Linguistic Analyses of Rhymed Proverbs, Idioms and Fixed Expressions in Jordanian Arabic

This study explores the syntactic and prosodic structures of rhymed proverbs, idioms, and fixed expressions in Jordanian Arabic (JA). The study highlights how these expressions give precedence to phonological considerations over strict syntactic or semantic norms. While traditional and previous research has often focused on meaning or cultural context, this work shifts attention to form, as it examines how Arabic idioms and proverbs value rhyme, parallelism, and style. Data were collected from classical sources like madʒmaʕ al-ʔamθaːl and contemporary social media, with a focus on rhymed expressions still used in JA. The analysis is based on both classical Arabic grammar and modern linguistic frameworks. The results of the study show that these expressions not only carry rich semantic and cultural dimension, but they also exemplify a blend of syntax, sound, and morphology. A lot of Jordanian proverbs, idioms and fixed expressions give priority to prosody rather than to meaning or syntactic structure as many of these expressions have parallel bi-clausal structures with matching rhythm. In some cases, suffixes, ellipsis, topicalization, inversion and exaggeration are skillfully used for prosodic purposes. Conditional structures and headless relative clauses are manipulated to maintain phonological symmetry at semantic and syntactic cost. In conclusion, phonological harmony frequently shapes or overrides conventional grammatical structures. Highlights: The paper presents a linguistic analysis of rhymed proverbs, idioms and fixed expressions in Jordanian Arabic. This study shows how prosodic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects interact in the creation of rhymed proverbs, idioms and fixed expressions The paper indicates that in many Jordanian proverbs, idioms and fixed expressions, rhyme is the driving force rather than the meaning or syntactic structure.