Extra Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences Colloquium @ the Grad Center

Extra Colloquium: Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences
Wednesday, May 8, 2019, 2:45-4pm
365 Fifth Ave. Room 7102

Loan-word adaptation in Palestinian Arabic and Hebrew

Lior Laks/Bar-Ilan University

This talk will examine language contact in Palestinian Arabic (PA) and Hebrew.  I will examine cases in which the two languages borrow English words and apply different types of strategies of morphological adaptation.

Focus is on two main case studies:

(i) the formation of denominative verbs and the competition between verbal patterns (e.g. PA fannaš ‘finished’, tnarfaz ‘became nervous’ and Hebrew fikses ‘faxed’);

(ii)  pluralization of loan nouns in PA and the competition  between sound plural (e.g.  faks-faksa:t ‘fax’),  broken plural  (folder-fala:dir ‘folder’)  and cases where both plural forms exists (ballo:n-ballo:na:t/balali:n ‘balloon’).

In the talk I consider the different criteria that are taken into account in selection of one formation strategy over another and will shed light on the degree of integration of loanwords. Focus will be on non-concatenative word formation and the status of the consonantal root.

Interested students and faculty are welcome to join us in the 8th-floor cafeteria at 1pm to buy lunch and converse with Profs. Laks and Obler.

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