Deontic Modality in Baghdadi Arabic

Abstract

The deontic modality – also known in the literature on the topic as speaker-oriented modality – indicates an obligation or permission imposed externally, compelling an agent to complete an action, in accordance with a corpus of pre-existent rules. In this paper, I will present an analysis of the possibilities to express the deontic modality – with its multiple facets – in Baghdadi Arabic, analysis based on a corpus of data gathered by me in the last ten years, during my visits to Iraq. The present analysis will point out the main modal verbs (i.e.: yimkin “to be possible”, yrīd “to want”, etc.), modal expressions (i.e.: lā budd min “it is inevitable”, akū luzūm “there is an obligation”, etc.), pre-verbal particles (i.e.: d-, d-rūḥ “go immediately”, etc.) and so on used to introduce the subjective degree of the compulsoriness or the permissibility, the necessity or the acceptability of an action.