ON THE TYPOLOGY OF THE NEGATION MARKER MÂ IN MODERN ARABIC DIALECTS: KUWAITI, JORDANIAN, SUDANESE, AND YEMENI

Modern Arabic Dialects (MADs) have an identical morphological system with some similarities and differences in the choice of the negation morphemes. The main concern of this paper is to discuss the typological properties of the negation morpheme mâام and its variation in four Modern Arabic Dialects (MADs), JA (Jordanian Arabic), KA (Kuwaiti Arabic), SA (Sudanese Arabic), and YA (Yemeni Arabic) taking into account two negation strategies identified by Brustad (2000), namely Verbal Negation and Predicate Negation. Specifically, the study will shed light on the types and positions of the negation morphemes regarding VN and PN strategies. The study employed a descriptive-analytical approach. The data were taken from previous studies on negation in MADs and online sources, i.e., published articles and YouTube. The study found that when the negation morpheme mâ ام is used as a one-negation system or a two-negation system, as a verbal and predicate negation, it changes to the negation morpheme mâام due to phonological conditions and its preverbal position. The study concluded that three negation templates might be generalized in the four dialects, namely one-morpheme template, two-morphemetemplate, and predicate negation template. Moreover, blocking of the negation morpheme movement in the sentences happens to do to phonological conditions.


Introduction
Arabiyât and one negative morpheme. 7 Besides, in Yemeni Arabic, negation is expressed either by a single preverbal negative marker or by a discontinuous negative marker that is realized as both a preverbal and post-verbal clitic at the same time and the omission of the negative marker mâ-in Yemeni dialect is due to phonological process. 8 Furthermore, in Kuwaiti dialect, the non-discontinuous negation mu-is used and all negative elements carry neither tense nor agreement. 9 Khawla Ghadgoud 10 in her dissertation defended in Manchester University compared the negation marker in the Libyan Arabic and Modern Arabic Varieties. She concluded that there are essential roles that she believes they determine the usage of the negation markers in the Libyan Arabic, namely, "the type of the predicate, such as verbal and nonverbal predicates, as well as the form of the verbal predicate, such as active participle as opposed to other verbal forms". Furthermore, her conclusions give "a comprehensive account of several negative elements in Libyan Arabic, namely the negative auxiliary, negative particle maš ‫,ماش‬ and miš ‫مش‬ as a metalinguistic marker, and establish the morpho-syntactic properties and pragmatic functions of these elements". She goes beyond the syntactical and semantic functions of the negation markers to claim that they give pragmatic functions "negative auxiliary is used for a specific pragmatic function, which is to deny assumed background information". It also found that even though miš ‫مش‬ is not a negation marker exclusive for metalinguistic negation, it is a unique metalinguistic marker that signals the metalinguistic reading of verbal sentences. 11 Al-Horais 12 studied the interface between syntax and information structure, focusing on the Arabic negation marker laysa ‫.ليس‬ He used the interface-based approach to investigate the negation marker laysa ‫ليس‬ in interpreting focus under negation, paying emphasis to the interaction between the semantic and syntax from a formal generative perspective. His findings showed that the negation marker laysa ‫ليس‬ might express the focus in two different ways, namely "the information focus and the contrastive focus", which leads to three different readings of focus, namely, wide, bound, and free. 13 Arabiyât Zoubir and Amine 14 investigated the negation system in the Modern Standard Arabic claiming that negation is a universal system found in all languages, but the negation system in the Arabic language distinguished itself from other systems in western languages. He adds that this negation marker mainly found in the Arabic dialects ma..sy ‫ماش‬ is in parallel with French and English languages. The negation marker ma-‫ما‬ is mostly used in the modern Arabic dialects and is found in a pre-verbal position in both the perfective, as in ‫أحد‬ ‫جاء‬ ‫,ما‬ and imperfective, as in ‫الحق‬ ‫يقول‬ ‫.ما‬ 15 To date, many modern studies on the MAD take into account the syntactical properties of the negation neglecting the morphological features. Thus, typologically, the principle concern of this paper is to investigate the sentential negation system of four Modern Arabic Dialects, namely Kuwaiti, Jordanian, Sudanese, and Yemeni from the perspective of the morphology of the negation morpheme. Interestingly, the four languages under investigation are members of the MSA that belongs to the Semitic language family. More specifically this paper is aimed to reveal what similarities and differences of negation morphemes concerning the structure of the negation system of the four languages and come out with generalizations that may contribute to the studies of the linguistic of MAD. The purposes of this study was to find the typological properties the negation marker mâ -‫ما‬ has in the Kuwaiti, Jordanian, Sudanese, and Yemeni dialects and the usage of the negation marker mâ -‫ما‬ in the Kuwaiti, Jordanian, Sudanese, and Yemeni dialects.

Method
The study used a descriptive-analytical approach in describing the usage of the negation marker ma-‫ما‬ in four Arabic dialects, namely Kuwaiti, Jordanian, Sudanese, and Yemeni. The data were taken from a published doctoral dissertation regarding the syntaxes negation of the Yemeni Arabic. The other sources were two journal articles of the Jordanian Arabic and a series of published speeches on YouTube. In addition, authentic books on the sentential negation system in the modern Arabic dialects like Brustad (2000), Benmamoun and Benmamoun, et la (2000& 2010) respectively, and Hales (2004 for Gulf Dialect data. The aforementioned books included data from different MADs. Regarding the Sudanese Arabic, online videos, including Sudanese drama and episodes were adapted for collection data. Finally, the researcher himself and Ahmed"s study of negation in the Yemeni Arabic were the main sources for collecting data of the YA. For syntactic analysis features of the negation system of MAD under investigation, the study adapted the extensive representation by Benmamoun et.al,16  Arabiyât the negation system in four languages Kuwaiti, Egyptian, Morocco, and Syrian focusing on the syntactical and pragmatic features of the four dialects and identified three strategies of negation namely, verbal negation, predicate negation, and categorical negation. Based on the given two-types of negation in Table 1, the researcher did not go on the details of all the three categories, but he concerned on his analysis on two strategies, namely verbal and predicate negation focusing on the negation marker ma-‫ما‬ and its variation in the four languages under investigation.

Result
As mentioned earlier, the concern of this paper was to investigate the phenomena of the negation morpheme structure, focusing on two negation strategies verbal and predicate strategies. The negation marker mâ -‫ما‬ and its variation were taken into consideration. Table 2 below summarizes findings of the negation markers in the four languages, it is marked by [] if the negation marker is present and the [-] when the negation marker is absent in the four dialects.
As Table 2 demonstrates, nine variations of the negation morpheme mâ -‫ما‬ have been identified in the four dialects. However, not all of the dialects under investigation share all of them. For example, the Kuwaiti Arabic has two negation markers, namely, mâ ‫ما‬ and mû ‫,مو‬ the Jordanian Arabic has all the variations of the negation morpheme mâ -‫,ما‬ that are listed in the table above, the Sudanese Arabic has four variations of the negation morpheme, namely mâ ‫,ما‬ musy ‫,مش‬ maho ‫,ماىو‬ and Arabiyât mafi/sy/i ‫,مايف/ماش/ماشي‬ and the Yemeni Arabic like JA has almost all the variations excluding the negation marker mee-.

Correlation of mâ ‫ما‬ and Personal Pronouns
Brustad has identified the first correlation pair between the negation marker mâ -‫ما‬ and the personal pronouns in four MADs from a syntactic and pragmatic perspective. Adapting Brustad"s classification, the four dialects contain different agreement with the pronoun. In other words, ma-sy ‫ماش‬ hosts subject clitics, 17 as shown in the table below and has been inspired by. 18  Table 3 shows, all the four dialects above treat the negation morpheme mâ -‫ما‬ as a pre-pronoun without a morpheme /-sy/, as in the Kuwaiti and the Sudanese Arabic, or with the morpheme /-sy/, as in the Jordanian and the Yemeni Arabic.

Arabiyât
Looking closely to the KA of which that the negation morpheme mâ-‫ما‬ itself has variation morphemes. The variations morphemes are derivational morphemes of the first person, second person (masculine and feminine), duality, and third-person when function as the head element in which the phoneme /a/ has been infixed or modified by the phoneme /i/ and, apparently, the final clitic morpheme -sy/i has no postposition in the KA. In the JA, YA, and SA, the negation morpheme ma-has no additional infixing. Many changes in the morphology of the negation morphemes in the languages under investigation will appear as we go further in this paper.

Verbal Negation
Verbal negation is broken down into two parts. The first part is concerning the morphology of the one-morpheme negation and the second part is about the twomorpheme negation. The two parts discuss the cross-linguistic differences and similarities in the choice of the negation morpheme structure regarding perfective and imperfective verbs, leaving their semantic, grammatical, and pragmatic functions for further research. a. One-morpheme Negation: Perfective mood The negation morpheme mâ ‫ما-‬ 19, (the discontinuous) in the four languages, is used to negate the imperfective and perfective verb forms, 20 and has the feature of affixation. It can be assumed that in the Kuwauti, Jordanian, Sudanese, and Yemeni languages, the one-morpheme negation marker mâ -‫ما‬ is essential element for the sentence negation, but the two-negation marker is optional. The examples [1] through [5] illustrate the one-morpheme negation particle mâ -‫ما‬ from the four languages in the perfective tense of the verb (past form): You Neg see.past.3fs it.

Kul-ma hawalt asal liah ma-qadarta (speaker /he/)
Every time (I) try.past reach-her NEG cannot "Every time I try to reach her, I cannot." 19 When the negation morpheme "ma" is attached with a hyphen ma-it means that it is has the possibility to be attached with other suffix negation marker, i.e. -sh as in mush… on the contrary, when the same morpheme is followed by dots ma… there is usually verb slot followed by the suffix negation marker -sh, as in ma-suftu-sh. 20  As the examples in [1] through [5] illustrate, three conclusions concerning the one-morpheme negation are drawn. First, no difference is found in the negation morpheme mâ ‫ما‬ in the four languages. Second, there is a logical stem-stem combination (there is no affixation required in a one-negation system) of the negation particle mâ -‫ما‬ and the perfective verbs in the sentences. Third, the negation particle mâ -‫ما‬ takes place as a pre-verbal negation marker.

Al-walad ma-a(ad)-bi-num YA
The-boy NEG-IMERF-sleep "The boy does not sleep" you not understand Arabic.
"You do not understand Arabic?.
[9] ‫قبل‬ ‫دينار‬ ‫بنصف‬ ‫كان‬ ‫مو‬ ‫اجد،‬ ‫و‬ ‫وهللا‬ Walah wajid, mu kan b-nissf dinar qabal KA Honestly, much. NEG-is.past IMERF-half-dinnar before "Honestly, too much. It was not half Dinnar before" As the examples above illustrate, the four dialects show some differences from the Modern Standard Arabic MSA, in which the negation particle mâ -‫ما,‬ in the present Arabiyât tense form, is directly attached to the predicate without a required affixation, as in ‫ا‬ ض‬ In other words, The KA, JA, SA, and YA have affixation between the negation marker and the host verb. Meaning that there is infixation, known as "slot" in templatic morphology, 21 to the stem-stem style mâ -+ verb ‫الفعل‬ + ‫ما‬ by the morpheme /bi/ to indicate that the action of the verb to which the infix attaches is in the continuous action and yielding the form (NEG-IMERF+VERB) template. The example in [7], which is from the YA and is somehow complicated, has two possible explanations. First, there are two affixations, namely, the verb ?dd 22 ‫عد‬ and the imperfective marker bi-‫ـ‬ ‫ب‬ in the negation of the verb. Second, phonologically, the IMREF /bi-/ in the JA requires the vowel /a/ of the verb, and a vowel /u/, which requires assimilation between the consonant /d/ in the verb ?dd ‫عد‬ and the consonant /b/ in the imperfective mood of the verb num ‫,نوم‬ means "to sleep". From the perspective of sociolinguistics, the KA belongs to the gulf dialects, and it is common to negate nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, particles, and prepositional phrases by the negation marker mu-‫مو‬ and usually used before words with "initial double consonants". 23 However, like the example shown in [9] that mu-‫مو‬ can be used to negate a verb (b) in its past tense. To this end, it can be generalized that all MADs have either affixation after the negation marker ma-to negate imperfective tenses but not the perfective tense. b. Two-morpheme Negation As the data shows, it can be said that all Modern Arabic Dialects under investigation share the two-system negation marker (the continuous negation form), namely ma…sy/i ‫ماش/ماشي‬ and its variations. From the four languages under investigation, there are two dialects, which use the two-negation system in their sentence negation, namely, the JA and the YA. Moreover, the KA and the SA use onemorpheme negation system, i.e., mâ -‫ما‬ in their sentential negation rather than the two-

Ma-shaddaqtt-a 24 SA
NEG believe-you-1 st "You did not believe" As the examples above illustrate, it can be identified that the two-morpheme derivational negation mâ ---sy/i ‫ماش/ماشي‬ is a continuous negation form. Meaning that the negation morpheme mâ -‫,ما‬ in the perfective mood, presents different derivational morphemes, such as -sy‫,ش‬ sy-i‫,شي‬ i-sy‫,إش‬ i-sy-i‫,إشي‬ u-sy‫,أوش‬ and na-sy‫انش‬ in the YA and the JA. However the JA and the YA share identical derivational-suffix-negations -sy ‫ش‬ and -syi ‫شي‬ , the JA has the infix -i-25 between the verb and the suffix negation marker -sy. Unlike the morpheme -i-in (d), which has no grammatical or morphological function, the morpheme -i-in [14] is infixed between the verb and the negation marker to indicate the feminine gender negation agreement. The SA shows germination instead of suffixation, as seen in the other dialects. To this end, it seems that all the dialects under investigation agreed to have different suffix morphemes than the MSA.
A two-negation morpheme is more likely to happen in the imperfective aspects of the verb in MADs. For example: [16] ‫الولد‬ ‫بينامش.‬ JA

I-walad ma b-nami-sy
He-boy IMPRF-sleep-NEG "The boy does not sleep"

Wallah ila yum al-abad ma bi-ybta'a
Honestly, to-the last-day it(house) NEG sell "Honestly, to the last day it will not be sold".

Arabiyât
As the examples [16] through [19] illustrate, many typological conclusions seem to be drawn. One general conclusion is that all the four dialects under investigation have a mid-affixation and a final verb suffixation. Although the affixation and suffixation is in all the four dialects, the mâ -‫ما‬ negation morpheme is hosted by different types of morphemes in each dialect with some similarities like the affix bi-‫ـ‬ ‫بي‬ in the JA and the YA. In addition, these host imperfective morphemes, such as b ‫ـ‬ ‫,ب‬ bi ‫ـ‬ ‫بي‬ , sya ‫شا‬ , ba ‫اب‬ , ad ‫عد‬ , and rah ‫اح‬ ‫ر‬ are placed before the verb. Another conclusion is regarding the two-negation system in the imperfective tense in which each dialect presents a different imperfective morphemes. For example, the JA has two imperfective morphemes, namely, mâ + b-, The examples in [20] and [21] illustrate the use of the negation predicate mâ -‫ما‬ and its agreement with the accusative case ‫ـ‬ ‫.أخ‬ The difference between the first and the second example is that the interlocutors in the first example are male, whereas the interlocutors in the second example are women. Therefore, the agreement between the negation predicate ma-‫ما‬ and the accusative case akhi ‫أخي‬ in [20] is accurate and proper to fit the rule of negation+ predicate+accusative case. Unlike the example in [20], the accusative case in [21] is akhi ‫أخي‬ instead of ukhti ‫اخيت‬ "sister", which does not change, as the interlocutors are female. Thus, the consequential agreement of the negation (mâ -‫ما‬ )+ predicate (habitah ‫حبيتو‬ "love") + accusative case (akhi ‫ايخي‬ "brother") instead of negation (mâ -‫ما‬ )+ predicate (habitah ‫حبيتو‬ "love") + accusative case (ukhti ‫أخيت‬ "sister"). Thus, the negation morpheme ma-in the SA is used to negate the transitive verb with accusative case marker yakhi whether the interlocutor is a male or female.
To conclude, the four dialects under investigation have a two-morpheme negation system in the perfective and imperfective tenses. The JA and the YA use the ma-sy/i template, the KA uses the ma-un (in the plural) and [-] (in the singular) template, SA uses the ma-yakhi template. 29

Predicate negation
Previous research on the negation of the MADs, i.e., Brustad identifies four predicate negation particles found in four languages Kuwaiti, Syria, Egypt, and Morocco. These particles are mu-‫مو‬ , mahu ‫ماىو‬ (masculine), mahi ‫ماىي‬ (feminine), misy ‫مش‬ and masyi ‫ماشي‬ and are used to negate nominal sentences. As shown in Table 2 above, all the negation particles do not have any affixations. In other words, the negation marker ma-‫ما‬ presents two properties, it is directly connected with another negation particle in the four dialects, e.i., ma+fi ‫فعل‬ + ... ‫ـ‬ ‫مافي‬ as in mafi ‫مايف‬ 'onemorpheme negation" marker or as in mâ+fi+sy ‫فعل‬ + ‫ـ‬ ‫+ش‬ ‫ـ‬ ‫فبي‬ ‫ما‬ as in mafisy ‫مافيش‬ "twomorphemes negation" marker. This feature and many other similar features can be found in the four dialects under investigation. For examples: [22]  As the examples in [22] through [25] illustrate the independent negation particles mafi ‫,مايف‬ mafisy ‫مافيش‬ , mafisyi ‫مافيشي‬ , and maku ‫.ماكو‬ They are independent Arabiyât predicate negation markers because the predicate cannot be slot within the negation predicate marker, like the two-morpheme negation. Unlike the one-morpheme and two-morphemes the negation in which the negation is on the sentence level, the predicate negations are used only with a phrase level. However, Brustad has discussed and categorized the negation particles of two eastern and western dialects, she did not provide a clear explanation why do the pre-position negation marker mâ -‫ما‬ has been modified to mu-‫مو‬ in some MADs. I argue that it is not arbitrary and randomly happened. It can be confirm that when the negation morpheme mâ -‫ما‬ is transferred to the negation morpheme mu-‫مو‬ is "phonologically conditioned", 30 and this is the second property.
Therefore, it can be said that the mu-‫مو‬ negation morpheme is the allomorph of the negation marker ma-‫.ما‬ For example:  Stonham & Francis Katamba, Morphology, 2006. 31 A. Mrayat, "Negative Particles and Morphemes in Jordanian Arabic", 89. 32 This type of analysis raises another problem regarding the phonological distribution of the negation markers in the MSA that needs further research in this area. Arabiyât typological area of the choice of morpheme of the negation morpheme is regarding the personal agreement.
The second conclusion or "generalization" is about the morpheme movement to the IMERF placement in the imperfective tense. Earlier is given the negation formula in the imperfective tense NEG+IMERF+VERB+NEG in which there is "slot" between the two negations, namely the IMERF and the verb whereas. The predicate negation, on the other hand, has the formula NEG+NEG of which the suffix negation marker is usually attached to the negation mâ -and its allomorphs, i.e. misy. Consider the following examples from JA, SA, YA, and KA (rarely):

Blocking
In some cases, the sentence in some MADs, e.g., the KA, the JA, the SA, and the YA contains two verbs, namely, the negation verb and the main verb of the sentence. As illustrated in example [33] below, the pre-verbal negation mâ -‫ما‬ is blocked to have the suffix-negation morpheme -sy ‫ش‬ in the main verb, e.g., yadir ‫يدير‬ in the SA. This type of blocking happens only if the negation morpheme ma ‫ما‬ is used to negate sentences in the "perfective" tense and the "imperfective" tense, but not in the future in all MADs. Thus, I can argue that the prevention suffix-negation -sy ‫ش‬ to be attached to the main verb is when the sentence contains two verbs the -sy is blocked to be transferred to the main verb of the sentence, e.g., the Kuwaiti dialect suffixnegation morpheme -sy, which is prepositioned in the first verb bga+ ‫بغى‬ the suffixnegation -sy, as in mabgasy ‫.مابغاش‬ The second type of blocking is concerning with the predicate negation in the MADs sentences. As illustrated in example (b) below, the negation contains the suffixnegation morpheme -sy that is attached to the main verb marouf ‫معروفش‬ (this case is rarely used), and it considers ungrammatical in the MADs in which the suffix-negation morpheme is blocked to be attached to the negation morpheme ma for unclear reasons. On the contrary, sentence (c) is the alternative of sentence (b), which is grammatically correct in the MADs, but it is not in correct in the MSA. The blocking in sentence (c) of the -sy suffix negation morpheme is in the verb marouf ‫معروفش‬ because the negation marker is already pre-positioned with the prefix-negation ma-. For example: the "ma-anna" ‫أنا‬ ‫ما‬ , which becomes "ma-niisy/nasy" ‫مانيش/ماناش‬ in the JA and YA. In its morphosyntax, it is proposed that "the "ma" and the "ma…sy/I" variations are separate heads Pol and Neg, respectively in which the "ma" is specified for semantic negation, whereas "ma…sy/I" is merely formally negative". 35 As the one-morpheme negation, the negation marker "ma" is found in the four dialects, which is used to negate the imperative and the perfective verb forms, which is similar in function with the negation in the Hijazi Arabic in Saudi Arabic, 36 and " only for a (+V features)". 37 Typologically, the differences occur in the morphosyntactical properties of the linguistic elements that construe the negation marker mainly in the affixation and infixation, see table 2 above. Other differences occurred due to phonological and sociolinguistic reasons. For example, as stated earlier that it is common to negate nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, particles, and prepositional phrases by the negation marker "mu-" ‫مو‬ , and it is "usually used before words with initial double consonants". 38 The significant difference in the negation marker is in the two-morpheme negation, which has several types of affixations and infixation, such as in NEG+PREDICATE+DM (Derivational Morpheme). In other words, the JA and the YA have similar, but not typical, derivational morphemes, the SA is somehow closer to the MSA in the negation, and KA, as it belongs to Gulf dialects, has a different derivational the negation marker hosted a mid-affixation and final suffixation. The most common mid-affixation is the "b-" ‫,بـ‬ and its allomorphs, such as "bi" ‫بيـ‬ , and "ba" ‫,با‬ which is found in JA, SA, and YA. The other common form is the final suffixation "-sy" ‫ش‬ with its allomorphs, such as "syi" ‫,شي‬ and "sya" ‫,شا‬ which is mainly found in JA and YA and it is not used as a negation marker but to assert and emphasis the negation. Such expressions that are not negations markers by themselves include "wala" ‫وال‬ and "hatta" ‫حتى‬ in Palestinian and Morocco dialects, which are "inword and express negative polarity item". 39 Surprisingly, the KA and the SA use the accusative case (e.g., "yakhi" ‫ياخي‬ in the SA) rather than the final-suffixations.
The other typological phenomenon is the predicate negation in which the negation "ma-" is used to negate nominal sentences and is affixed with the particle "fi" ‫في‬ in the JA, SA, and the YA, and the particle "ku" ‫كو‬ in the KA. Another phonological phenomenon is the substitution of the negation marker "ma" into "mu" in the JA, SA, and the YA. It can be generalized that the "mu" ‫مو‬ negation morpheme is the allomorph of the negation marker "ma" ‫.ما‬ The predicate negation, on the other Arabiyât hand, has the formula (NEG+NEG (assertive)) of which the suffix negation marker is usually attached to the negation ma-and its allomorphs, e.g., "misy" ‫.مش‬ To this end, the negation marker "ma-" is blocked to have affixation at the final suffixation level, such as /-syi/ ‫شي‬ in the YA by some phonological features and some unclear reasons.

Conclusion
This paper is a typological study discussing and clarifying the nature of similarities and differences of the pre-verbal negation system mâ -‫ما‬ and its variations in four MADs, namely, Kuwaiti, Jordanian, Sudanese, and Yemeni. Similarities and differences have been found in the four dialects. Regarding the similarities, the study concludes that three negation templates might be generalized in the four dialects, namely one-morpheme template, two-morpheme template, and predicate negation template. Although, the negation templates may be generalized in the four dialects, in some cases blocking is restricting the templatic phenomena.
Regarding the differences, the study concluded that not all the dialects have the same affixation in the imperfective tense and the suffix negation marker in the imperfective and predicate negation strategies. In other words, KA and SA do not (gradually but rarely) use the negation marker ma without any suffixation, i.e., the suffix negation morpheme -sy ‫.شـ‬ From this phenomenon, I argue that KA and SA will develop and have the same negation markers as in the YA and JA as the centuries go. To prove that, YA, many years ago, not use the suffix negation morpheme -sy ‫شـ‬ (emphatic morpheme) in the imperfective tense and the predicate as well but with the spread of media YA developed its negation system mainly from Egyptian Arabic. In addition to the aforementioned, there are some phonological conditions controls the negation-suffix movement in the sentences in the MADs.[]