The verb *?aḍʒa* ‘come’ in Jordanian Arabic: three levels of grammaticalization

The paper examines how the Jordanian Arabic motion verb ?adza/?aḍʒa ‘come’ has developed grammaticalized uses. Building on cross-linguistic work showing motion verbs as common sources of grammaticalization, the authors hypothesize that JA ‘come’ exhibits three coexisting grammaticalized meanings that map onto distinct stages of a widely attested pathway. They argue that: (i) a purpose-clause introducing use represents a minimal shift with functional expansion and ongoing ambiguity (functional split), (ii) an intention auxiliary use reflects a more advanced stage with bleaching of motion semantics, and (iii) a prediction use functioning like a preposition ‘around’ marks the most advanced stage. The study’s purpose is to document these meanings, relate them to established pathways (Bybee et al. 1994), and provide diagnostics distinguishing lexical from grammaticalized uses. Data come from natural conversations due to the lack of historical records for JA, positioning the work as a synchronic investigation with implications for grammaticalization theory and Arabic dialectology.

The theoretical background synthesizes grammaticalization research (Heine et al. 1991; Bybee et al. 1994; Hopper & Traugott 2003; Traugott 2010), emphasizing frequency-driven expansion of contexts and complements, semantic generalization, bleaching, and loosening of co-occurrence constraints. Motion verbs (‘come’, ‘go’) are prominent sources for future pathways: COME/GO → INTENTION → FUTURE → PREDICTION (Bybee et al. 1994). The authors note that JA ‘come’ uniquely shows the earliest (intention) and latest (prediction) stages, with a purpose-introducing use exhibiting functional split. Prior Arabic studies include grammaticalized uses of ra(a) ‘see’ (Taine-Cheikh 2013), future/progressive developments in Arabic varieties (Esseesy 2010; Camilleri & Sadler 2017; Altamimi 2021; Shbool et al. 2010), and motion verb grammaticalization cross-linguistically (Heine & Kuteva 2002; Bourdin 2008; Nakao 2014).

Given the absence of historical documentation for Jordanian Arabic, the authors conduct a synchronic qualitative analysis based on naturally occurring spoken data. They collected examples from everyday conversations with family and friends, without prompting or steering the use of ‘come’. Instances of ?adza/?aḍʒa across contexts were noted and analyzed for syntactic behavior, complement types, inflectional patterns, interpretive properties, and interaction with diagnostics (negation, logical completions, and elliptical answers).

• Three grammaticalized meanings of JA ‘come’ coexist:
  1. Purpose-clause introducer (least grammaticalized): ‘come’ + verb phrase denotes purpose, with core motion meaning still accessible. Acceptable with both present and past forms (e.g., ‘She came to play’; ‘He came to visit’). This extends complement selection beyond canonical intransitive patterns; without dedicated purposive markers, similar structures with other verbs are ill-formed unless ‘so as to’ (?afan) is inserted.
  2. Intention auxiliary (intermediate): Present-tense ‘come’ expresses intention (e.g., ‘I intend to help him’), with bleaching of motion semantics. Past-tense forms yield irrealis/unfulfilled intention ‘about to’ (e.g., ‘I was about to tell him’; ‘She was about to fall’), including with uncontrollable events (die, fall, have an accident), indicating semantic extension from controllable to non-controllable predicates.
  3. Prediction as preposition ‘around’ (most advanced): Present-tense forms agreeing with the relevant singular noun function as a preposition meaning ‘around’ with numerals and time (e.g., ‘Their number is around ten’; ‘It’s around ten o’clock’). These phrases serve as short answers in ellipsis, supporting a prepositional analysis rather than copular use.
• Diagnostics distinguishing lexical vs. grammaticalized uses: • Complement selection: Lexical ‘come’ takes no complements or adverbial/adjectival modifiers; grammaticalized forms take VP complements (purpose/intention), numerals, or time nouns (prediction). • Inflectional behavior: Lexical ‘come’ shows full person/number/gender paradigms in past/present. Purpose-introducing retains full inflection; intention ‘about to’ occurs in present for intention and in past for unfulfilled intention with agreement; prediction ‘around’ restricted to present agreeing with singular (masc. with ‘number’, fem. with ‘hour’), not used in past. • Logical completions: Lexical ‘come’ cannot be followed by contradictory continuations; ‘about to’ allows negating completion (e.g., ‘I was about to X, but I didn’t’), showing it is not the main lexical verb. • Negation: Lexical ‘come’ is directly negated with ma- and/or -š; grammaticalized intentions are not negated on ‘come’ but on the main lexical verb (e.g., ‘I was about to sew, but I didn’t sew’). • Elliptical answers: Prediction ‘around’ forms appear in short answers (e.g., ‘How many?’ ‘Around ten’), incompatible with a copular interpretation.
• Alignment with established pathway: The JA data instantiate stages from intention to prediction, with purpose-introducing functional split reflecting early expansion; prediction suggests an earlier future stage diachronically even if not synchronically attested here.

The findings support the hypothesis that JA ‘come’ has undergone semantic and syntactic expansion along a recognized grammaticalization pathway. The intention use evidences bleaching and grammaticalization from motion to modality; the prediction ‘around’ use reflects the endpoint of the pathway (prediction), plausibly via an earlier, now-implicit future stage. Purpose-introducing uses indicate functional split, where lexical and emergent grammatical functions coexist and create ambiguity. The diagnostics (complements, inflection, negation, logical completions, ellipsis) consistently differentiate lexical from grammaticalized forms, reinforcing the reanalysis of ‘come’ in specific constructions. The results contribute to grammaticalization theory by providing a JA case where multiple stages coexist synchronically, and they have pedagogical relevance for teaching JA to non-native speakers by clarifying non-literal uses of common verbs.

The study shows that JA ?adza/?aḍʒa ‘come’ has grammaticalized into three coexisting meanings: a purpose-clause introducer (least grammaticalized), an intention auxiliary (with a past ‘about to’ irrealis reading), and a prepositional prediction marker ‘around’ (most advanced). These uses differ from the lexical motion verb in complement selection, inflectional restrictions, negation targeting, logical completions, and suitability for elliptical answers. The results align with proposed universal pathways for motion-verb grammaticalization and illustrate functional split at earlier stages and advanced reanalysis at later stages. Future work is suggested to explore additional grammaticalized elements in JA and to investigate other verbs and potential diachronic intermediates (e.g., explicit future uses) to complete the pathway.

• Scope limited to a single verb (‘come’) in Jordanian Arabic.
• Reliance on synchronic, naturally occurring conversational data without historical records limits diachronic reconstruction and generalizability.
• Lack of quantitative frequency data; examples are illustrative rather than corpus-statistical.