A MORPHONOLOGICAL SEMANTIC STUDY OF GRAMMATICAL GENDER IN IRAQI ARABIC-ENGLISH CODE-SWITCHING

Abbas Fadhil Albayati, Dr.

	A MORPHONOLOGICAL SEMANTIC STUDY OF GRAMMATICAL GENDER IN IRAQI ARABIC-ENGLISH CODE-SWITCHING
Journal of Tikrit University for the Humanities
Article 1, Volume 20, Issue 5, 2013, Pages 503-519
Author
Dr. Abbas Fadhil Albayati
Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper is an attempt at analyzing grammatical gender in code-switching from central Iraqi Arabic (henceforth IA) to English, specifically in the case of a head noun being modified by an adjective or another noun. Here we explore how the gendered IA interacts with the non-gendered English, resulting in accommodation for a form of convergent flexibility. For example, Iraqis speaking English as a foreign language will assign the IA feminine marker [a] to the adjective modifying an English noun, as in ‘ka:mira (camera) ʧibi:ra (big)’, if the English noun ends in an [a]. The same can be said if the English noun is devoid of a final [a] as in ‘mall’ which will then be marked for masculine in its adjectival gender in the IA as in ‘mɒ:l (mall) ʧibi:r (big)’. Consequently, the morphonological shape accounts for grammatical concord and this is generally agreed upon by speakers in natural conversation. However, sometimes such morphonological gender assignment is not always so transparently defined and IA speakers instead select a semantic frame application to nouns, irrespective of their morphonological shape. Such semantic processing of gender is transferred across from IA. Such assignment rules force the speakers in bilingual conversation to somehow agree on noun assignment giving rise to either morphonologically or semantically attributed IA adjectives and, at times, there is feminine-masculine-feminine alternation until the end result is levelled and agreed upon by both speakers. The main criterion here is absolute grammatical agreement which is essential in IA discourse, and it has been found that code switchers have strong grammatical intuitions of male or female-specific lexicality.

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