Against an auxiliary-based categorization of modals in Jordanian Arabic

Abstract EN

This paper provides a detailed morphosyntactic analysis of modals in Jordanian Arabic (JA henceforth).

It is mainly concerned withdefending an alternative perspective of the conventional auxiliary-based categorization of modals in Arabic in general and in JA in particular.Contra to the long-held belief in the literature of Arabic where modals are categorized as auxiliary verbs, the paper shows with empirical evidence that the auxiliary-based analysis fails to account for the inconsistent and non-coherent morphosyntactic behavior of the JA modals laazim„must‟,mumkin/yemkin „may/might‟ andbigdar „can/could‟.

The paper also shows that only the modal bigdar „can/could‟ is the closest modal to the auxiliary category in JA.

However, the paper argues that such modal should belong to a „quasiauxiliary‟ category rather than the „conventionalauxiliary‟category.