Dialectal Features in Old Arabic Proverbs Morphology as a model

Abstract

This research investigates the dialectal features in the old Arabic proverbs, with regard to the morphological inflections. The research, mainly by an analytical and descriptive approach, shows the morphological characteristics of the ancient Arabic dialects in the proverbs recorded in the books of proverbs, dictionaries, pre-modern grammatical books, besides the sources that will be mentioned in the course of this study. This paper finds that one of the most important dialectal features, in terms of the morphological aspect, is the multiplicity of nominal, gerundive, or verbal forms of one word, all of which indicate the same meaning, in addition to that of the broken plurals of the same word. Among the morphological features of the dialects is the phenomenon of the metathesis in the use of some words. The research concludes that these dialectal features in morphology show the remarkable linguistic diversity, which was common among the Arabic speakers at that time and gave the language-speakers flexibility in the use of words. It is this linguistic diversity that contributed to the richness of Arabic language, especially, its nominal and verbal forms.