Jonathan Owens

List of John Benjamins publications in which Jonathan Owens is involved.

Journal

Arabic Linguistics

Edited by Enam Al-Wer, Lina Choueiri and Uri Horesh

ISSN 2950-1806 | E‑ISSN 2950‑1792

Book series

Studies in Arabic Linguistics

Edited by Enam Al-Wer and Lina Choueiri

ISSN 2212-8042

Titles

Neighborhood and Ancestry: Variation in the spoken Arabic of Maiduguri, Nigeria

Jonathan Owens

Over the past 35 years urban sociolinguistics has developed upon the base of detailed case studies carried out mainly in western countries. A fundamental dichotomy informing the interpretation of variation has been carried out within what is termed the “standard-vernacular model”. Higher vs. lower… read more

[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society, 4] 1998. xiii, 396 pp.

Early Arabic Grammatical Theory: Heterogeneity and standardization

Jonathan Owens

The Arabic grammatical tradition is remarkable for having organized a large amount of descriptive material within a sophisticated formal framework. The present study seeks to elucidate the early development of this system from a theory-internal perspective; it is mainly concerned with the… read more

[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 53] 1990. xvi, 294 pp.

The Foundations of Grammar: An introduction to medieval Arabic grammatical theory

Jonathan Owens

The Arabic grammatical tradition is one of the great traditions in the history of linguistics, yet it is also one that is comparatively unknown to modern western linguistics. The purpose of the present book is to provide an introduction to this grammatical tradition not merely by summarizing it,… read more

[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 45] 1988. xii, 371 pp.

Adnan, Muhadj and Jonathan Owens 2025 Chapter 7. Imperfect verbal prefixes as discourse markers Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXV: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Washington, D.C., 2022, Al-Qassas, Ahmad (ed.), pp. 158–179 | Chapter

Many varieties of Arabic have one or more pre-verbal imperfect markers. While some, like the Egyptian future prefix ħa- or ha-, have a clearly profiled meaning, many defy simple definition. We concentrate on two of these with numerous shared attributes: Iraqi da- and an Upper Egyptian morpheme… read more

Owens, Jonathan 2025 Review of Sartori & Binaghi (2022): The foundations of Arab linguistics V. Kitāb Sībawayhi, The Critical Theory. Historiographia Linguistica 52:2, pp. 322–331 | Review

Owens, Jonathan 2018 Why linguistics needs an historically oriented Arabic linguistics Arabic in Contact, Manfredi, Stefano and Mauro Tosco (eds.), pp. 207–232 | Chapter

One of the more recent, and certainly one of the most empirically well-founded accounts of language change is Labov’s (2007) division between transmission and diffusion. The former results in gradual change via incrementation, the latter in larger and irregular change. This study examines the… read more

Owens, Jonathan 2014 The morphologization of an Arabic creole Arabic-based Pidgins and Creoles, Manfredi, Stefano and Mauro Tosco (eds.), pp. 232–298 | Article

East African Nubi has classic attributes of a creole — it was formed in a short period of time and its structure diverges dramatically from its lexical source, Egyptian and Sudanic Arabic — yet it differs from most creoles as well in that it has a fairly robust morphology (Owens 2001). One could… read more

Owens, Jonathan 2013 The centrality of language to Arabic culture. Studies presented to Ramzi Baalbaki on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday Edited by Bilal Orfali Historiographia Linguistica 40:1/2, pp. 268–272 | Review

Owens, Jonathan and Trent Rockwood 2008 Yaʕni: What it (really) means Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics: Papers from the annual symposium on Arabic linguistics, Parkinson, Dilworth B. (ed.), pp. 83–113 | Article

Owens, Jonathan 2005 Pre-diaspora Arabic: Dialects, statistics and historical reconstruction Diachronica 22:2, pp. 270–307 | Article

Arabic dialects, the native spoken Arabic of about 250 million people, are spread over an immense, contiguous geographical area from Iran to Lake Chad, from Morocco to Yemen. Corresponding to this geographical spread is considerable linguistic diversity. An explanation for this diversity has… read more

Owens, Jonathan 1997 Arabic-based Pidginsand Creoles Contact Languages: A wider perspective, Thomason, Sarah G. (ed.), pp. 125–172 | Article

Owens, Jonathan 1996 Idiomatic Structure and the Theory of Genetic Relationship Diachronica 13:2, pp. 283–318 | Article

SUMMARY It has been an assumption of many practitioners of comparative linguistics that genetic relations are defined between languages as holistic entities. A recent explicit expression of this position is Thomason &Kaufman (1988). An alternative viewpoint, probably a minority position, is that… read more

Owens, Jonathan 1995 The comparative study of medieval Arabic grammatical theory: A Mollusc replies to A. E. Houseman, Jr. Historiographia Linguistica 22:3, pp. 425–440 | Miscellaneous

Owens, Jonathan 1994 Review of Miller & Abu-Manga (1994): Language change and national integration: Rural migrants in Khartoum Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 9:2, pp. 351–355 | Review

Owens, Jonathan 1990 East African Nubi: Bioprogram Vs Inheritance Diachronica 7:2, pp. 217–250 | Article

SUMMARY A central question in Creole studies has been to ascertain to what degree the structure of creole languages is determined by universal processes, as opposed to inheritance from super/substratal sources. The universalist position has been most strongly advocated by Derek Bickerton, who sees… read more

Owens, Jonathan 1990 Themes in the Development of Arabic Grammatical Theory Studies in the History of Arabic Grammar II: Proceedings of the second symposium on the history of Arabic grammar, Nijmegen, 27 April–1 May, 1987, Versteegh, Kees and Michael G. Carter (eds.), pp. 253–264 | Article