The Morphological Integration of Dialectal Arabic Loanwords into Chaoui: The Case of Feminine and Masculine Nouns.

Benader, Amira; Benhattab, Abdelkader Lotfi

المجلة الجزائرية للمخطوطات
Volume 19, Numéro 1, Pages 236-252
2023-03-10

The Morphological Integration Of Dialectal Arabic Loanwords Into Chaoui: The Case Of Feminine And Masculine Nouns.

Authors : Benader Amira . Benhattab Abdelkader Lotfi .

Abstract

The thirteen centuries long and continuing contact between Arabic and Berber resulted in an Arabic influence on the different dialects of Berber. This language change is extremely tangible through the Berber lexicon that is constituted of an important amount of Arabic borrowings. This paper aims to analyze the processes of morphological integration of Dialectal Arabic borrowings into Chaoui. Emphasis will be specifically placed on the integration of singular and plural feminine and masculine Dialectal Arabic nouns into Chaoui. The data of the study were retrieved through the recordings of casual conversations between native Chaoui speakers from Meskiana. The findings of our study demonstrated that some Dialectal Arabic loanwords are integrated into Chaoui as they receive Chaoui modalities markers as well as morphological marked elements. On the other hand, some loanwords are partially berberized as they adapt to the Berber articulatory basis but maintain their Dialectal Arabic modalities markers.