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vs THETIC STATEMENTS IN KUWAIT] ARABIC
By

Mousa Qasem

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages

2006

ABSTRACT
VS THETIC SENTENCES IN KUWAITI ARABIC
By
Mousa Qasem

The syntactic order of constituents in a sentence has been argued to reﬂect the
flow of information such that old information tends to precede new information in a
number of languages. Given the association of old information (or topic) with the subject
of a sentence on the one hand, and new information (or focus) with the predicate on the
other, some authors proposed that SV(O) word order is a pragmatically ideal word order,
e.g. Rivarol (1784) (cited in Lambrecht 1994: 199) and that VS(O) word order blatantly
violates the old before new sequence of information, e.g. Raney (1984), Creider and
Creider (1983) and Herring (1990).

In this thesis, I show that VS statements in Kuwaiti Arabic, which allow an SV
alternative, represent “all-new” or thetic statements. This means that VS statements in
Kuwaiti Arabic do not contradict the old-before-new principle of information structure. I
show that thetic statements, which include VS statements, have certain discourse
properties that distinguish them from categorical statements. Most importantly, the

sentence non-initial subject in thetic statements should represent Discourse-new

information.

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

I am thankful to God for giving me the energy and time to ﬁnish this work and
handle the coursework simultaneously. After God, I would like to thank Professor
Barbara Abbott, the chair of my thesis committee, for supervising this work. Without her
great help and patience, this thesis would not have seen the light of day. Her detailed
comments helped shape the contents of this thesis and improve it drastically. Not only did
Professor Abbott teach me how to write, but she also taught me how to think
independently. I am also greatly indebted to Professors Grover Hudson and Endo Hudson
for serving in the committee and for their constant help during the various stages of
writing this thesis.

I am grateful to all teachers and friends at the Department of Linguistics in
Michigan State University. I would like to extend my thanks to all the people back in
Kuwait, whether family or friends, who supported and still supporting me in my studies.
Descrving special mention is Professor Madeline Haggan, who took me under her wings
at Kuwait University and kept supporting me all the way through.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Anam Al-Fadley, for her enormous

support and for creating the suitable environment and making this work possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIST OF TABLES V
LIST OF FIGURES VI
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION '

CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND 5
2.1. THE FUNCTIONAL SENTENCE PERSPECTIVE .......................................................... 5
2.2. WHAT IS INFORMATION STRUCTURE? .................................................................... 8
2.3. OLD AND NEW INFORMATION ................................................................................ 10
2.4. OTHER SENSES OF OLD AND NEW .......................................................................... 15
2.5. ON THE CATEGORICAL/THETIC DISTINCTION ....................................................... 18
2.6. THE FORMAL MARKING OF THE THETIC AND CATEGORICAL STATEMENTS ........ 23
2.7. VS(O) LANGUAGES AND THE INFORMATION STRUCTURE PRINCIPLE? . ............... 25
2.8. VS(O) WORD ORDER REVISITED ........................................................................... 27
CHAPTER 3 BASIC FACTS ABOUT KUWAITI ARABIC 29
3.1. KUWAITI ARABIC .................................................................................................. 29
3.1.1. The basic word order in Kuwaiti Arabic ....................................................... 31
3.1.2. The shift from VSO to S V0 ........................................................................... 34
3.1.3. VS sentences in Kuwaiti Arabic ..................................................................... 37
3.2. EXAMINING VS SENTENCES IN KUWAITI ARABIC ................................................ 39
CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS 45
4.1. THETICITY IN KUWAITI ARABIC ........................................................................... 45
4.1.1. VS thetic utterances in Kuwaiti Arabic ....................................................... 46
4.1.1.1. Types of VS thetic statements in Kuwaiti Arabic ............................ 46
4.1.1.2. Characteristics of VS thetic statements ............................................... 48
i. Discourse-newness ....................................................................................... 48
ii. Full lexical NP coding ................................................................................. 54
iii. Prosodic unity ............................................................................................ 55
iv. Completed, past tense events .................................................................... 59
4.1.2. ﬁ-l Paku-thetic statements .............................................................................. 60
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND REMAINING QUESTIONS ..... 63
5.1. SUMMARY .............................................................................................................. 63
5.2. REMAINING QUESTIONS ......................................................................................... 64
5.2.1. What’s pragmatic about word-order? ........................................................... 64
5.2.2. Why aren ’t there VS 0 thetic statements? ..................................................... 65
REFERENCES 68

TV DRAMAS CITED 71

 

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Hearer- and discourse-status Of a discourse entity ............................................. l I
Table 2: Types Of given and new information .................................................................. 17
Table 3: Distinctions between thetic and categorical statements in Kuwaiti Arabic ........ 63

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1- Prince’s taxonomy of given and new information ............................................ 14

vi

Chapter 1 Introduction

It is believed that there are correlations between the syntactic order Of
constituents and the ﬂow Of information in a sentence. It has been Observed that Old
information tends to precede new information in a number Of languages. The subject is
generally seen as the entity which represents Old information. The verb, however, is a
constituent that typically carries new information. Given the association between Old
information and the subject of a sentence on the one hand and new information and the
verb on the other, some authors proposed that SV(O) word order is a pragmatically ideal
word order, e.g. Rivarol (1784) (cited in Lambrecht 1994: 199) and that VS(O) word
order blatantly violates the old before new sequence of information, e.g. Raney (1984),
Creider and Creider (1983) and Herring (1990).

For the nineteenth century philosopher Franz Brentano and his pupil Anton
Marty, human judgment was not always categorical in nature, having a subject-predicate
structure (see Kuroda 1972, Lambrecht 1987, Lambrecht 1994, Sasse 1987, and Wu
1992). These philosophers proposed another kind Of human judgment, the thetic
judgment which, unlike the categorical judgment, was logically unstructured consisting
Of the act of recognition or rejection of a material in a judgment. Accordingly, sentences
that were used thetically were viewed as ‘all-new’ utterances i.e. the whole utterance is
considered new. The notions ‘thetic’ and ‘categorical’ were ﬁrst treated as philosophical
concepts. The speaker’s judgment is what made a given expression thetic and another
categorical. Later, Mathesius (1882-1945) came to treat the difference between thetic and
categorical as an issue Of predication, a notion anchored in syntactic theory rather than

being a philosophical concept (see Sasse 1987).

Proponents of the two types of human judgment view argued that the VS/SV
word order difference exhibited by some languages is a reﬂection of the thetic/categorical
distinction. For them, VS sentences were thetic or ‘all new’ sentences. For example,
Sasse (1987: 535) claimed that using VS word order for thetic Statements is a strategy
employed by many SV languages including Modern Arabic dialects. Sasse (1987),
however, does not go any further than the claim he put forward regarding the VS/SV
word order difference. In fact, Sasse handles the thetic/categorical distinction as a matter
of the speaker’s assumption about the hearer’s expectation. While this may be true, we
cannot build linguistic theories solely based on the speaker’s or the hearer’s intentions,
expectations, or assumptions since we do not have access to the speaker’s or the hearer’s
mind and we cannot rely on their introspection. If we are ever going to claim that a
statement is thetic only because a speaker chooses it to be SO then we are not in the realm
of linguistics. My concern is echoed by Lambrecht (1987: 372-373) who states:

This dilemma [of the contrast between thetic and categorical being cognitive and
not always reﬂected in grammar] leads e.g. Ulrich (1985:34) to claim that the
German sentence Ich habe Angst ‘1 am afraid’ must be interpreted either as
categorical or as thetic, depending on whether it is seen as a response to the
question "What’s the matter?" or to "How are you feeling?" As far as I can see, the
difference between the two contexts is not a difference of grammar but only of
pragmatics. But pragmatic structure without corresponding grammatical structure
cannot be captured with rules of grammar and lies therefore outside the domain of
linguistics proper.

The claim I intend to make in this thesis is that if Sasse (1987) is correct i.e. if the
thetic/categorical distinction is mirrored in the VS/SV word order difference in the
Modern dialects Of Arabic, then we must ﬁnd certain discourse properties that distinguish

between SV and VS word orders in one Of these dialects, namely Kuwaiti Arabic, which

is considered an SV language variety. I believe this discourse factor is what Lambrecht

(1987: 375) refers to as the ‘degree Of cognitive and pragmatic accessibility’. Following
Lambrecht (1987: 375), I argue that when a referent is insufﬁciently accessible in a
discourse i.e. when an entity is new to the discourse, a categorical sentence containng it
is infelicitous. Instead, the referent must be Discourse-Old i.e. it must be previously
mentioned in the discourse for the sentence to be categorical. I also believe the reverse is
true. In other words, a thetic sentence can only be used when the subject noun phrase it
contains is Discourse-new. This means that the subject in a VS sentence in Kuwaiti
Arabic must be textually new. In this thesis, I am going to examine VS statements in

Kuwaiti Arabic and ﬁnd out if the subject always represents information new to the

discourse. I am also going to brieﬂy examine ﬁ/?aku-thetic statements, which correspond

to the existential there-constructions in English, and see if the same requirements for

theticity are met by this type Of construction. If the same requirements for theticity are

met by both VS thetic statements as well as ﬁ/Paku-thetic statements, then each type Of

construction Should lend evidence that the other is thetic.

In my analysis Of the Kuwaiti dialect, I used Kuwaiti TV dramas as my source for
the data. Any example taken from TV dramas is indicated by the episode number in
which that example appeared while any example without a source indicated is my own
construction. I am going to consider VS statements which allow an unmarked SV word
order as an alternative. I am going to see whether or not the subject in these statements
represents information new to the discourse, or in Prince’s (1992) terms Discourse-new
information. I will also see whether or not the subject in SV statements represents

information old to the discourse, or Discourse-Old information. I will consider the

beginning of a new scene that does not carry over from an immediately preceding scene
or the arrival Of a new participant as marking the beginning of a new discourse event.

It will be shown that the choice between SV and VS word order is triggered by
prior mention in the discourse. Speciﬁcally, if an entity has not been mentioned in prior
discourse, then VS word order containing that entity is deemed necessary. On the other
hand, if an entity has been mentioned in earlier discourse, then a VS thetic statement
containing that entity is infelicitous. Instead, an SV categorical statement is used. It will
also be Shown that thetic statements in Kuwaiti Arabic are distinguished from categorical
statements in different ways. First, the subject Of the thetic statement cannot occupy the
initial position of the sentence. Second, as I have mentioned above, the subject Of the
thetic statement must represent Discourse-new information. Third, the head of the subject
NP and the verb in thetic statements tend to form a single prosodic unit whereas these
constituents tend to be separated in categorical statements. Finally, the subject Of the
thetic statement must be a full lexical NP whereas this requirement is waived in
categorical statements.

The outline of the remainder Of the thesis is as follows: chapter 2 contains the
background for the topic and a review of the main literature in information structure and
the thetic/categorical distinction. In chapter 3, I will talk about Kuwaiti Arabic. Chapter 4
contains the ﬁndings. There, I am going to analyze VS thetic statements and ﬁnd out the
factor that triggers theticity in Kuwaiti Arabic. Finally, chapter 5 includes the conclusion

and remaining questions.

Chapter 2 Background

2.1. The Functional Sentence Perspective

Syntactic structure as represented by the order Of constituents in sentences and
utterances is believed to serve special pragmatic functions. According to Green (1996:
133), it has been “recognized for some time that there are correlations between the order
Of syntactic constituents in a sentence and the discourse role of the information which a
particular constituent represents.” Lambrecht (1994: 16) argues that “just as there are no
sentences without morphosyntactic and phonological structure, there are no sentences
without information structure.” Given the range of syntactic structure possibilities and the
alternative constructions available for speakers Of each language in expressing the same
proposition, choice among these structures is far from being arbitrary.

According tO Dahlgren (1998), it was Weil (1818-1912) who ﬁrst proposed that
sentence constituents may be ordered according to principles other than usual syntactic
and grammatical rules. Weil (1978: reprint) suggested that every statement is composed
of a point Of departure, ‘an initial notion,’ and a goal of discourse, the information to be
imparted. The point of departure is known to both the speaker and the hearer i.e. it is
common ground knowledge to both parties while the goal of discourse iS the new
information the speaker wants to impart to the bearer. Weil (1978: 29-30) gives an
example from Latin to Show how the same proposition that ‘Romulus founded the city Of
Rome’ can be expressed in various ways:

(1)a. Idem Romulus Roman condidit.

himself Romulus Rome built
‘This same Romulus built Rome.’

b. Hanc urbem condidit Romulus.

this town built Romulus

‘This town was built by Romulus.’
c. Condidit Roman Romulus.

built Rome Romulus

‘The building Of Rome was by Romulus.’
Weil indicates that in all three sentences the grammatical relations are the same, i.e. in all
the sentences, the logical subject is one and the same, Romulus; the attribute is the
property Of being founded, and the direct Object is Rome. The ﬁrst sentence, Weil (1978)
suggests, can be stated when Romulus was the topic of the prior discourse. The second
sentence may be said in the context of showing a traveler the city of Rome. The third
sentence may be said following a mention Of the great foundings. Although the
proposition is the same, the point of departure as well as the goal of the discourse is
different for each sentence. The points of departure are Romulus, Rome, and the idea Of
founding in the ﬁrst, second, and the third sentences respectively. The facts are the same
because the major syntactic constituents and the relation that holds among them is the
same. For Weil (1978: 30) “syntax relates to the exterior, to things; the succession of the
words relates to the speaking subject, to the mind of man.” Weil (1978: 30) refers to the
syntactic relation as the objective movement and the order Of words as the subjective
movement. It is important to note that Weil uses the term “syntax” to refer to the
grammatical and logical relations between the words of a sentence.

Weil suggests that the point of departure and the goal of discourse may sometimes
correlate with known and unknown information respectively. For example, in saying

Fred sold his house to pay his debts, it is likely in an unmarked context that the speaker

treats the sale of the house as the information known. But when he says in order to pay

his debts, Fred sold his house; the Speaker intends the selling Of the house as the
unknown information.

Weil (1978) distinguished between two kinds Of order: the ordinary order which
introduces the point of departure (known, previously mentioned information, or the entity
being spoken) ﬁrst followed by the goal (unknown or new information), and the pathetic
order which has the reverse order. The ordinary order, Weil (1978: 43—45) argues, mirrors
“the movement of the human mind itself” while the pathetic order occurs “when the
imagination is vividly impressed, or when the sensibilities of the soul are deeply stirred.”
Pathetic order, Wei] (1978: 47) argues, is characteristic of European languages like
English, French, and German Since these languages are normally hampered by rigid word
order while Greek for Weil (1978: 47) is “one of the most perfect languages that has ever
existed” since it is not constrained by rules in this regard. The following are examples of
the ordinary and pathetic orders:

(2)a. Ordinary order: In the mansion, we passed by a room that was dark and dusty.
From that room, scary voices could be heard.

b. Pathetic order: In the mansion, we passed by a room that was dark and dusty.
Scary voiced could be heard from that room.

AS can be seen from example (2-a), the second sentence begins with the known or
previously mentioned information, i.e. that room followed by the unknown information,
i.e. the hearing Of scary voices. In example (2-b), however, this order is reversed. The
order of information in the second sentence of example (2-b) is such that the new
information, i.e. the hearing of scary voices, iS introduced ﬁrst followed by the old

information, i.e. that room.

Thanks to Mathesius (1882-1945), the founder of the Prague School Of
Linguistics, the Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) approach in syntax was launched
(see Dahlgren 1998). Under this approach, which Weil had Opened, language was viewed

as serving some function, a Speciﬁc communicative goal. In 1942, Mathesius deﬁned the

notion Of theme (vychodisko) as the thing which is being talked about in the sentence and

the notion Of the rheme (jadro) as what the speaker states about this theme. Halliday

(1967) worked along the same lines of the other members Of the Prague School. He used
the term ‘information structure’ to describe the division of discourse into units of
information. Each unit consists Of an Optional component Of old or given information and

an Obligatory component Of new information.

2.2. What is information structure?

The organization of information in a sentence into old and new components came
to be known as ‘information structure,’ ‘information packaging,’ or ‘informatics’. The
tendency of Old information to precede new information in a sentence developed into a
principle that is often referred to as ‘the principle of information structure/packaging’ or
the ‘old before new principle’.l Vallduvi (1992) states that information packaging
“reﬂects the speaker’s beliefs about how this information ﬁts that hearer’s knowledge
store” (p. 10). Lambrecht (1994: 5) deﬁnes information structure as:

That component of sentence grammar in which propositions as conceptual
representations of states Of affairs are paired with lexicogrammatical structures in

accordance with the mental states of interlocutors who use and interpret these
structures as units of information in given discourse contexts.

 

' I will treat ‘the principle of information structure,’ ‘the principle of information packaging,’ and the ‘Old
before new principle’ as terms which refer to one and the same notion.

8

Although information Structure reﬂects a bundle Of psychological processes
involving a speaker making assumptions about the mental states of the hearer, these
psychological processes are Of interest to the linguist “only inasmuch as they are reﬂected
in grammatical structure” (Iambrecht 1994: 3). Therefore, information structure is taken,
by Lambrecht (1994), to be a “component Of sentence grammar.” In other words,
“information structure is not concerned with psychological phenomena which do not
have correlates in grammatical form.” (Lambrecht 1994: 3).

Propositions (which are abstractions and Objects of thought that describe states of
affairs) and “lexicogrammatical structures” tend to be paired by speakers in a way that
corresponds to the hearers’ mental store. This pairing of grammatical structure and
propositional information captures the notion Of information structure. To quote
Lambrecht (1994: 5), “the information structure Of a sentence is the formal expression of
the pragmatic structuring of a proposition in a discourse”. A proposition which has been
pragmatically packaged by a speaker is then unpacked by the bearer who presumably
processes it as informational rather than structural units. Lambrecht (1994: 6) uses the
expression “lexicogrammatical structures” as a cover term for the structural layout of
linguistic expressions as manifested by: prosodic marking, special grammatical markers,
certain forms of syntactic constituents, the position and ordering Of such constituents in a
sentence, the form of complex grammatical constructions, and speciﬁc choices between

related lexical items.

2.3. Old and new information

Chafe (1976: 30) deﬁnes given information as “that knowledge which the speaker
assumes to be in the consciousness of the addressee at the time of the utterance.” As for
new information, it is “what the speaker assumes he is introducing into the addressee’s
consciousness by what he says.” Chafe (1976: 30) says that there is a misconception
about how the notions of “new” and “given” information are used. He argues that taking
“given” information as already known to the addressee while taking “new” information
as unknown to the addressee may not be the ideal way of deﬁning “given” and “new”
information. Instead, “given” and “new” information should relate to what the addressee

is thinking about at the moment Of the utterance. Consider the following example:
(3) I saw your father yesterday. (Chafe 1976: 30)

According to Chafe (1976: 30), your father in example (3) above is normally taken as
new information; however, it is far-fetched that the addressee had no prior knowledge of
his father. For that reason, the NP your father represents information old to the bearer
since typically one would know his/her father. Therefore, this NP cannot convey
information that is new to the hearer. Although, the NP your father is supposed to
represent information Old to the bearer, such information is not expected to be in the
forefront of the hearer’s mind all the time. As a result, the ﬁrst mention of the NP your
father in the discourse would bring this information from the set of possible entities
stored in the hearer’s background knowledge to the foreground of his mind. In this way,

the NP your father acts as new information.

10

According to Prince (1981: 224), the speaker tailors the utterance in a way that
meets the demands of the intended bearer. Accordingly, information packaging involves
the speaker’s assumptions about the hearer’s beliefs and knowledge. The words
‘Old’l‘given’ and ‘new’ are used in two different ways in the literature. According tO
Prince (1992: 309), which is a revision of her earlier work Of (1981), old information can
be taken to mean that it is already known by the bearer i.e. Hearer-Old or that it has been
evoked in prior discourse i.e. Discourse-Old. New information, Prince (1992: 309) states,
can either indicate that the information is new to the discourse i.e. Discourse-new or it is
unknown to the bearer i.e. Hearer-new. If something is Hearer-new it must necessarily be
Discourse-new and if an entity is Discourse-Old then it follows that it is Hearer-Old
information. The reason behind these correlations, Prince (1992: 303, 309) tells us, is that
hearers are supposed to remember what they have been told at least in the course Of the
discourse. The intersection of bearer-status and discourse—status as Old and new gives us
three different possibilities as the following table illustrates:

Table 1: Hearer- and discourse-status of a discourse entity

 

 

 

Discourse-new Discourse-Old
Hearer-new Brand-new DOES NOT APPLY
Hearer-old Unused Evoked

 

 

 

 

Adapted from Prince (1992) p. 309

Brand-new information occurs when the speaker introduces in the discourse an
entity which he assumes not to be part of the hearer’s model. Unused information (like
“your father” in example (3) above) occurs when the speaker introduces information

assumed to be known by the bearer and which was not mentioned in prior discourse

11

 

(Prince 1981: 235-236). According to Prince (1981: 236) Brand-new information is
divided into two types: Anchored and Unanchored. In her words, “a discourse entity is
Anchored if the NP representing it is LINKED, by means of another NP, or ‘Anchor,’
properly contained in it, to some other discourse entity” (Prince 1981: 236). Brand-new
Unanchored entity lacks this anchor or discourse link. Thus, a guy in a guy I work with in
example (4) represents a Brand-new Anchored discourse entity since it is anchored or
linked to the NP I that stands for the speaker, a salient discourse participant and entity.
However, a bus in example (5) is a Brand-new Unanchored entity since there is no

discourse link to which this entity is anchored.

(4) A guy I work with says he knows your sister.

(5) I got on a bus yesterday and the driver was drunk. (Prince 1981: 233, ex d, c)

AS for the evoked entities, they are divided into two types: textually evoked and
situationally evoked. Textually evoked entities represent textually/discourse retrievable
information whereas situationally evoked entities represents information recoverable
from the extratextual context such as the discourse participants themselves (Prince 1981:
236) Therefore, he in example (4) above represents a textually evoked entity since it is
co-referential with a discourse antecedent. On the other hand, I and you in example (6)
below represent situationally evoked entities since they are recoverable from the physical

context of utterance rather than the utterance itself.

(6) May I help you?

12

Finally, the third type of discourse entities (not Shown in the table) is the
inferable. A discourse entity is said to be inferable when the speaker assumes the hearer
is able to infer it by means of logical reasoning from Evoked discourse entities or other
inferables (Prince 1981: 236). Accordingly, the driver in example (5) above is an
inferable entity since an assumed knowledge about buses is that they have drivers.
Another subtype Of inferables is called Containing Inferables. Like Inferables, Containing
Inferables are NPs which “require inferencing on the basis of certain background
knowledge we have” (Prince 1992: 307). But unlike Inferrables, the entity that causes the
inference in the Containing Inferrables lies within the NP rather than being in previous
discourse (Prince 1992: 307). Thus, we note that starting with the NP the pages in
example (7) below which maybe unfamiliar to the hearer does not make the sentence
infelicitous even though the entity which triggers the inference has not yet been

mentioned in the discourse.

(7) The pages of the book I bought fell out. (Prince 1992: 307, ex 21 b)
The following diagram (adapted from Prince 1981: 237) shows Prince’s full taxonomy Of

given and new information:

13

Figure 1- Prince’s taxonomy of given and new information

Assumed Familiarity

 

 

New Inferable Evoked
Brand-new Unused (Noncontainin g) Containing (T extually) Situationally
Inferable Inferable Evoked Evoked

Brand-new Brand-new
(Unanchored) Anchored

Prince (1992: 305-306) argues that inferables behave like Hearer—old entities in
that they relate to what the bearer is assumed to know e.g. that buses have drivers.
Inferables also behave like Discourse-old entities since their assumed familiarity stems
from the availability of an entity in the discourse that triggers the inference, e.g. a bus.
Inferables, however, are similar to Hearer-new and accordingly to Discourse-new entities
by virtue Of the bearer not being expected to already have the relevant entity in their
mind. From this it follows that inferables cannot be collapsed with any Of the other
categories.

Although very helpful, Prince’s taxonomy as well as Chafe’s distinction Of Old
and new information are made in reference to the bearer and/or prior discourse alone. But
is it only in relation to the hearer and/or previous discourse that we can characterize the
inforrnation-status of a given entity? In the next section, we are going to look at different

senses Of old and new that may not ﬁt well with Prince’s taxonomy of Old and new.

14

2.4. Other senses of old and new

Kuno (1972: 272) distinguishes ‘(non)anaphoric’ and ‘old/new information.’
According tO him ‘(non)anaphoric’ is a concept applicable to lexical items whereas
‘Old/new information’ is a “concept applied to the particular semantic relations which

lexical items enter into in the given sentence”:

(8)a. Among John, Mary, and Tom, who is the Oldest?
b. TOm is the Oldest. (Kuno 1972: 272, ex 1-5)

In sentence (8-b), Tom is anaphoric since it was mentioned in prior discourse. At the
same time, Tom represents new (unpredictable) information while is the oldest conveys

Old (predictable) information and accordingly the sentence could be paraphrased into:

(9) The one who is the Oldest is Tom. (KunO 1972: 272)

Gundel and Fretheim (2004: 176) suggest that there are two types Of giveness-
newness: referential givenneSS-newness and relational givenness-newness. For them,
referential givenness/newness “involves a relation between a linguistic expression and a
corresponding non—linguistic entity” (Gundel and Fretheim 2004: 176). Prince’s
taxonomy of given and new information ﬁts in this type of givenness—newness. As for
relational givenness-newness, which corresponds to Kuno’s concept of “new”
information, it “reﬂects how the informational content of particular event or state of
affairs expressed by a sentence is represented and how its truth value is to be assessed:

(10) A: Who called?
B: Pat said SHE called. (Gundel and Fretheim 2004: 177, ex. 3)

15

In commenting on the above example Gundel and Fretheim (2004: 177) state the
following:
If SHE in (3) is used to refer to Pat, it is referentially given in virtually every
possible sense. The intended referent is presupposed, speciﬁc, referential, familiar,
activated, in focus, identiﬁable, bearer-old, and discourse-old. But, at the same time,
the subject of the embedded sentence in this example is relationally new and,
therefore, receives a focal accent.

Kuno’s (1972), and Gundel and Fretheim’s (2004) deﬁnitions of given and new
show that the same constituent may represent old information and new information at the
same context depending on what “old” and “new” are taken to mean. For example, Tom
in (8-b), and SHE in (10) above both represent Hearer-old information. The entities
represented by Tom' and SHE also convey Discourse-old information and accordingly
they are given information under Prince’s framework. In other words, these NPS are old if
we disregard their relation to other constituents in the sentence. In combination with the
other constituents, however, the NPS denote new, unpredictable information. For
example, the NP Tom by itself represents Discourse-old and Hearer-old information. At
the same time, the NP Tom conveys new information when it is viewed in combination
with the whole utterance in (8-b). This means that viewing the whole utterance together
rather than any other smaller constituents that make up this utterance is what brings the
relational type of givenness-newness to life.

Thus, referential givenness-newness can be taken as that type of givenness-
newness that is determined by knowledge of the bearer and/or mention in prior discourse.
This type of givenness-newness is independent of any particular immediate context

because no matter where the entity occurs in the current discourse its informational status

is predetermined as old or new by virtue of being already (un)known by the bearer or

16

(un)mentioned in previous discourse. On the other hand, relational givenness-newness
does not refer to the referential knowledge of the hearer nor to the previous discourse; it
relates to the context in which the entity in question occurs. Thus, the NP Tom in (8-b)
represents old or given information wherever it occurs given that the hearer already has a
mental representation of that entity or that it was mentioned in previous discourse. At the
same time, the subject NP Tom in (8-b) above represents new information if we take into
consideration the context in which this NP occurred. Thus, Tom in Tom is the oldest, not
the NP Tom by itself, can be said to convey new information since “the particular
semantic relations which lexical items enter into the given sentence” cannot be realized
without taking into considerations the larger picture in which Tom is only a part.

The following table summarizes the different types of given and new mentioned above:

Table 2: Types of given and new information

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contributor Given/ Presupposed New/ Asserted

Chafe Chafe-given/activated Non-activated

Prince Hearer-old Hearer-new
Discourse-old Discourse-new

Kuno Anaphoric Non-anaphoric
Old New

Gundel and Fretheim Referentially-given Referentially-new
Relationally-given Relationally-new

 

 

 

Crucial to this thesis is another type of newness which stretches over an entire
utterance. This type of newness arguably occurs when a sentence or utterance is taken by
the speaker as a whole unit rather than being composed of a topic and comment.
Utterances of this sort correspond to the thetic or simple, rather than the double, type of
judgment. As will be seen, such statements surface only when all of their constituent

phrases are Discourse-new. In the next section, I am going to talk about the

17

 

thetic/categorical distinction. I will attempt to give a formal deﬁnition and provide

examples for each type of judgment.

2.5. On the categorical/thetic distinction

According to Wu (1992: 274) and Sasse (1987: 511), the l9‘h-century philosopher
Franz Brentano and his pupil Anton Marty challenged the traditional Aristotelian logic
which states that human judgment is all categorical in nature consisting of a subject and a
predicate. They proposed instead that there are two types of judgments: the categorical
and the thetic judgments. The categorical judgment “conforms to the traditional paradigm
of subject-predicate” structure (Wu 1992: 274). It consists of two distinctive and
successive acts: “the act of recognition of that which is to be made the subject and the
other, the act of afﬁrming or denying what is expressed by the predicate about the
subject” (Kuroda 1972: 154). In other words, the categorical judgment consists of the two
acts of: “naming an entity and making a statement about it” (Sasse 1987: 512).
Accordingly, it is also known as the double judgment. In contrast, the thetic judgment is
“logically unstructured; it merely expressed an event or a state or a situation” (Sasse
1987: 512). Thus, it is also called the simple judgment.

The basic logical structure of the categorical judgment is something like ‘A is B’
or ‘A is not B’, while the basic logical structure for the thetic judgment is something like
‘A is’ or ‘A is not’ where ‘A’ stands for a whole situation (Wu 1992: 274). An example
of a categorical judgment is a statement like John is clever, in which an entity is named

and the property of being clever is attributed. An example of a thetic judgment is a

18

statement about the weather such as it is raining. What this sentence expresses is the

fact/state/situation of raining rather than a statement about an entity.

(11) CATEGORICAL (double) Jqlhn is clﬁver
ENTITY STATEMENT
(12) THETIC (Simple) it is rawing
STATEMENT (Sasse 1987: 512, ex. 1, 2)

Since a thetic statement lacks a topic then there is no presupposed information. In
other words, an utterance has to be ‘all-new’ to qualify as a thetic statement. But what
does it mean for an utterance to be ‘all-new’ in linguistic, not logical, terms, given the
different senses of ‘new’ I have distinguished above? Also, is it necessary for a statement
to contain a non-referential subject (as in the case of weather expressions in English) or
even to lack the subject altogether2 in order for it to qualify as thetic? In linguistic terms,
a thetic statement is one in which there is no presupposed information at the level of the
discourse and, accordingly, the statement lacks the topic-comment structure. Instead, the
whole statement is a comment about some state of affairs. The requirement of being non-
presupposed is equally applicable to all verbs and NPs the thetic statement contains.
Moreover, it is not necessary for a statement to lack any syntactic constituent for it to be
regarded as thetic. In fact, thetic and categorical statements can be syntactically identical
(but morphologically or prosodically divergent). Therefore, a thetic statement can contain

a subject but this subject has to be non-topical.

 

2 I do not intend to equate the notions of ‘subject’ and ‘topic’ here. But, because most subjects are topics I
used the word ‘subject’ to capture this generalization.

19

Kuroda (1972: 161) proposed that the categorical/thetic distinction in Japanese is
marked by the use of the particles wa and go which are attached to the grammatical
subject of the sentence:

(l3) CATEGORICAL Inu wa hasitte iru.

dog running is
‘The dog is running.’
(14) THETIC Inu ga hasitte iru.
dog running is
‘There is a dog running.’ (Kuroda 1972: 161, ex 7.2, 7.1)

As can be seen above, the sentences are the same except for the particle go and wa
attached to the word inu. In both sentences the syntactic subject is the same, namely inu.
However, the sentence with wa particle attached to the subject corresponds to the
categorical type of judgment while the sentence with the go particle corresponds to the
thetic ‘subjectless’ (in the logical sense) type of judgment. Therefore, the sentence with
the wa particle attached to the subject conforms to the subject-predicate structure where
an entity is named and a statement about that entity is made. The sentence with the go
particle describes the same thing: an event of running which necessarily involves the
agent of the action. The ga-sentence, however, merely asserts the existence of an event.
Accordingly, the speaker’s attention is directed to the whole situation or event rather than
a single entity in that event. This is not to say that the categorical judgment does not
involve an event but that the speaker’s interest is directed towards the entity that initiates
that action and to which he wants to relate the happening of the event. It follows that the
subject of the wa-statements can only be a deﬁnite NP that represents an entity “familiar

to the speaker or whose identity has already been established to the Speaker and hearer”

(Kuroda 1972: 163). On the other hand, the sentences with the go particle tolerate

20

indeﬁnite subjects. We, therefore, can paraphrase the Japanese sentences in (13) and (14)
into (15) and (16) respectively:

(15) The dog, it is running.

(16) There is running of a dog.

A thetic statement appears under several names: ‘all new utterance/sentence,’
‘neutral description,’ ‘presentational sentence,’ ‘news sentence,’ ‘event-reporting
sentence,’ and ‘Sentence focus.’ Sasse (1987: 559) argues that the state of affairs that a
thetic statement expresses may consist of:

a. A Single entity (= an entity-central or presentative thetic expression).

b. A single event (= an event-central or impersonal thetic expression).

c. An event part of which is an entity.
In an entity-central/presentative thetic statement, an entity is introduced but no event is
reported about it. The event central/impersonal thetic statement contains no referential
NP; thus there is no entity about which a Statement can be made. It is noteworthy that
types a and b thetic statements are inherently thetic because either the predicate is lacking
(type a) or the predication base is lacking (type b). Typical examples of thetic statements

include utterances like a, b, and 0 produced in an unmarked context:

a. There is a God. (= an entity-central thetic statement).
b. It is snowing. (= an event-central thetic statement).
0. Henry is coming. (= an event part of which is an entity)

Sasse (1987: 566-567) provides a list of statements and expressions that are

typically used thetically:

 

3 The foregoing description of Japanese is based on Kuroda (1972), and that according to Mutsuko Endo
Hudson (p.c.), the situation is actually more complicated; see Shibatani (I990).

21

l. Existential statements (in a wider sense; presence, appearance, continuation, etc.,
positively and negatively)
2. Explanations (with or without preceding questions such as ‘what happened?’,
‘why did it happen?’ etc.)
3. Statements describing surprising or unexpected events.
4. General statements (aphorisms, etc.)
5. Background descriptions (local, temporal, etc., setting)
6. Weather expressions.
7. Statements relating to body parts.
The typical questions that elicit thetic statements can be:
What happened?
What was that?
What’s that noise?
How’s the weather?
What’s the matter?
What’s up/new?

Why are you happy/sad/angry?
What do you suppose I saw? (ex. 8 is from Kuno 1972: 298)

“HQMPPNP

With the exceptions of (7) and (8), these questions do not contain entities as topics about
which something can be predicated in subsequent discourse. Accordingly, these questions
normally elicit topicless utterances containing no presupposed information at the level of
the current discourse. This is also true of statements that follow warning expressions or

expressions of getting someone’s attention like:

1. Watch out!
2. Be careful.
3. Look out!

4. Looklllisten!
5. Oh look!

22

Of course thetic statements are not restricted to certain Situations or domains; they
can surface anywhere during a discourse depending on the speaker’s assumption about
the hearer’s knowledge and expectations. Thus, the same expression or sentence can in
some situations be used to make a categorical statement and in other situations to make a
thetic statement. The questions that arise here: 1) how is it possible to distinguish
between categorical and thetic statements? 2) IS the contrast between these two types of
statements only mental, i.e. does it only lie in the mind of the speaker and therefore it is

not reﬂected in his words?

2.6. The formal marking of the thetic and categorical statements
According to Lambrecht (1994: 137-138), the contrast between categorical and
thetic statements is made formally explicit across languages through the formal marking
of the subject NP. Lambrecht (1994: 138) lists ﬁve ways in which these NPS are marked
in some languages to signal the contrast between thetic and categorical judgments:
1. Accented vs. non-accented subject NP (English and German).
2. Postverbal vs. preverbal subject NP (Italian, German, Romance, Slavic,
and Chinese).
3. Clefted vs. detached NP (French, Welsh, and Arabic).
4. Special morphological markings on the subject, e.g. ga-marked vs. wa-
marked NP in Japanese (Japanese and Bantu).
5. Subject incorporation (Boni).
As can be noted, marking can be prosodic, morphological, or syntactic and it

always targets the subject NP. The reason for this, according to Lambrecht (1994: 234-

23

235), is that “topichood of the subject (or highest-ranking argument) is the deﬁning
criterion for the unmarked topic—comment (or predicate-focus) structure.” Therefore,
these different strategies target the subject in order to mark it as non-topical and leave the
sentence without the topic-comment structure.

The claim that utterances representing thetic judgments are pragmatically not
decomposable into topic-comment sequences, but rather represent a single unit of
information was maintained by Chafe (1974: 115), who observed that the difference
between thetic and categorical statements is intonationally marked in English. According
to him, sometimes both the subject and the verb convey new information, and the verb-
noun combination forms a conceptual unit. Sasse (1987: 569) gives the following

example to illustrate this point:

(17) The dog is barking. (Sasse 1987: 569, ex 137)

In commenting on example (17), which is said in response to a question like ‘what is
going on outside?’, Sasse (1987: 569) argues that the ability to bark is a distinctive
property of dogs; thus, nothing except trivial information is conveyed by the verb.
Accordingly, the utterance must be taken as a single unit. It follows that such utterance
constitutes a thetic rather than a categorical statement Since ascribing the act of barking to
dogs in that particular situation adds little information to the knowledge store of the
hearer. In another situation, this same utterance can be used to make a categorical/ double
statement. For example, if the dog in question was mentioned in previous discourse as in
the question: What ’s the dog doing now? The dog in example (17) will act as the topic of

the statement and a topic-comment structure is therefore established. Accordingly, it is

24

the context, not the expression itself, which causes the same sentence to be thetic in one

situation and categorical in another.

2.7. VS(O) languages and the information structure principle?

The old and new components of a sentence are associated with distinctions like
presupposition and assertion, topic and comment, theme and rheme, topic and focus,
background and foreground, and given and new. The subject is generally seen to
represent old information. The verb, however, is a constituent that typically carries new
information. Raney (1984) claims that “both subjects (a syntactic category) and topics (a
pragmatic notion) typically, although not necessarily, convey old information” (p. 50).
Raney (1984) attributes the rarity of VS(O) order to its violation of the universal
communicative principle. The category of deﬁniteness, Raney argues, applies to NPS and
it may be not applicable to verbs, which are “not good candidates for topic status” (p. 50).
This claim is supported by Du Bois (1987: 817). According to him “while new status is
apparently the norm for verb tokens, given status is the norm for nominal reference; thus
speakers should attend to new nominals as more unusual than new verbs.” This led some
authors to propose that SV(O) is the pragmatically ideal word order, e.g. Rivarol (1784)
(cited in Lambrecht 1994: 199) and that VS(O) word order blatantly violates the principle
of information packaging, e.g. Raney (1984), Creider and Creider (1983) and Herring
(1990).

As a result of the above, VS(O) word order displayed by VS(O) languages was
viewed as casting doubts on the universality of the information structure principle.

Lambrecht (1994: 200) raises the issue that some scholars oppose the proposal that the

25

principle of information structure is a universal one. These scholars argue that the
existence of verb—initial languages provides a good reason for rejecting the universality of
the information packaging principle Since in these languages, the sentence-initial position
is reserved for a ‘non topical constituent,’ namely the verb. Moreover, in footnote (1)
Ward and Bimer (2004: 173) remark that structuring of information on the basis of the
old before new principle may only be applicable to SV languages and that new
information has been argued to precede given information in some languages in which
the VS order is canonical.

The claim that new information precedes old information in VS(O) languages is
maintained by several authors. For example, Creider and Creider (1983) state that “any
argument in support of the universality of the order theme + rheme (made on the basis of
the presumed naturalness of the order old information + new information) are invalidated
by the facts of thematization in VSO languages” (p. 4). Tomlin and Rhodes (1979)
arrived at Similar conclusions for Ojibwa, a verb-initial language (p. 307). The ﬁndings of
Creider (1975), Tomlin and Rhodes (1979), and those of her own, led Herring (1990) to
conclude that “generalizing, we may state that in languages in which the basic order is
verb-subject, the order focus-topic is preferred, unless the topic is new or contrastive, in
which case, it appears initially” (p. 167).

The view that the existence of VS(O) languages rules out the universality of the
principle of information structure was based on the fact that these language have VS(O)
word order as their basic word order (i.e. an order in which the verb precedes the
subject). Therefore, the existence of VS(O) in itself caused troubles for the argument

supporting the universality of the information packaging principle.

26

2.8. VS(O) word order revisited

Lambrecht (1994) distinguishes between two kinds of pragmatics: conversational

and discourse pragmatics. According to him:
...while conversational pragmatics is concerned with the question of why one and
the same sentence form may express two or more meanings, discourse pragmatics is
concerned with the questions of why one and the same meaning may be expressed
by two or more sentence forms (p. 5).
Our aim here iS to ﬁnd out why speakers would prefer one of two (or more) semantically
equal sentence forms regardless of how marked any form may be. This aim is clear to
Lambrecht (1994), who states that “information structure analysis is centered on the
comparison of semantically equivalent but formally and pragmatically divergent sentence
pairs” (p. 6).

Given the association of old information and subject NPS on the one hand, and the
association between new information and the verb or the predicate on the other hand, it is
not totally unfair to adopt claims such as that of Rivarol (1784) (cited in Lambrecht 1994:
199), who argued that SVO word order of French is the ideal word order. At the same
time, it is more illuminating to investigate the applicability of the information structure
principle to languages which possess different word orders that are on equal level or
slightly varying degrees of markedness than languages with rigid canonical SV(O) order.
It can be argued that speakers of the so-called free word order languages or languages
with less rigid basic word orders have at their disposal a wider range of syntactic
constructions allowed by the freedom to choose alternative word orders without imposing
more cost on markedness. It iS the task of pragmatics to inﬂuence these speakers in

preferring certain constructions over other semantically equivalent constructions. I claim

that VSO order which is the basic word order of Classical Arabic, for example, is less

27

rigid in that language than the SVO word order in English. The change from VSO of
Classical Arabic to SVO of Modern dialects of Arabic (as we are going to see later)
provides reasons to believe that the word order in Classical Arabic was ﬂexible enough to
have allowed such a change to take place. Also, the fact that SVO word order is a strong
competitor and a perfectly acceptable alternative to the basic VSO order in both written
and spoken Classical Arabic indicates that its basic VSO word order was less rigid. Thus,
one can detect the rationale behind Weil’s (1978: 47) view that Greek is a perfect
language since “it allows the mind complete liberty to choose what can best express all
the delicate Shades of its thought.” This advantage is not available for speakers of
languages with rigid word orders; therefore, the pragmatic effect in question will not be
so discemable in these languages. Thus, although it is true that VS(O) word order
generally violates the ‘old before new’ principle; we should not lose interest in VS(O)
word order and be tempted to exclude it from our functional analysis.

In chapter 3, I am going to start off with providing a brief background about
Kuwaiti Arabic and ﬁnding out its basic word order. Next, I am going to talk about the
change in the basic word order of Classical Arabic to that of Kuwaiti Arabic. After that, I
am going to talk about verb-initial sentences in Kuwaiti Arabic and how they are to be
analyzed. We are going to see some examples of verb-initial sentences and try to

determine what is common in all those examples.

28

Chapter 3 Basic facts about Kuwaiti Arabic

3.1. Kuwaiti Arabic

The Kuwaiti dialect is a variety of Arabic spoken in Kuwait which is a small gulf
country located in the north eastern comer of the Arabian Peninsula. Like other Arab
states, Kuwait represents a diaglossic community where two varieties of the same
language co-exist. The high variety is Modern Standard Arabic which is considered
today’s version of Classical Arabic. Kuwaiti Arabic represents the low or vernacular
variety used in Kuwait. Modern Standard Arabic is the variety used in formal situations
and in written texts. Thus, Modern Standard Arabic is used in print, news broadcasts,
historical drama, the Speech of cartoon characters, religious sermons, academic settings
and other formal situations. Kuwaiti Arabic, however, is the variety used in everyday
interaction between people in informal settings. Thus, the Kuwaiti dialect is used in the
communication between family members, friends, and laymen. Modern Standard Arabic
is the native language of no one in Kuwait and the Arab world. It is taught formally in
schools and accordingly it is the main language of written instruction in schools, colleges
and universities. Kuwaiti Arabic is the variety spoken at home and thus is considered the
native variety or the mother tongue of all Kuwaiti speakers since it is the ﬁrst variety
children are exposed to, whereas Modern Standard Arabic is not taught until the age of
ﬁve i.e. in the ﬁrst year of school. Kuwaiti Arabic is a spoken variety only and it is never
written except in informal letters, e-mail, or text message exchanges. Holes (2004: 50)
suggests that written colloquial Arabic is restricted to children’s comics and political

cartoons and certain types of informal writings not intended for public consumption such

29

as personal informal letters to friends, draft type-scripts, memoranda, informal documents
and ephemera. But the major type of written colloquial language, according to Holes
(2004: 50), occurs in some forms of nonfolkloric narratives, speciﬁcally drama, where
written colloquial “may be put in the mouths of characters or actors where the creation of
a naturalistic atmosphere is being aimed at.”

For non-Arabs as well as Arabs from outside the Persian Gulf region, Kuwaiti
Arabic sounds very similar to some of the dialects of Arabic spoken in Iraq and other
Arab Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman.
However, people of those countries can readily recognize and distinguish their dialects.
Kuwaiti Arabic is even more distinguishable from other dialects in the Gulf region due to
its popular TV dramas and comic plays. Other dialects of Arabic include: Jordanian,
Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Libyan, Tunisian, and Sudanese. The
differences among these dialects and the Gulf dialects can be great to the point of mutual
unintelligibility.

As for the relation Of Modern Standard Arabic, which is considered today’s
version of Classical Arabic, to other genetically related dialects of Arabic, speciﬁcally
Kuwaiti Arabic, there are two contradictory claims. The ﬁrst one holds that like other
dialects of Arabic, Kuwaiti Arabic is a daughter language of Classical Arabic. The
second claim contends that today’s diaglossic situation in which both Classical Arabic
and other dialects co—exist dates back as far as the history of the Arabic language goes.

It should be noted that some educated and cultured speakers of Kuwaiti Arabic
tend to use Modern Standard Arabic instead of Kuwaiti Arabic depending on

sociolinguistic factors like the situation and the topic. Other speakers use a mixture of

30

both Modern Standard Arabic and Kuwaiti Arabic known as al-wusta. However, it is an
easy task for the bearer, Parkinson (1981: 25) argues, to identify which variety (i.e.
colloquial or Modern Standard Arabic) is being used. The reason behind this is that each
variety is distinguishable by its verbal preﬁxes, negative and demonstrative constructions
and the common words used. I suggest that even pronunciation and word order play a
role in setting apart Modern Standard Arabic from Kuwaiti Arabic. According to
Parkinson (1981: 26), word order is one of the crucial markers that distinguish the high
variety from the low one. In addition to that, Classical Arabic resisted lexical change
while Kuwaiti Arabic has been inﬂuenced by many languages as evidenced by its lexicon

which contains many foreign words especially from the English language.

3.1.1. The basic word order in Kuwaiti Arabic

It is important to note that determining the basic word order of a language is not
without problems. Greenberg (1963: 61) suggests that each language has one and only
one dominant word order in addition to several alternatives. Greenberg (1963) offers no
explicit deﬁnition for what he calls ‘dorrrinant’ word order. He only sets up what he
refers to as ‘the basic order typology’ which involves three criteria: 1) the existence of
prepositions as against postpositions, 2) the relative order of subject, verb and object in
declarative sentences with nominal subject and object, and 3) the position of qualifying
adjective in relation to the noun (Greenberg 1963: 60-61). For Steele (1978: 587),
dominant word order means the “surface ordering of subject, object and verb relative to
one another that is at least more common than others.” Therefore, frequency is suggested

by Steele to be the factor which determines the dominant word order in a given language.

31

Steele provides a list of what should be excluded when determining the dominant word
order. The list includes subordinate clauses, non-declarative sentences, constituents other
than the subject, verb and object (e.g. adverbs), pronominal subjects and objects as well
as word orders that are highly marked (Steele 1978: 591-592).

In fact, subordinate clauses may lead the observer up the garden path when trying
to determine the dominant word order in Classical Arabic, for example, which is a

predominantly VSO language:

(18) jai'izSu as—samaku ﬁ l-maa?
Live the-ﬁsh in the-water.
‘Fish live in water.’

b. *i‘alIm-tu ?anna ja‘iifSu as-samaku ﬁ l-maa?
Knew-I that live the-ﬁsh in the-water.
‘I knew that ﬁsh live in water.’

c. i'alIm-tu ?anna as-samaka jaS‘izSu ﬁ l-maa?

Knew-I that the-ﬁsh live in the-water.

‘I knew that ﬁsh live in water.’
As can be seen above, sentence (a) consists of a main clause. The word order in this
clause is VSO. Sentences (b) and (c) contain subordinate clauses. In subordinate clauses
only SVO is allowed. Thus, sentence (c) is acceptable while sentence (b) is ruled out
because the subordinate clauses display VSO word order instead of SVO.

El-Yasin (1985) offers a diagnosis which no doubt will uncover the unmarked
word order in any variety of Arabic. This test requires constructing an example in which

both of the NP arguments of a transitive verb would be equally deﬁnite nouns and in

which no semantic focus or contrast is made (p. 112):

32

(19) Classical Arabic:
daraba mu:sa Yixsa
hit (3 mas. sg.) Mousa Issa.
‘Mousa hit Issa’

[El-Yasin 1985: 112, ex. 9]
The NPS in the above example are proper nouns; therefore, both are deﬁnite N PS.
Besides, no semantic focus is made. AS can be seen, VSO is the natural way to express
the notion that someone hit someone else in Classical Arabic. It follows that VSO is the
basic word order in Classical Arabic. This same diagnostic serves as a test that reveals the

basic word order in Kuwaiti Arabic as can be seen from the following example:

(20) Kuwaiti Arabic:

a. mu:sa tag Yizsa
Mousa hit Issa
‘Mousa hit Issa’

b. *tag mu:sa fizsa

hit Mousa Issa
‘Mousa hit Issa’

We can see from example (20) that the basic word order in Kuwaiti Arabic is
SVO. In his study of Gulf Arabic which includes Kuwaiti Arabic, Holes (1990: 107)
observed that the normal order in the Gulf dialects of Arabic is SVO (where S is normally
the tOpic). This is consistent with my observation that SVO word order is the order of the
majority of sentences in Kuwaiti Arabic, while VS word order comprises a very low

portion of the sentences in that variety of Arabic.

33

3.1.2. The shift from VSO to SVO

The basic word order in Classical Arabic is VSO4. SVO order in Classical Arabic

is considered marked:

(21)a. zara‘r’a zajd-un Sad3ara
planted Zayd-Nom a tree
‘Zayd planted a tree.’

b. # zajd-un zara‘i Sad3ara

Zayd-Nom planted a tree
‘Zayd planted a tree.’

In the grammar of Classical Arabic, verb-initial sentences are known as verbal sentences.
A verbal sentence has an unmarked status and it constitutes the preferred sentence type
compared to a noun phrase (NP)-initial or a nominal sentence which has marked status in
the language. The verbal sentence in (21-a) is unmarked in terms of word order while the
nominal sentence in (21-b) is considered marked (the symbol # stands for increased
structural markedness). A nominal sentence is preferred over a verbal sentence in
Classical Arabic only if the preverbal subject in the nominal sentence is contrastive or it
is the focus of the utterance. For example, sentence (22-b) with a preposed subject is a
more appropriate answer to the question in (22-a) than the V80 sentence (22-c) below.
Similarly, sentence (23-b) is more apposite than (23-c) in signaling a contrast in the agent

or the performer of the action:

(22)a. man zarai'a aS-Sad3ara
who planted the-tree
‘Who planted the tree?’

b. zajd-un zarai’a aS-Sad3ara
Zayd-Nom planted the-tree
‘Zayd planted the tree’

 

4 In this paper, only surface word order is considered. Underlying word order is not taken into account.

34

c. #zarai' zajd-un aS-Sadsara
planted Zayd-CASE the-tree
‘Zayd planted the tree.’

(23)a. ’qubir-tu ‘Panna zajdan ?afadda at-tai'aam
told(PASS)-I that Zayd prepared the—food
‘I was told that Zayd prepared the food’

b. bal Yizsa ‘Ia‘r’adda at-tai'aam
rather Issa prepared the-food
‘Rather, Issa prepared the food.’

c. #bal ?ai‘adda Yizsa at-tai’aam
rather prepared Issa the-food
‘Rather, Isaa prepared the food.’

Unlike classical Arabic, the unmarked, canonical word order in Kuwait Arabic is
SVO:
(24)a. Classical Arabic:
nama al-waladu
Slept the-boy
‘the boy slept’

b. Kuwaiti Arabic:
al-walad narm.

the-boy slept.
# na:m al-walad

Parkinson (1981: 25) states that the dialects of Arabic he is familiar with have
SVO as their basic word order departing from the V80 order in Standard Arabic. This
change (from VSO in Classical Arabic to SVO in Kuwaiti Arabic) may be part of a
universal tendency of natural languages to move from the marked to the unmarked
typologies. Upon comparing the basic word order of Classical Arabic and that of

Jordanian Arabic, El-Yasin (1985) concluded that a change in VSO order in the direction

of the more common SVO order had taken place. Parkinson (1981) observes that there is

35

an ongoing change form VSO to SVO word order even in Modern Standard Arabic. This
conclusion supports Greenberg’s (1963: 61) claim that VSO languages are a minority
among the world’s languages. In fact, Raney (1984) States that only ﬁve to ten percent of
the world’s languages have VSO order as the dominant surface word order (p. 47).

Raney (1984) explains the shift towards SVO word order in Welsh and Breton by
a tendency of languages to follow “a universal communicative principle of ‘old before
new’” in addition to the language contact situation which these languages were
experiencing (p. 53). I suggest that the same thing holds for Arabic. In other words,
Arabic through its modern Spoken varieties demonstrates a pragmatically motivated
change in the direction of the SVO word order. In fact, Raney (1984: 49) states that “it is
fruitful to consider the general information structure of communication as a possible
explanatory factor in word order change.”

Alternatively, it can be argued that the shift from VSO of Classical Arabic to
SVO of the modern dialects of Arabic is a syntactically motivated process. Under this
view, the collapse of the Classical Arabic case system characterized by the loss of case
endings resulted in a tendency to set the subject and the object apart in transitive
constructions. The subject was increasingly placed in a preverbal position as opposed to
the object which retained its postverbal position. Although it is possible that the loss of
case markings in Classical Arabic contributed to a change in its basic word order, it
would be unfair to claim that this change is chieﬂy attributable to the breakdown in the
case system. This is so because case is not always marked on the arguments of the verb in

Classical Arabic. There are nouns in the language which do not inﬂect for case in

Classical Arabic. Still, VSO word order is preferred. Sentence

36

(19) above is a good example of a VSO sentence where both arguments of the verb
daraba ‘hit’ are not inﬂected for case.

The shift from VSO to SVO in Arabic suggests that both word orders were
available to speakers of Arabic even before the change. This is supported by Greenberg’s
ﬁndings. In his words, “All languages with dominant VSO order have SVO as an
alternative or as the only alternative basic word order” (Greenberg 1963: 63). Raney
(1984: 50) suggests that “topicalization of the subject is a stylistic option in VSO. If it
becomes grammaticized, a VSO language can be said to have shifted to SVO.” This, in
my opinion, describes the process of word order change undergone by Arabic.

The above examples demonstrate that Kuwaiti Arabic shows a pragmatic
departure from Classical Arabic by demarking previously marked structures (i.e. SVO)
and assigning other previously unmarked structures (i.e. VSO) a marked status. The
question that arises here is: how are we going to treat the VS word order (the order in
which the verb precedes the subject) in Kuwaiti Arabic? Should we consider it a remnant
of a once dominant word order or simply a case of topicalization or verb fronting? Since
treating VSO word order as a residue of once a dominant word order or as a case of verb
fronting will not affect the claim made in this thesis, I will not pursue this point any

further.

3.1.3. VS sentences in Kuwaiti Arabic

Although presumably starting as a VSO language, Kuwaiti Arabic is now an

SVO language variety. This means that Kuwaiti Arabic is expected to conform to the

37

information structure principle more than its ancestor Classical Arabic. Although the
basic word order in Kuwaiti Arabic is SV, VS order (i.e. an order in which the verb
precedes the subject) is still used in intransitive constructions. Therefore, the principle of
information structure may not be so observed in Kuwaiti Arabic as in languages where
SVO is strictly imposed. A legitimate question that arises here is: why does Kuwaiti
Arabic still preserve VS word order when this order generally violates the ‘old before
new’ principle of information structure? An answer to this question requires us to
investigate the reasons behind the survival of this word order and in what situations it
surfaces. In fact, using Prince’s terms the postverbal subject may represent Hearer-old

information:

(25) tawwa dag Yala-j Rashid

just called on-me Rashid

‘Rashid has just called me.’ (Adeel el-Rooh episode 4)
By using a proper name, Rashid, in example (25) the speaker assumes the hearer to
already have a mental representation of that entity. In other words, the speaker is

assuming that the NP Rashid is Hearer-old information. Otherwise the speaker might

have said, for example, the following:

(26) tawwa dag Yala-j waahid

just called on-me somebody (m)

‘Somebody has just called me’

The verb dag ‘called’ in (25) introduces new information about the subject in
question. As opposed to the general tendency for old information represented by the
subject to precede new information conveyed by the verb, it may be argued that in

sentence (25) the ‘old before new’ principle of information structure is not observed. My

hypothesis here is that if verb-initial statements in Kuwaiti Arabic represent thetic or

38

‘event-reporting’ utterances, then there must be certain discourse properties that
distinguish between them and non-verb initial statements.
Reordering of syntactic constituents provides speakers with semantically
equivalent yet syntactically distinct forms. The rules of syntax do not instruct speakers to
choose between two well-formed sentences that converge on meaning and diverge in
word order. Also, markedness would be expected to inﬂuence Speakers to choose the
least marked structure (among semantically equivalent sentences), but this does not seem
to be the case in Kuwaiti Arabic where the marked VS order is sometimes preferred over
the normal SV word order. Fukada (1987) States that “Studies show that in situations
where there is more than one form to express the same proposition, each alternative has
distinct pragmatic value associated with it; i.e. choice between alternate forms is
governed by pragmatic principles” (p. 7). In referring to the word order variation found in
Nandi, a Nilotic VSO language, Creider and Creider (1983) argue that:
...for the language to utilize a word order so much at variance with its fundamental
ordering principle must require some powerful reason which is extraneous to the
linguistic system itself. The conversational interactional system in which the
grammar is embedded provides such a powerful reason. (p. 13)

3.2. Examining VS sentences in Kuwaiti Arabic

Several word orders are displayed by Kuwaiti Arabic. First, there is the dominant
SV word order which accounts for the vast majority of the sentences in Kuwaiti Arabic.
Second, there is the VS word order which is considered marked and serves as an
alternative word order for the dominant SV. Third, there is the OVS word order which is

considered highly marked but which nevertheless serves an important discourse function.

Other word orders like OSV and SOV are normally impossible in Kuwaiti Arabic.

39

Finally, VOS word order is impossible in Kuwaiti Arabic except when the object appears
as sufﬁx pronoun on the verb (which from now on I will refer to as V—oS i.e. V-
pronominal object S, see examples 25, 55, 59, and 60). It is noteworthy that VS, V-OS
and OVS share something in common which SVO word order does not have. This thing
is the relative order of the verb and the subject. In VS, V-oS and OVS word orders the
subject comes after the verb i.e. the subject is postverbal.

In my analysis of the Kuwaiti dialect, I used Kuwaiti TV dramas as my source for
the data. Any example taken from TV dramas is indicated by the episode number in
which that example appeared, while any example without a source indicated is my own
construction. I included representative instances of VS (and V-OS) statements I
encountered, and I only considered clauses where a choice between VS and SV was
possible and where both gave rise to the same meaning. Accordingly, subordinate clauses
were ignored since the word order in them was relatively ﬁxed. Negative constructions
were also excluded because only the verb could occupy the initial position after the

negation particle. Consider the following examples:

(27)a. ‘Pii‘tabri Khalid maat
consider Khalid died
‘Consider that Khalid died.’ (Ittijaah Jebri, episode 11)

b. *?ii’tabri maat Khalid
consider died Khalid
‘Consider that Khalid died.’

(28)a. laa jiéin saalim inna-h faahim kil Saj
not think Salem that-he understanding every thing
‘Let Salem not think that he knows everything.’

b. * laa saalimjiOin inna-h faahim kil Saj

not Salem think that-he understanding every thing
‘Let Salem not think that he knows everything.’

40

(29)a. maa d3a hasan illa jabi Saj
not came Hasan except (he)wants something
‘Hasan would not have come except that he wants something.’

b. *maa hasan d3a illa jabi Saj

not Hasan came except (he)wants something

‘Hasan would not have come except that he wants something.’
As can be seen, the word order in sentence (27-b) is VS. Since VS word order is a
possible word order in Kuwaiti Arabic, the ungrammaticality of (27-b) is not derived
from the order of the words but rather from a restriction banning VS word order in
embedded sentences. As for sentences (28-b) and (29-b), they are ungrammatical since
the negation particles laa and maa impose a restriction on the order of words following
them, namely that it has to strictly be a VS order.

There is another group of statements which regularly surface with a VS word

order, but which we will not be considering in this thesis. These are: 1) conditional “if-

then” statements signaled mainly by the presence of the conditional particles law or Pida

both meaning ‘if’, 2) statements containing time clause modiﬁers lamma, laj(n), or

kilmaa5 all meaning ‘whenever,’ 3) future tense constructions signaled by the use of the

modal auxiliary raah ‘will,’ which is to be distinguished from the verb raah ‘gone,’ 4)
statements introduced by the narrative cvaan ‘all of a sudden/next/then,’ which is to be

distinguished from Coon ‘would.’ The reason that these statements will not be considered

despite seeming to be naturally thetic is that the VS order in these constructions may be

 

5 In some of its uses, the time clause modiﬁer kilmaa has a closely related meaning equivalent to “the
more/less..., the more/less...” construction of English. It should also be noted that [ammo is usually
accompanied by present tense verbs while kilmaa is usually accompanied by past tense verbs and laj(n) as
well as ?ida are strictly accompanied by past tense verbs. However, the reading obtained from sentences
containing these items is usually generic or hypothetical; thus, they can be regarded as condition sentences
and accordingly the distinction between the items in (l) and (2) is blurred.

41

attributed to purely syntactic considerations rather than being pragmatically motived.
Speciﬁcally, it may be argued that what triggered VS word order in these statements is
the presence of particular lexical items. The following are some examples containing the

above lexical items:

(30) law/Yiba waafaq il-muSrif tinhal il—muSkilla
if approved the-advisor resolves the-problem
‘if the advisor approves, the problem resolves.’

(31) lamma jitig il-mutar tak8ir il-hawaadiO
when falls the-rain increase accidents
‘When rain falls accidents increase.’

(32) laj(n) yaab il-gatu lii‘aab il-faar
when disappeared the—cat played the-mouse
‘When the cat disappears, the mouse plays.’

(33) kilmaa qallat il-biOaaYah (kilmaa) zaadat il-‘ias‘r’aar

when decreased the-merchandize increased the-prices
When the merchandize decrease, the prices increase/T he less the merchandize,
the higher the prices.’

(34) bai‘ad saai‘ah raah tvi:b iS-Sams
after hour will set the-sun
‘After an hour, the sun will set.’

(35) Caan tinSag il-‘Paré

then cracks the-earth

‘then the earth cracked’

Kuwaiti Arabic is considered a pro-drop language variety. In fact, the subject does
not Show up in many of the sentences that occur in Kuwaiti Arabic except as a marker: a
sufﬁx or preﬁx on the verb. Parkinson (1981: 33) observes that “the normal situation, of
course, is simply a V0 sentence with subject understood from the agreement of the verb

and from context.” Sentences with null subjects as well as sentences with subject afﬁxes

were not included.

42

There are a set of expressions in Kuwaiti Arabic which also Show ﬁxed order in
all of their occurrences. I decided not to include these expressions despite the fact that a
great deal of them showed a VS order. The following sentences are few examples of

these expressions:

(36) baarak ?allah ﬁzk
blessed God you
‘God bless you.’

(37) taah l-hatab
fell the-wood
= ‘broke the ice’

(38) Oaag xulg-i

shrank tolerance-my

= ‘I felt down’
(39) zaarat-na l-barakah

visited-us the-blessing

‘Blessing visited us’ (= ‘welcome’)

Finally, I only considered declarative sentences with expressed and free-standing
subjects and verbs. Sentences without expressed verbs i.e. verbless sentences or small

clauses were also excluded from the analysis even if the subject was postposed. The

following are a few examples of verbless sentences in Kuwaiti Arabic:

(40) l—haraarah mirtatY ah
the-temperature high
‘the temperature is high’ (Ya Khooy, episode 2)

(41) d3iddaam—itj nus saai'ah
a head of-you (f) half hour
‘You have half an hour’ (Ya Khooy, episode 1)

(42) ?ubu-j naajim
father-my asleep
‘My father is asleep ’ (Theman Omri, episode 1)

43

(43) ?intaj il-kbirrah
you the-eldest

‘You are the eldest.’ (Theman Omri, episode 1)
(44) waraa-j dawaam

behind-me work

‘Work is awaiting me’ (Ya Khooy, episode 1)

44

Chapter 4 Findings
4.1. Theticity in Kuwaiti Arabic

It seems that speakers of Kuwaiti Arabic use V(-O)S word order when they intend
to convey that the whole utterance represents new information i.e. when they take an
utterance to represent a thetic type of judgment. My claim in this thesis is that, unlike
sentences with SV(O) word order, sentences that Show V(-O)S word order in Kuwaiti
Arabic are not subject to the topic-comment analysis and therefore they do not contradict
the principle of information structure. Such sentences are instances of the thetic type of
judgment. Under this approach, Lambrecht (1994: 139) states that the contrast between
thetic and categorical judgments is viewed as “the manifestation of two different logical
representations of the same propositional content.”

Interestingly, when the subject represents an entity that is unfamiliar to the
hearer, speakers of Kuwaiti Arabic tend to move it away from the initial position of the
sentence. This implies that the initial position of the sentence is reserved for topics, and
non—topical constituents should not occupy the initial position of the sentence. Kuwaiti
Arabic makes use of two different Strategies to mark a subject NP as non-topical:

1. Post-verbal subject NPS

2. Insertion of the existential particle ﬁ or Paku.

Both of these strategies would produce statements which I argued correspond to the thetic
type of judgment. Moving what would normally be the topic of the sentence away from
its usual position renders the sentence topic-less, or in Kuroda’s (1972) terms
“subjectless.” In the next section, I am going to talk about the ﬁrst strategy and provide

examples from Kuwaiti Arabic.

45

4.1.1. VS thetic utterances in Kuwaiti Arabic
4.1.1.1.Types of VS thetic statements in Kuwaiti Arabic

All the VS thetic statements I obtained are of type c thetic Statements (see 2.5
above), i.e. an event part of which is an entity. In fact, type c of thetic statements is the
only type attested in VS thetic statements of Kuwaiti Arabic. Entity-central and event-
central thetic statements are simply non-existent and cannot be expressed with VS thetic
statements in Kuwaiti Arabic. As mentioned above, in entity-central thetic statements an
entity is mentioned and nothing is reported about it. Since we are dealing with VS
statements i.e. statements containing verbs and subjects, then there must be an entity and
something reported about it. In other words, presentational constructions are impossible
to express with VS statements and even with any statement containing a verb. As for
event-central thetic statements, they are impossible to express because Kuwaiti Arabic
lacks the non-referential pleonastic pronouns, making it impossible for a VS statement to
only contain an event.

There are some statements (of type c) which made up most of the data obtained.

These are existential statements which include statements of appearance and
disappearance. In fact, the vast majority of the VS thetic statements I found relate to
statements of appearance and disappearance; however, other subtypes of thetic statements
do appear in Kuwaiti Arabic. Statements of appearance and disappearance almost
exclusively surface as thetic statements. The reason for this may be that an entity’s arrival
or departure is taken as a change in the situation and it is accordingly viewed as a new
event rather than a new action of the entity involved. The following are few examples of

thetic utterances which involve verbs of appearance and disappearance:

46

(45)

(46)

(47)

(48)

(49)

raah in-nahaar
gone the-day
‘the day is gone.’

?w§alat ?ixt ?ibli:s
arrived sister Devil
‘The Devil’s Sister arrived.’

bajjan Bu-Naser
appeared Bu-Naser
‘Bu-Naser appeared.’

jaat il-gubbisah
came the-jinx
‘The jinx came’

raah Siga Yumr-i killa
gone endeavor life-my all
‘All my life’s endeavor is gone.’

This pattern tallies with Lambrecht’s (1987: 373) observation about verbs of

(Daaret el-Ayyaam, episode 2)

(Daaret el-Ayyaam, episode 2)

(Daaret el-Ayyaam, episode 4)

(Daaret el-Ayyaam, episode 3)

(T ash w Rash, episode 9)

appearance or disappearance. According to him:

Even languages with rigid SVO word order like English permit subject-verb inversion

.. .the predicates most commonly permitted in SF [sentence focus] sentences involve
‘presenting’ verbs, i.e. intransit[i]ve verbs expressing appearance or disappearance
Of some referent in the internal or external discourse setting, or the beginning or end
of some state involving the referent.

when it comes to verbs of appearance. Consider the following examples:

(50)

(51)

There arrived two men.

Just behind him there came the mayor, handing out leaﬂets.

With other verbs, however,

constructions:

(52)

(53)

*There ate two men.

(Ward and Bimer 2004, ex. 23-b, p. 164)

subject-verb inversion results in ungrammatical

*Just behind him there slept the mayor, snoring like a beast.

47

Although not as frequent, other subtypes of the thetic Statements are attested in
Kuwaiti Arabic. These subtypes of thetic statements include: explanations, statements
describing surprising or unexpected events, general statements, background descriptions,

and weather expressions:

(54) kimal mahar bahluzla
completed bride price of Bahloola
‘Bahloola’s bride price is completed!’ (Madeenat Erreyah, episode 11)

(55) il-i'ad3u:z ?ittahmat-ni ?in—ni ?aana haraami w ilhiguz-ni iS-Surta
the-old lady accused—me that-me I thief and followed-me the police
‘The Old lady accused me that I am a thief and the police followed me.’

(Madeenat Erreyah, episode 11)

(56) tag il-mutar
hit the-rain
‘It started to rain.’

As can be seen from example (56), weather expressions in Kuwaiti Arabic, though thetic,

are not of type b i.e. event-central thetic statements. They belong to type c thetic

statements i.e. an event part of which is an entity.

4.1.1.2. Characteristics of VS thetic statements
i. Discourse-newness

As stated above, it is generally accepted that statements with V(-o)S word order
correspond to the thetic type of judgment as opposed to those with SV(O) word order
which correspond to the categorical type of judgment. But, if we are going to accept such
a claim without any linguistic evidence then we will end up making a hypothesis about
the mind and not the language. Therefore, we Should be able to ﬁnd certain discourse
properties distinguishing between thetic and categorical statements apart from the fact

that the subject appears in a sentence non-initial position in thetic statements but not in

48

categorical statements. I believe this discourse property to be what Lambrecht (1987:
375) refers to as the degree of discourse and pragmatic accessibility a referent of a
subject NP has in the discourse. Following Lambrecht (1987: 375), I argue that when a
referent is insufﬁciently accessible in a discourse i.e. when an entity is new to the
discourse, a categorical statement containing it is infelicitous and accordingly no topic-
comment relation can be established. Instead, a thetic statement is used.

The same requirement for theticity is pointed out by Sasse (1987) who states that:
“A THETIC STATEMENT IS U'ITERED ONLY IF THE ELEMENTS THAT WOULD CONSTITUTE THE
PREDICATION BASE AND THE PREDICATE IN A CORRESPONDING CATEGORICAL STATEMENT
BOTH CONVEY (TEXTUALLY) NEW INFORMATION” (567: small caps in original). The reason
for this, Sasse (1987: 570) argues is that “when both the entity and the event are textually
unestablished, the requirement of suddenness is fulﬁlled, and the background of
expectation must be deﬁned situatively rather than in terms of information structure.” In
Prince’s terms, the referent of the ‘would-be predication base’ has to be Discourse-new
for theticity to be achieved. Thus, the second clause in example (57) (which iS a
repetition of example (25) above) is anomalous because a VS thetic utterance cannot be
used if the entity named Rashid had been previously mentioned in the discourse. And
indeed, he was never mentioned previously in the actual discourse in which this example

originally occurred:

(57) Rashid maa daawarn il-jum li?ann-ah marizd # tawwa dag Yala-j Rashid
Rashid not attend today because-he sick just called on-me Rashid
‘Rashid did not come to work today Since he is sick. Rashid has just called me.”

The same condition applies for presentational there sentences in English.

According to Ward and Bimer (2004: 164), the postverbal NP in presentational there

49

sentences cannot represent Discourse-old information for the sentence to be felicitous. In
other words, the postverbal NP can represent Hearer-old but not Discourse-Old
information. When the postverbal NP represents Discourse-old information, the sentence
becomes infelicitous:

(58) As they laughed, John and the mayor began to move forward in a deliberate way.
John jiggled a tin cup in one hand and tapped a white cane in front of him with the other.
#Just behind him there came the mayor, handing out leaﬂets. (Ward and Bimer 2004:
p.164, ex. 24)

Therefore, for a VS or a V-0 S statement in Kuwaiti Arabic to be categorized as a
thetic statement we should ﬁnd that the subject of that statement to represent a Discourse-
new entity i.e. an entity which is newly introduced to the discourse. In fact, it is not
unusual to ﬁnd examples where the subject of the thetic Statement is an indeﬁnite NP. By

their nature, indeﬁnite NPS are used by Speakers to convey Hearer-new information

which of course means that they also represent Discourse-new information:

(59) tawwa rrrin Galaaeat ?ayyaam yaa-k ?in6aar
just from three days came-you(m) warning
‘Just three days ago, a warning came to you.’ (Ya Khooy, episode 1)

(60) ?aana l—baarhah daggajt falaj-k raddat Yala—j wahda

I the-last night called on—you answered on-me somebody(f)

‘I called you last night and a lady answered.’ (el—Hareem, episode 28)
The speaker utters (59) to inform her husband that he received a warning from his
employer for not showing up. It was the ﬁrst mention for the warning during the
conversation between the wife and the husband. Thus, ‘warning’ is Discourse-new as
well as a full NP. This means that that the subject of the V-o S statement satisﬁes the

conditions of theticity; hence, the statement is a thetic statement. Likewise, the subject of

the VS clause in (60) is indeﬁnite and it is therefore intended by the speaker to represent

50

Hearer-new information. Again, this means that the subject of the inverted clause is a
Discourse-new entity. In addition to that, it is a full NP. Therefore, the prerequisites for
theticity are met and accordingly the statement must be thetic.

Once the referent of an NP is established, it can no longer be used in a thetic type
of statement. Instead, a categorical statement in which the subject precedes the verb is
used. The following detailed example illustrates this point:

(61) (Salesman Sihrar knocks on the door and enters) (Madeenat Erreyah, episode 5)
a Salesman: ?is-salaamu Yalaj-kum

the-peace on-you(pl)

‘peace be upon you.’

b Shahbandar: ha S’alaj-kum ?is—salaam, S-jajb-ik ?int ?iSlu:n tjij
ha on-you the peace, what-brings-you you how come(you)
‘Ha! Upon you be peace. What brings you? How do you come and leave

wi thid ?id-dikkaan mbattal w [...] ?ann-h
and leave the-shop open and [...] about-it
the shop open and [. . .] it.’

c Salesman: ?wsalat gaaﬁlat “Pit-taad3ir salaamah w jabiz-k tid3i wi
arrived caravan the-merchant Salaamah and (he)wants-you come and
‘Merchant Salaamah’s caravan has arrived. He wants you to come and

tSuzf-l-ah mukaan hatta jihit bidaai’t-ah
ﬁnd-for-him place so (he)puts merchandise-his
ﬁnd him a place so he can keep his merchandise.’

d Shahbandar: tajjib tajjib tajjib xalaas xalaas rurh ruzh rurh ?aana jaaj waraa-k
OK OK OK enough enough go go go 1 coming after-you
‘OK. Enough. Go. I am coming after you. Go.’

e ?aanajaaj waraa-k ruzhjallah ruzhjallah ruzhjallahjallah
I coming after-you go go go

f Shahbandar (to dauaghter): ha, simaS’t-aj b-adurn-itj, ?ilﬂaaﬁlah [PAUSE] wsalat

ha? heard(you.f) with—ear-your the-caravan arrived
‘Ha? Have you heard? The caravan arrived

51

g wi t-taad3ir salaamah jantir-ni Yala Ytibat baab ?id-dikkan.
and merchant Salaamah waiting-me on step door the-shop
and Merchant Salaamah is waiting for me on the shop’s doorstep.

h ja salaam ?i1—gaaﬁlah l-mhammilah wsalat. Yala ﬁkrah ?aana jimkin
how wonderful. the-caravan the-loaded arrived. By way I may
How wonderful. The loaded caravan arrived. By the way, I may

Iatraxxar ha, li-?anni ?ittifaqt mai'a-h ?aana ?aSu:fil-bidaai‘ah
be late ha, for-I agreed with-him I see the-merchandise
be late ha because I agreed with him to see the merchandise

w ba-Stirir-ha kil-ha. mara s-salaamah.
and will-buy-it all-it. with peace.
and buy it all. With peace.”

Yasmine: mai'a s-salaamah jiba
With the-peace dad
‘With peace dad.’
As can be seen above, the word qaaﬁlah ‘caravan’ ﬁrst appeared as a postverbal
NP (line c). At that point, it was Discourse-new. Therefore, the statement containing it is
a thetic statement. When we look at the ensuing discourse, we ﬁnd that the now-
established or Discourse-Old NP qaaﬁlah ‘caravan’ also appears as a subject (line 1). But
this time it is a preverbal rather than postverbal subject. In other words, the second
mention of the word qaaﬁlah ‘caravan’ had to be made in a statement with an SV word
order which I argued corresponds to the categorical type of judgment. Thus, VS
statements may be viewed as preparing new subjects for further use as topics in
subsequent discourse.

Even statements of appearance or disappearance, which normally initially surface

as VS thetic statements, lose their theticity when the subject is established in previous

52

discourse. Instead, the words are permutated such that the statement is rendered
categorical. The following example illustrates this point:

(62) (Bahlool comes running to the Shahbandar and Merchant Salaamah)

Bahlool: Yamm-i, Yamm-i, Yamm-i S-Saahbandar, Yamm-i salaamah, lihqaw,
uncle-my, uncle—my uncle-my, the-Shahbandar, uncle-my Salaamah rush,
‘Uncle Shahbandar! Uncle Salaamah! Rush!

lihqaw. Yamm—i Yad3aad3 lam ?ihdu:m-ah killihum w tirak
rush. uncle-my Adgaag gathered clothes-his all and left
Rush! Uncle Adgaag gathered his all his clothes and left,

YinhaaS w xalla l-madizna
ﬂed and left the-city
ﬂed and left the city.’

Merchant Salaamah: ha aha haada Yint Simai‘t bi-On-ik, simai't b-iOn-ik
ha aha this you heard with-ear-your heard with-ear-your
‘Ha aha, now you heard yourself

ya Sibhandar. haaéa bahlurlu, bhajli:1 Sv-qaai‘id jigurl
oh Shahbandar. this Bahlool, Bahlool what-is saying
Shahbandar what is Bahlool saying:

Yad3aad3 ?ixtifa

Adgaag disappeared

Adgaag disappeared.’ (Madeenat Erreyah, episode 11)
In the last line of the above example, the speaker restated the disappearance of ‘Adgaag’
in an SV statement which I argued is categorical statement. Since, ‘Adgaag’ is mentioned
in previous discourse, its status as a discourse entity is established. In other words,
‘Adgaag’ represents Discourse-old information and therefore it cannot be used in a VS
thetic statement.

The subject and the verb cannot be topical for a VS statement to be felicitous.

Consider the following examples:

53

(63) A: minu maat
who died
‘Who died?’
B: #maat d3aasim

died Jassim
‘Jassim died’

C: d3aasim maat
Jassim died
‘Jassim died.’

(64) A: wajn d3aasim
where Jassim
‘Where is Jassim?’

B: #maat d3aasim
died Jassim
‘Jassim died.’
C: d3aasim maat
Jassim died
‘J assim died.’
As can be seen from example (63), when the verb is topical a VS answer becomes
infelicitous. Likewise, when the subject is topical as in example (64) a VS statement

cannot be used as an answer. This means that both the subject and the verb have to be

new for a VS thetic statement to be felicitous.

ii. Full lexical NP coding

Another requirement for theticity is that the postverbal NP has to be a full lexical
NP. Pronominal subjects are strictly excluded in thetic statements since the referent of a
pronominal subject is only known by virtue of being mentioned in previous discourse; a
thing which makes the subject of the statement represent Discourse-old information. Or,

if there was no prior mention of the entity in question then the statement containing the

54

pronominal subject will be infelicitous since the referent of that subject will be unknown.
In normal situations the answer to question (65-A) below would contain a full NP as in
(65-a). Sentence (65-b) would be an inappropriate answer for question (65-A) because it

contains a pronominal rather than a full subject NP.

(65) A. What’s the matter? (Lambrecht 1994: p. 137, ex. (4. 10 A))
a. My NECK hurts. (Lambrecht 1994: p. 137, ex. (4. 10 a))
b. *It hurts. (Lambrecht 1994: p. 137, ex. (4. 11 a))

Lambrecht (1994: 142-3) suggests that “the correlation between the grammatical marking
of theticity and the presence of an overt accented lexical NP in the sentence” has to do
with the “functional difference between lexical and pronominal coding of referents.” He
states that thetic statements introduce NPS whose referents have not yet been
pragmatically activated into the discourse. Full accented NP coding is a necessary
condition for the expression of such referents. This indicates that the ﬁrst and the second
requirements for theticity are interdependent. A postverbal NP has to be Discourse-new
information and Discourse-new information is expressed only with a full accented NP

coding.

iii. Prosodic unity

Thetic and categorical statements in Kuwaiti Arabic tend to be distinguished yet
by another property. Thetic and categorical statements tend to be prosodically distinct
from each other. There is a strong tendency for the verb and the head of the subject NP in
VS thetic statements to behave as a single prosodic unit and not to be interrupted by other
lexical items. Consequently, the verb and the head of the subject in VS thetic statements

Show more signs of assimilation. Conversely, the head of the subject NP and the verb of

55

the SV(O) categorical statements tend to be separated either by Short pauses or non-
obligatory lexical items. These lexical items, which may serve as hedges on the head of
the subject NP, range from Single words like adverbs and adjectives to whole phrases like
relative clauses. As a result, the head of the subject and the verb of the SV(O) thetic
statements Show little or no signs of assimilation.

When examining categorical statements in Kuwaiti Arabic, one sees that the head
of the subject and the verb are separated in various ways. The simplest way iS the use of a
short pause. For instance, when Shahbandar ﬁrst restates the arrival of the caravan to his
daughter in (line f of) example (61), above a short pause intervenes between the subject

and the verb. Then, Shahbandar restates the arrival of the caravan, but this time with the

adjective I-mhamilah ‘the loaded’ intervening between the topic Pil-qaaﬁlah ‘the

caravan’ and the comment wsalat ‘arrived’ (line h). The following examples also

illustrate this tendency of separating between the head of the subject NP and the verb of

the categorical statement:

a (66) Adel: jasmim jasmizn ?it-tajr. ?it-tajr illi kaan Sand-i ?ixtifa. . .
Jasmine Jasmine the—bird. The—bird which was with-me disappeared
‘J asmine! The bird which I had disappeared.’

[After Adel walks away]

b Shahbandar: jasmizn
Jasmine
‘J asrnine!’

Jasmine: naYam jiba

yes dad
‘Yes, dad.’

56

Shabandar2Sini saalfat ?it—tajr haabi
what story the-bird this
‘What’s the story of this bird?’

Jasmine: mako saj jiba. ?inta simai‘t is-saalfah. ?ir-rajjaa1jaaj
no there thing dad. you heard the-story. the-man (is)coming

jigull-i 'Pinnail-bibimattu [PAUSE] tear
to tell-me that the-Alexandrine Parakeet ﬂew

‘There is nothing dad. The man came to tell me that the parrot ﬂew.’

Shabandar: ?alhi:n jii-c nus il-lajl wi tiq il-baab
now (he)comes to-you mid the-night and knocks the-door

YalaSaan jigull-ic ?intaj min duzn ‘Pahal il-madizna
to tell-you you from apart people the-city

‘Now, he comes to you at midnight and knocks on the door to tell you
and nobody else in the city?’

Jasmine: ?i jibajimkin raj's ?inna rarer S'alaj-h rara‘éaan
yes dad maybe because that (Dsympathize with-him for

Eiai jaaj jigull-i ?innail-bibimattu [muss] taar
that (he)is coming to tell-me that the-parrot ﬂew

‘Yes dad. Maybe because I sympathize with him, for that he is coming
to tell me that the parrot ﬂew.’
(Madeenat Erreyah, episode 12)

In this example, the ﬁrst speaker announces that the bird he had disappeared (line a). As

can be seen, the speaker separates the head of the subject NP Pit-tajr ‘the bird’ which is

the topic of the sentence and the verb Pixtifa ‘disappeared’ which is the comment about

I the topic by a relative clause, the purpose of which is to provide more information about

the topic. When Jasmine restates what the ﬁrst speaker said (line e), she separates the

topic and the comment of her statement by a pause instead of a phrase or other words.

57

The following example also shows the tendency to separate the subject and the verb of

the categorical statement:

(67) Ghaneema: 7abaSri-k rawja il-hamdulillah xaffat. ..
(I)reassure-you Rawia the-praise to God improved
‘I would like to reassure you. Rawia, thank God, improved.’
(el-Hareem, episode 24)

As can be noted, the subject which is Discourse-old and the verb are separated by an

expression which does not bear on the meaning of the statement. The sentential adverb il-

hamdulillah ‘thank God!’ does not add new information about the subject of the sentence

nor does it alter the meaning of the clause. Moreover, the locus of insertion of this adverb
could have been before the subject or after the verb but the speaker inserts it between the
subject and the verb possibly in order to separate the subject, which is the topic of the
statement, from the verb, which is the comment of the statement.
Unlike categorical statements, the verb and the subject of VS thetic statements
cannot be interrupted by other lexical items:
(68) raasid tawwa wisal
Rashid just arrived
‘Rashid has just arrived.’
(69) wisal (*tawwa) raasid
arrived just Rashid
‘Rashid has just arrived.’
As can be seen, the insertion site for the word tawwa ‘just’ is between the subject NP and
the verb in (68), which is an SV categorical statement. In fact, this Site is the most

preferred site for inserting non-obligatory lexical items in SV categorical statements

compared to the sentence-initial or sentence-ﬁnal position. Separating the verb and the

58

subject NP of VS thetic statements results in ill—formed constructions as example (69)

illustrates.

iv. Completed, past tense events

Finally, there is a strong tendency for thetic expressions in Kuwaiti Arabic to
involve completed past tense actions. The reason for this may be related to how a speaker
views and processes completed events. In commenting on examples (70) and (71) below,
Chafe (1974: 115) states that unlike the example in (70), the verb and noun in (71) have
‘coalesced’ to form a conceptual unit. He argues that if we were to compare (70) with
(71), we would ﬁnd that “the relationship of ‘my sister’ to ‘death’ has not been
established as a unit in the speaker’s mind at the time she is dying; but after her death, he
will have come to think of the event as a single idea.” Therefore, it seems that conceptual
unity, hence, theticity is better expressed by completed actions and past tense verbs.
(70) My sister is dying. (Chafe 1974: 115, ex 5—b)

(71) My sister died. (Chafe 1974:115, ex 6-b)

As mentioned above, it is not necessary for thetic statements in Kuwaiti Arabic to
involve past tense verbs because there are thetic statements in the present tense (72) and

others which contain reference to the future

(73):
(72) ?inSalla tidhar il-haqirqah w jishurn “Rahal madirnat ir-rijaah...

God willing appears the—truth and awake people city Erreyah
‘God willing the truth appears and the people of Erreyah city awake.’

(Madeenat Erreyah, episode 14)

59

(73) baYad nus saai‘ah b-jirtiﬁi’ ?ashum Sirikat Sihaam biri'
after half hour will-rise stocks company Sihamm sell
‘Sihaam company’s stock will rise after half an hour. Sell (the stock).’

(el-Qaraar el-Akheer, episode 1)

4.1.2.fi-l Paku-thetic statements

Placing what would normally be the topic of the sentence in a postverbal
position is not the only way for marking theticity in Kuwaiti Arabic. Sometimes, the

speakers present thetic sentences in the usual progression of words, i.e. with an SV word
order. These sentences are preceded by the existential particles ﬂ and Paku. According to
Sasse (1987: 540) when the entire statement is preceded by the existential particle ﬂ, “the

‘subject’ loses its grammatical subjecthood and becomes a predicate noun.” Sasse (1987:

540) observes that subject in expressions introduced by the existential particle ﬂ is

regularly indeﬁnite. The same thing holds for the existential particle Paku. The following
are examples of thetic sentences introduced by the existential particles ﬂ and Paku:

(74) ﬁ taad3ir jigu:l ?inna—h min burristaan. ..
there merchant saying that-he from Buristan
‘There is a merchant saying he is from Buristan’
(Madeenat Erreyah, episode 3)

(75) n naas jaburn jiSurfurn-ik barra
there people requesting see-you outside
‘There are peOple who want to see you outside.’
(Madeenat Erreyah, episode 5)

60

(76) ?aku qaaﬁlah wsalat l-madirnha. ..
there caravan arrived the-city
‘There is a caravan that arrived in the city.’
(Madeenat Erreyah, episode 1)

AS can be noted, the existential particles ﬂ and Paku serve to introduce an event

part of which is an unfarrriliar entity which is syntactically indeﬁnite; thus expressing

type c thetic Statements. Other types of thetic statements namely type a (entity-central)

and type b (event-central) are possible in ﬁ/Paku—constructions:

(77) ﬁ/‘Paku rajjaal barra
there man outside
‘There is a man outside.’

(78) ﬁ/‘l’aku tag/hurSa barra
there hitting/ﬁght outside
‘There is hitting/ﬁght outside.’

Since the entity is unfamiliar, it cannot be placed in a position normally reserved for

old information. Thus, not only the existential particles ﬂ and Paku are used to introduce

thetic statements, but they also serve to displace new information from the initial position
of the sentence. Weil (1978: 33) comments on such linguistic phenomena saying that:

It happens sometimes that we can ﬁnd nothing which will prepare the hearer for that
which we wish to communicate to him, and that, not wishing to enter into the matter
without preparation, we begin with that which is most general, most indispensable,
but also most insigniﬁcant; namely, with the idea of existence pure and simple.
“There was a king.” I propose to tell you something that you do not yet know or that
you are supposed not to know (otherwise I should not tell it); it is evident that I must
lay hold of something that you already know, that I must make a beginning, be it
only for form’s sake.

Of course the existential particle ﬂ is not intended to repair a syntactically ill-formed

sentence since the sentence is well—formed even without this particle. It rather serves an

61

important discourse function which is displacing new information away from the

sentence initial position.

If statements introduced by the existential particles ﬂ and Paku are thetic, then
what we ﬁnd in VS thetic statements must also be found in ﬁ/Paku-statements. In other
words, the same requirements for theticity must be met by both VS and ﬁ/Paku
statements. Indeed, the same requirements for theticity are met by ﬁ/Paku—statements.
First of all, the subject ofﬁ/Paku-Statements does not occupy the initial position of the

sentence. Second, by virtue of being indeﬁnite, the subject NP of the ﬂ/Paku—statements

represents Hearer-new information and accordingly it must be Discourse-new

information. Finally, the subject Of the ﬁ/Paku-statements is always a full lexical NP.

Thus, it seems that theticity in Kuwaiti Arabic can be expressed by VS-statements and

ﬁ/Paku-statements and the properties we ﬁnd in one of these constructions lend support

for the other.

62

Chapter 5

5.1. Summary

Conclusion and remaining questions

In this thesis, I hope to have shown that verb-initial statements in Kuwaiti Arabic

correspond to the thetic type of judgment. The differences between categorical statements

and thetic statements in Kuwaiti Arabic are listed in the following table:

Table 3: Distinctions between thetic and categorical statements in Kuwaiti Arabic

 

Thetic statements

Categorical statements

 

The subject has to be in a sentence non-
initial position.

The subject must precede the verb (and the
object, if present)

 

The subject has to be Discourse-new.

The subject has to be Discourse-old.

 

The subject has to be a full lexical NP.

The subject does not have to be a full
lexical NP

 

The verb and the head of the subject NP in
VS thetic statements form more of a single
prosodic unit and Show more signs of
assimilation.

The head of the subject NP is usually
separated from the verb by a pause or other
lexical items; thus, there are less signs of
assimilation.

 

 

 

As shown in the table, the subject of a thetic statement Should occur in a sentence non-
initial position. The subject of a thetic statement in intransitive constructions as well as
transitive constructions in which the object is a pronominal sufﬁx occurs in a post-verbal
position. The subject of a categorical statement, however, cannot be preceded by the verb
or the object. It can only be in a preverbal position (and usually in the sentence initial
position). Furthermore, for a statement to be thetic, the subject NP it contains Should
represent Discourse-new information. This makes it necessary for the subject NP in thetic
statements to be expressed with full lexical NP coding. It is noteworthy that full lexical
NP coding is necessary (but not sufﬁcient) condition for Discourse—new entities. This

means that in a categorical statement, the Discourse-old subject NP can be expressed with

63

 

full lexical NP coding. Finally, contrary to what we ﬁnd in categorical statements, the

verb and the head of the subject NP in VS thetic statements act as a single prosodic unit

with nothing allowed to intervene in between.

VS thetic utterances in Kuwaiti Arabic were characterized as ‘all-new’ statements. This

made them exempt from the principles of information structure. In other words:
...verb-initial clauses have relatively little articulation of information structure at the
clause level - the whole utterance is neutral (or relatively new)... It is with non-verb-

initial (S, 0, etc.) structures that you get a more reﬁned information structure -
topic/focus, theme/rheme, given/new, what have you. (Hewitt 2004: e-mail)

The same ﬁndings for VS thetic statements were replicated in ﬁ/Paku-thetic statements.

Accordingly, theticity conditions are the same in Kuwaiti Arabic regardless of how a

thetic statement is expressed.

5.2. Remaining questions
5.2.1. What’s pragmatic about word-order?

An important question arises here: Why is it the case that in the Kuwaiti dialect
VS order is used for marking sentences as thetic? As mentioned above, placing the
subject NP in a postverbal position is intended to mark it as non-topical. But, aren’t there
other strategies for marking the subject NP as non-topical such as subject accentuation as
in English or special morphological markng as in Japanese? According to Sasse (1987:
542), when SV(O) word order is used in a language to represent the categorical type of
judgment, VS (or V-OS) word order is straightforwardly perceived as thetic and
accordingly is ideally appropriate for marking theticity. This is so because with VS word

order, the subject is moved “away from a position where it is most naturally interpreted

64

as the ‘theme’ (or ‘topic’) of the utterance” (Sasse 1987: 542). This change in word order,
Sasse (1987: 560) states, is used to “avoid the predicative interpretation of an entity-event
combination” and to “render the predicative relation nonpredicative.” Sasse (1987)
continues to say:
There are several possibilities to choose from. The simplest strategy is to exploit
the pragmatic implications of word order. According to the logical structure of the
human mind a predicative relation is conceived in such a way that the predication
base is stated ﬁrst, because an entity must be conceived of before it can be
commented on. It is therefore quite convenient and effective to signal a
nonpredicative relation by placing the dangerous candidate for the predication base
in a position where predication bases are not normally found. Not surprisingly,
then, we ﬁnd the word-order difference SV vs. VS to be a favorite grammatical
device for marking the distinction between categorical (SV) and thetic (VS)
statements. (p. 560)
Lambrecht (1994) shares the same opinion. In his words: “Once the function of the
topic expression is no longer to ANNOUNCE the topic referent but to mark its role as an

argument in a proposition, there is no longer any functional reason for the topic to appear

at the beginning of the sentence” (p. 201 ).

5.2.2. Why aren’t there VSO thetic statements?

If thetic Statements are verb-initial, then why don’t we ﬁnd VSO thetic
statements? Why are verb initial statements restricted to intransitive constructions or V-
OS constructions (where ‘-o’ stands for pronominal object sufﬁx)? Moreover, if we
assume that SVO statements where the subject occupies the sentence-initial position
correspond to the categorical type of judgment, then what would its thetic counterpart be?

When the subject is indeﬁnite, an SVO categorical statement can be rendered thetic by

65

the insertion ofﬁ/Paku-theticity expressing particles in the sentence-initial position. But,

what if the subject is a deﬁnite NP?

The reason why we don’t ﬁnd VSO thetic statements in which the object is a full
lexical NP may be related to the cognitive status of the object itself. Usually, the object
introduces entities that are unfamiliar to the bearer and new to the discourse. When, in a
statement (where the subject is a deﬁnite NP), VSO order is used to express theticity,
then the subject which is Hearer-old will intervene between the verb which normally
expresses new information and the object which usually represents new information.
Therefore, the ﬂow of information will be disturbed and the resulting progression of
information will have NEW-OLD—NEW sequence which is ruled by the principle of
information structure. But, isn’t this sequence of information found in V-OS thetic
statements? A possible solution to this problem is to think of the pronominal object,
which represents old information, as semantically incorporated into the verb it attaches
to. According to this solution, the pronominal object V-oS statements may be considered
invisible to principles of information structure and the resulting statement acts as VS
rather than V-oS statement. Moreover, the verb + object combination forms a conceptual
unit and for an element to intervene between the verb and the object would result in the
break up of this unity.

As for the thetic counterpart of SVO categorical statements, Kuwaiti Arabic
seems to mark such statements by the insertion of lexical items in the sentence-initial
position. The most common lexical items inserted in thetic SVO statements are tawwa

‘just,’ and tom ‘by the way.’

66

(79) tawwa it-tabizb xallas il-i‘amalija
Just the-doctor ﬁnished the-operation
‘The doctor has just ﬁnished the operation.’

(80) tara i’ali Sara sajjaarah jidizdah
by the way Ali bought car new
‘Ali bought a new car.

As can be seen from examples

(79) and (80), tawwa ‘just’ and tom ‘by the way’ are normally used to warn the hearer
that what is about to come is new information. It is not the insertion of such lexical items,
per so, that makes an SVO statement acquire its thetic reading but rather meeting theticity
requirements that render such statements thetic. Speciﬁcally, the subject Should: 1)
appear in a sentence non—initial position; 2) represent Discourse-new information, and 3)

be a full lexical NP.

67

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70

TV Dramas Cited
Adeel el-Rooh (2005) directed by Ramadan Ali, produced by Scope Center- Kuwait.

Daaret el-Ayyaam (date unavailable) directed by Abdulaziz el-Mansotrr el-Arfag,
produced by Kuwait TV.

el-Hareem (2003) directed by Ghaﬁl Fadhil, produced by Kuwait TV.

el-Qaraar el-Akheer (date unavailable) directed by Abulaziz el-Mansour, produced by
Kuwait TV.

Ittijaah Jebri (date unavailable) directed by Hasan Ibrahim Sultan produced by Kuwait
TV.

Madeenat Erreyah (1988) directed by Abdulrahman el-Shaigi, produced by Kuwait TV.
Tash w Rash (1993) directed by Ali Hussain, produced by Kuwait TV.
Theman Omri (date unavailable) directed by Abdulla el-Barrak, produced by Kuwait TV.

Ya Khooy (2003) directed by Mohammed Dham el-Shimmiri, produced by Kuwait TV.

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