Hypocoristics in the Ammani-Jordanian context: A Construction Morphology perspective

Abstract

The current study explores the patterns of hypocoristics in Ammani-Jordanian Arabic in view of Construction Morphology. The most common hypocoristic patterns are addressed with reference to the social factors (gender and age) that may contribute to the templates and functions of the hypocoristic structure. This paper argues that Ammani-Jordanian Arabic speakers produce various hypocoristic patterns to signify a variety of functions. A questionnaire is designed to explore the formation of hypocoristic patterns among 51 Ammani Jordanians from three different age groups (children, young and elderly). The study shows that the most common hypocoristic pattern used by all participants includes reduplication, truncation, affixation, and adding Ɂabu “father of” and ʔum “mother of” to the male and female names, respectively. The study also reveals how these processes can be used to form hypocoristics of different name types (monosyllabic names, disyllabic names, nonce names, compound names, foreign names, etc.). We also show that the hypocoristic templates may vary according to the gender of the name. The current findings help foreign learners of Arabic to better comprehend the Jordanian culture, including the use of hypocoristics.

Keywords:

• Ammani-Jordanian Arabic
• Construction Morphology
• morphological schema
• hypocoristics
• diminutives

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Spanish indicates two types of nicknames: one of them is of no phonological significance which is often a common adjective or noun that depends on the individual’s personality or appearance. The other type has a phonological relevance as it is formed by applying many phonological processes, for instance, reduplication, truncation or syllabic epenthesis as Beto ̴ Alerto, Roberto, etc (Lipski, 1995).

2. This type is formed by partial reduplication of the final syllable of the word as in Inu: ̴ Inu:nu or Kulù ̴ Kulùulu, in which it “add(s) the reduplicative syllable with a set H (high) tone, but preserve the lexical tone rather than having it overridden by the LH (low high) melody” (Newman & Ahmad, 1992, p. 162).

3. In this type, hypocoristic names are formed via adding the suffix -lle as in Ὰli ̴̴ Ὰlilli or Ka:wù/Kàawu ̴ Kàawulle; this “suffix has its own specific tone while the stems preserve their lexical tone” (Newman & Ahmad, 1992, p. 164).

4. For details on the linguistic situation in Jordan in general and Amman in particular, read Mashaqba (2015), Mashaqba et al. (2020), and (2021), 2022a) and Huneety et al. (2021).

5. The sum of percentages in all the tables is 100.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no direct funding for this research.