Variation in Negation in the Jordanian Arabic Dialect of Ma’an

Abstract

The study investigates variation in negation in the Jordanian Arabic dialect spoken in Ma’an (Ma’an Jordanian Arabic, MJA hereafter). Both verbal and non-verbal clauses in MJA use different negative variants. The study shows that negation of verbal clauses in MJA is categorical with a strong preference for the old preverbal negative proclitic maa- over the new negative markers that include the discontinuous negative variant maa … ʃ and the enclitic -ʃ. Negation of non-verbal clauses, on the other hand, manifests significant variation with an indication of a change in progress toward more use of the new non-verbal negative variant muʃ at the expense of the remaining two old variants muu and the negative pronouns. The study reveals that variation in the negation system of non-verbal clauses in MJA is constrained by some social factors such as age, sex, level of education, and place of origin. In particular, the study shows that young, female, educated, rural speakers of MJA are leading the change toward the new non-verbal negative variant muʃ. The observations that are based on the distributional and statistical analyses of the study indicate that level of education and place of origin show the highest statistical significance followed by age and sex factors. Finally, we claim that the new non-verbal negative variant muʃ in MJA has not resulted from the Jespersen’s Cycle; rather, it has been borrowed into MJA from other local Jordanian Arabic vernaculars that have already undergone the Cycle. Keywords: Variationist Sociolinguistics, Negation, Language Change, Language Contact, Ma’an Jordanian Arabic.