Maltese

Contemporary Changes and Historical Innovations

Przemyslaw Turek, Julia Nintemann, Przemyslaw Turek, Julia Nintemann

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9783110783872
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Historical & Comparative Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume features nine articles, covering various aspects of Maltese linguistics:
Part I, mostly dedicated to the Maltese lexicon, opens with Bednarowicz's comparison of Maltese and Arabic adjectives. Fabri then categorizes various types of constructions involving the preposition ta' 'of'. The paper by Lucas and Spagnol discusses Maltese words containing an innovative final /n/.
Part II deals with the syntax of Maltese: Azzopardi's paper focuses on a construction in Maltese which consists of a sequence of two or more finite verbs. Just and ?éplö present the first corpus based study of differential object indexing in Maltese.
In Part III on morphosyntax, Turek analyzes Arabic prepositions in Classical/Modern Standard Arabic and Arabic dialects and contrasts them with their Maltese equivalents. Stolz and Vorholt then analyze the structural and functional similarities and differences of spatial interrogatives in Maltese and Spanish. Vorholt then investigates the adpositions of sixteen European languages including Maltese and examines the relationship between length and frequency.
The volume is closed with Part IV on phonology and Avram's paper, in which the diachrony of voicing assimilation in consonant clusters is reconstructed.

Part I: Lexicon

The semantic structure of adjectives referring to the holiness in Maltese and Arabic languages

Sebastian Bednarowicz

Abstract

The present paper is an analysis of the Maltese and Arabic adjectives related to the notion of ‘holiness’. The research was conducted through the componential analysis of meaning used in terms of the contrastive description. The study showed: 1) the extension of meaning of the Maltese adjective mqaddes (in comparison to their etymological counterpart in Arabic muqaddas) what resulted in changes within the lexical field of holiness, which in Maltese reflects rather the opposition of the Italian adjectives santo and sacro. 2) the general lack of the lexico-semantic parallelism between Maltese and Arabic adjectives bearing the notion of ‘holiness’.

Keywords: adjectives, Arabic, holiness, Maltese, semantics,

1 Introduction

The majority of previous studies on the Maltese lexicon were focused on etymological investigations (including the use of synonyms of Semitic or Romance origin) (Aquilina 1971, 1972, 1976; Trimble 1973; Krier 1976: 107–116), though the semantic (semasiological) method was also used in some works, especially those concerning the polysemy or semantic changes that took place in Maltese words compared with their Arabic or Italian counterparts (Krier 1976: 116–123; Aquilina 1997: 15–41). Building on the latter studies, in our modest contribution of the present paper we would like to analyze a number of adjectives referring to the notion of holiness in the Maltese and Arabic languages.

2 Relation between Maltese and Arabic

A comparison of languages is only possible, if there are differences between them. For that reason the influence of phylogenetic relations between linguistic varieties being compared on the process of the contrastive analysis is indisputable. It is clear that non-related languages share less similarities than the cognate ones do. Maltese and Arabic represent undoubtedly the latter situation.

The origin of literary Arabic is still a subject of discussion among Semiticists. The theory of classical Arab grammarians, who claimed that the spoken dialects are merely a corrupted form of the literary or Quranic Arabic, was rejected by the majority of Arabists.¹ A more plausible hypothesis is that the literary variety of Arabic emerged from vernacular dialects, which were a normal way of communicating among the tribes living in the Arabian Peninsula. This process began after the Islamic empire grew strong, and was, on the one hand, an answer for the need of an official language, which might be used in the state administration. On the other hand, the standardize...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I: Lexicon
• Part II Syntax
• Part III Morphosyntax
• Part IV Phonology
• Index of Authors
• Index of Languages
• Index of Subjects