The evolution of a coordinator from a vocative source: the case of the disjunctive ja: in Jordanian Arabic

Abstract

This research paper proposes that a vocative can be a potential source of coordination, thus it adds to the literature on the grammaticalization of coordinators. Evidence to this proposal is taken from Jordanian Arabic (JA) wherein the vocative particle ja: developed a disjunctive (coordination) function. The synchronic evidence to the evolution of the disjunctive ja: is that this function is conveyed by this particle in some but not all Arabic varieties, whereas the vocative function is the common cross-dialectal function of ja:. Further, this study suggests that the factors that licensed the development of this function (i.e., the disjunctive ja:) in JA are (i) the common semantic feature between the vocative and disjunctive ja:, namely proximity, (ii) the shared function of warning and (iii) the syntactic distribution of ja: in initial position of the two conjuncts of the bisyndetic disjunctive construction. With regard to the properties of this evolution, it is demonstrated in this paper that the development of the coordinating ja: is a case of secondary grammaticalization featured by expansion in functionality and increase in syntactic contingence of the hosting structure.

Keywords

• Grammaticalization
• Bisyndetic disjunction
• Coordinator
• Vocative
• Proximity
• Syntactic distribution