 mǝn ‘from’ 8.14 mǝn ḳǝdē ‘about, regarding’ 8.15 ǝm-mǝ́n ‘between’ 8.16 nǝxāli ‘under’ 8.17 sǝbēb ‘because of’ 8.18 sār ‘behind’ 8.19 tɛ ‘until, up to’ 8.20 tǝwōli ‘to, towards’ 8.21 xā ‘like, as … as’ 8.22 Additional Prepositions 8.23 The Suffixed Forms of Prepositions 9 Numerals 9.1 Cardinals 9.2 Special Forms Used With ‘Days’ 9.3 Ordinals 9.4 Fractions 9.5 Days of the Week 10 Adverbs 10.1 Demonstrative Adverbs 10.2 Adverbs of Place 10.3 Adverbs of Time 10.4 Adverbs of Manner 10.5 Adverbs of Degree 11 Interrogatives 11.1 mōn ‘who?’ 11.2 hɛ̄śǝn ‘what? why?’ 11.3 hɛ̄śǝn mǝn ‘which? what kind of?’ 11.4 ḥõ ‘where?’ 11.5 wǝ-kōh (kō) ‘why?’ 11.6 hībōh ‘how? what?’ 11.7 mayt ‘when?’ 11.8 kǝm ‘how many? how much?’ 11.9 ǝl hɛ̃ lā ‘isn’t that so?’ 12 Particles 12.1 Coordinating Conjunctions 12.2 Exclamations 12.3 Vocatives 12.4 Genitive Exponent ð- (‘of’) 12.5 Miscellaneous Particles 13 Some Syntactic Features 13.1 Copular (Non-Verbal) Sentences 13.2 Negation 13.3 Expressing ‘have’ 13.4 Conditionals 13.5 Subordination 13.6 Interrogative Clauses Texts 14 Johnstone’s Texts from Ali Musallam Appendix A: Texts 54 and 65 with Morpheme Glossing Appendix B: Texts 54 and 65 in Arabic Script Appendix C: Supplement to Johnstone’s Mehri Lexicon Appendix D: Additions and Corrections to The Jibbali Language of Oman: Grammar and Texts Bibliography Index of Passages Index of Select Mehri Words
