From Phonological Variation to Grammatical Change: Depalatalisation of /č/ in Salti

This chapter looks at the process of depalatalisation of / c / in the dialect of the city of Salt in Jordan. In particular, the discussion focuses on the morphological and syntactic consequences of the loss of this feature. The analysis is based on approximately fifty hours of recorded interviews with a broad mix of native speakers of the dialect. The chapter begins with background information about Jordanian dialects and the dialect of Salt. The varieties of Arabic spoken in Jordan are amongst the less documented dialects of the Levant. There is a wealth of literature on agreement in Arabic that deals for the most part with the standard variety and tries to account for the two main agreement patterns in standard Arabic: singular agreement on verbs in verb-initial clauses with plural subjects; and feminine singular agreement with non-human plural subjects. Keywords: Arabic; dialect of Salt; grammatical change; Jordanian dialects; phonological variation; Salti