Copyright

Wiktor Gębski

Published On

2024-04-15

Page Range

pp. 91–138

Language

  • English

Print Length

48 pages

3. Verbal morphology

Chapter of: A Grammar of the Jewish Arabic Dialect of Gabes(pp. 91–138)
This chapter aims to evaluate the similarities and differences between the verbal systems of the Jewish dialect of Gabes and other Maghrebi dialects. Notably, both Jewish Gabes and Jewish Djerba exhibit gender distinction in the 2FS forms marked by the /-i/ suffix, a feature absent in Jewish Tunis, where masculine forms are also used for the feminine. The study affirms the sedentary nature of Jewish Gabes, indicated by the /-āw/ suffix in verbs with a weak third radical in stem I, in contrast to the /u/ found in Bedouin dialects. Regarding the vowel distribution of stem I verbal forms, Jewish Gabes shares similarities with neighbouring Jewish dialects, particularly in the basic theme vowel being /ə/ or /a/ in proximity to gutturals. In contrast, Muslim dialects and Jewish Wad-Souf demonstrate a broader array of vowel qualities. Additionally, the analysis reveals that Jewish Gabes has developed an alternative method for expressing the passive voice, a bipartite construction involving an active verb with a personal object pronoun.

Contributors

Wiktor Gębski

(author)
Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Cambridge
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2577-6553

Dr Wiktor Gębski is a linguist specialising in Arabic dialectology and Hebrew. Hailing from Poland, he completed his BA and MA in Hebrew and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Warsaw. Between 2014 and 2016 he pursued Hebrew and Arabic studies at the University of Tel Aviv as a scholar of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2022 he gained his PhD from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge. His doctoral dissertation The Jewish Dialect of Gabes (Southern Tunisia): Phonology, Morphology, Syntax was written under the supervision of Professor Geoffrey Khan. It entailed documentation of this endangered North-African Arabic dialect. The project was based on extensive fieldwork in Israel and France, during which Dr Gebski recorded the last native speakers of Jewish Gabes. For his work towards the preservation of Jewish linguistic heritage, in 2022 he was awarded the Oliver Cromwell Prize in Jewish Studies. Currently, Dr Gebski is a Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellow at FAMES, Cambridge, where he teaches Modern Hebrew and conducts research on Jewish and Muslim varieties of spoken Maghrebi Arabic. His academic interests involve language endangerment, the syntax of spoken Arabic, and language contact between Jewish dialects of Arabic and Israeli Hebrew.