Phonological and Morphosyntactic Variation in Palestinian Arabic: A Case of Ongoing Language Change
This study examines phonological and morpho-syntactic variation in Palestinian Arabic spoken in Gaza City, which represents a special contact context brought by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 1948 and the influx of thousands of Palestinian refugees to Gaza. The main concern is to find out whether this variation represents a case of ongoing language change and to shed light on the principles, constraints, and mechanisms of the change and the role played by contact and speakers’ socio-linguistic characteristics. The linguistic variables under study here are the realization the Proto-Semitic *q, the raising of feminine suffix -a to -ei, and the expression of the progressive and future markers. I interviewed 72 female and male speakers from different ages, genders, and dialect backgrounds. There is evidence that language change is taking place in PA with both linguistic and extra-linguistic factors playing a role. Age, gender, accommodation, and salience and simplicity/complexity of the variable interact with speakers’ choice from among the different variants.
