The Middle Voice in Najdi Arabic: A Constraint-Based Approach

Grammatical voice categories have been the subject of discussion among linguists for decades. Although the active and passive voices have received considerable scholarly attention, much less has been paid to the middle voice. The main characterising properties of the middle voice are the prevention of the agent argument in its construction and its tendency toward intransitivity. The nature of the middle voice represents a problematic issue in linguistic research. Scholars have discussed different applications of the middle voice phenomenon, which helps explain the intense debate over its linguistic properties. However, the concept of this voice and its frame are still somewhat vague compared with similar linguistic aspects, especially if it is seen from the perspective of modern theoretical linguistics. This paper, therefore, seeks to reach a better understanding of the topic of the middle voice by exploring it in one of the Arabic varieties: Najdi Arabic (NA). More specifically, it aims to provide a theoretical account of the underlying linguistic properties of the middle voice in NA within the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Toward this end, the paper, using the constraint-based approach of HPSG, proposes certain lexical entries that account for the linguistic properties of the middle voice verbs in NA. It also attempts to analyse the constructions where such middle voice verbs occur.