DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF THE 
ACQUISITION 
OF NEGATION AND INTERROGATION BY 
CHILDREN 
NATIVE SPEAKERS OF QATAR/ DIALECT 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
Department of English Language 
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences 
Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF THE ACQUISITION OF 
NEGATION AND INTERROGATION BY CHILDREN 
NATIVE SPEAKERS OF QATAR/ DIALECT 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
Abstract: 
The developmental stages of Qatari Dialect interrogatives and negatives 
are described in this paper. Four children were included in this study, 
ranging in age from one year and six months to nine years. According to 
the stages of interrogation and negation development, the children move in 
successive steps in their acquisition of the linguistic structures. The 
investigation is an attempt to contribute further to our understanding of 
First Language Acquisition processes. Thus, from the data "rules" were 
written and these were hypothesized as the representation of the child's 
internal rules for generating utterances. 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
J~~l ~~~ J# ~l_,e 
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~.!~~lllUI~ 
~~~~~_,.latlju~W~I~ 
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. ~~~ ~ d! ~j i:w.._, A.:.... &A ~J~j C.-'1~ Jw,j ~) ~ ~_, .~_)WI 
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y L.....::S'I "4A--? ~ lzl.o _,.L...o I L:..o .J+l.o _.;..~ jj _,~ ~I l.a _, .~ _, yb 
JW,~I 4-o~ ~I ~l_,iJI J.!.C ~j ~A «~l..,i» ~l:S' ~ 1-4-J_, ·d}~l WJI 
. (i~~l_, ~I) ~~I ~l..rJI o.a y~ 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
I. INTRODUCTION: 
''Language acquisition is a creative pro~ess. The grammar develops in 
stages and at each stage the child's utterances conform to the rules and 
regularities acquired at that stage. The mistakes ( ... ) reveal these rules. 
Children seem to form the simplest and most general rule they can from the 
language input they receive, and to be so "pleased" that they use the rule 
wherever they can." (Fromkin & Rodman 1998:333) 
II. AIMS OF THE STUDY 
The study is an investigation of First Language Acquisition developmental 
sequences of Negation and Interrogation by children native speakers of 
Qatari dialect. The two structural areas were chosen because: 
a) Questions and negations, as basic components of language, provide 
rich data for the study of syntax as well as of semantics. 
b) They have been much studied in the case of English and other languages. 
c) They are acquired early; also they are "easy" to learn with straight­
forward pragmatic and semantic notions (Krashen, 1981 ). 
d) Most importantly, asking and negating are essential for communication 
even at very early stages. 
The investigation is an attempt to contribute further to our understanding of 
First Laonguage Acquisition processes. The aims of the study, briefly 
stated, are to determine that: 
1) The development towards [he target is a creative system of increasing 
complexity. 
2) The linguistic behaviours of the acquirers are systematic and rule­
governed. 
3) The developmental sequences can be identified for each of the syntactic 
areas studied. 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
III. ARABIC DIGLOSSIA. TRIGLOSSIA OR A 
CONTINUUM? 
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the written variety of the language, 
common to all literate Arabic speakers in the world, used in the media, in 
literature, at school and for all literate activities, and almost exclusively 
used in its spoken form in the electronic media. It is a unified, codified 
pan-Arab variety of Arabic, the modern descendant of Classical Arabic 
(Holes 1995). However, MSA is not the spoken language acquired by 
children. Arabic constitutes the classical case of diglossia, which involves 
a highly divergent and often grammatically more complex literary variety, 
usually older than the spoken variety, learnt by formal education and used 
for formal, mostly written purposes (Ferguson 1959). Arabic-speaking 
children acquire the local dialect at home, and learn MSA in school. 
Scholars (Gaber, 1966; Chejne, 1969; Altoma, 1974; Mitchell, 1980 and 
Zughoul, 1980) view the language situation in the Arab world as characterised 
by the existence of three different norms of Arabic: Traditional Classical 
Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic and Different Arabic dialects. However, 
there are Arab grammarians and linguists who belief that the situation of 
Arabic is not a mere diglossic or even triglossic situation, but as Bakalla 
(1984:87) puts it "a spectrum or better still a continuum which has at one 
extreme the purest Classical Arabic and at the other, the purest type of 
colloquial Arabic". 
The focus of our discussion here is the acquisition of Negation and 
Interrogation in Qatari Arabic dialect. To the best of our knowledge, this is 
the first study in this area (see Al-Buainain 1999). 
VI. DATA: 
The data have been collected in a day-by-day routine in the form of written 
notes. I have never maintained a rigid data collecting procedure including 
fixed intervals, time limits of recording sessions, etc. It seems to me that 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
such rigid procedures, as applied by other researchers in the past, have not 
produced data rich enough to give us really a detailed picture of a child's 
language development. The subjects are my children whose ages range 
from 1 year and 6 months to 9 years. 
V. CALSSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF RULES 
OF NEGATION IN QATAR/ DIALECT: 
It is worthwhile pointing out that what we are interested in describing here 
is the surface structure of the investigated sentences as acquirers see them. 
That is the actual realization of the Qatari Dialect negative sentences in their 
final forms as the child would have uttered them rather than getting involved 
with complex explanation of the deep structure relationships between the 
constituents. 
Negation in Qatari Dialect (QD) as in Arabic is exclusively preverbal. 
Usually, the verb is at the beginning of the sentence, hence the negative 
particle is in sentence initial position. The negative particle also serves as a 
tense carrier because the verb form that follows is usually imperfect (verb 
stem). 
I. Verbal and Nominal Sentences: 
In Arabic, the normal, non-emphatic word order is verb, subject and object. 
In general, if the verb is perfect, it precedes the subject, but if the verb is 
imperfect, either the subject or the verb can occur first (Abboud et al, 
1968: 180-181 ). This difference in order between the 2 patterns is reflected 
in a difference in number agreement between subject and verb. If the 
subject comes first (i. e. Nominal Sentence) the verb agrees with it in 
number as well as in person and gender. However, if the verb precedes 
the subject (i.e. Verbal Sentence) it is always in the singular, whether the 
subject is singular or plural. Still, the person and gender agree with the 
subject. 
In verbal sentences, verb stems follow the Arabic negative particles. Arabic 
subjects follow the Main verb. The Arabic verb shows two indicative 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
conjugations for Aspect: the Imperfect (morphologically marked by prefixes) 
and the Perfect (marked by suffixes) which mainly indicate whether the 
action is viewed as incompleted or completed, respectively. In the absence 
of any further temporal specification, the Imperfect serves to indicate an 
action which is regarded as in progress (at the present time or repeated 
action or with future time adverbials). 
Qatari Dialect prefers verbal sentences than nominal sentences in negation. 
However, there are other Arabic Dialects, which use nominal sentences in 
negation; for example, Egyptian Dialect. All negative particles in Arabic are 
not used in the dialect except for /rna:/ and /la:/. Instead, the dialect invented 
new particles to express negative (Al-Matooq, 1986:161), for example; 
/mob/ is used in Qatari Dialect. 
1 ). /la:l: The negative particle /la:/ is used to negate sentences containing 
a verb in the imperfect, by placing it before the verb or noun; for example: 
I la yl'bu:n fi: al.s,a:r' I (Do not (let them) play in the street) 
/la: tel'bu:n fi al.s,a:r' I (Do not play in the street) [imperative] 
Usually the verb or noun is either negated by /rna:/ or /mob/ and infronted 
by the negative particle /la:/; for example: 
/la: ehoh rna: ga:li I (No he didn't tell me) 
lla: rna: sa:fert fi al'tlehl (No I didn't travel during the vacation) 
2) /mob/: /mob/ + Verb {+subjunctive + imperfect} expresses an 
emphatic negative in the future equivalent to 'will not' or ' be + not + 
going+ to+ V'; for example: 
I mob ra:yh al.s.ghel bukreh/ (I'm not going to work tomorrow) 
It is also used to negate nouns; for example: 
I mob sara ali fa:zet belja:yzeh I ((It is) Not Sara who won the prize) 
/mob alhyi:n benro:h/ (Not now(we are going) 
It could express an emphatic negative; for example: 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
lla: mob ehoh ali ga:li I (No he was not the one who told me) 
3. lma:/ In Arabic this negative particle occurrence is governed by the 
aspect of the verb which must always be perfect. The particle /rna:/ is a 
tense marker, therefore, the verb is superficially transformed and assigned 
the features ( + imperfect + jussive). This 'Transformational rule' is 
obligatory and should be applied after the insertion of /rna:/ has been 
effected; for example: 
/rna: kaleto [iei/ (You did not eat anything) 
/rna: darait wala: e'lemt/ (I didn't know) 
However, in QD it could be also used to negate verbs in present tense; for 
example; 
I ha:theh rna: eysi:r I (This can not be) 
/saleteh rna: ey'ref/ (I asked him; he doesn't know) 
4) Negative Imperative: 
The negative item must always be realized as lla:/ + V ( + Jussive) in the 
structure S ___. Neg. + Imp S. Semantically speaking, this denotes 
prohibition; (i.e. negative order requiring the addressed person Not to do 
whatever is indicated by the adjacent verb). This is similar to the English 
(do not) in : Do not drive too fast, where both Neg. and Imp. are 
incorporated. Obviously, the subject is always the 2"d person (singular, 
dual or plural). The subject, as in positive imperative sentences, is usually 
absent in the surface structure. The Arabic verb in the imperative mood is 
marked for number and gender. For example: 
/la: tel'bu:n fi alsa:r' I (Do not play in the street) [imperative] 
II. Equational Sentences: 
In Arabic, an equational sentence is called I mubtada? wa xabar/ (theme-rheme 
constructions). Generally speaking, Arabic equational sentences correspond 
to English sentences, which have the structures below where the tense 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
constituent is Present 
{ NP 
{ 
{ Aux 
{Pred. VP 
Phrase 
[Be + Predicate] } 
VP Pred.} } 
{ s Ph. S} 
The auxiliary constituent is present in the surface structure of an Arabic 
equational sentence, when a non-present point of temporal reference is to 
be indicated. This is signaled by the presence of the 'incomplete' verb 
/kana/. Thus, the Arabic equational sentence is composed of a subject and 
a predicate with no verb. The predicate can be a noun phrase (predicate 
nominal), an adjective or an adverbial phrase. The predicate adjectives and 
the predicate nominals agree with the subject NP both in gender and number. 
Usually, they are indefinite (ending in -un, the nominative case marker 
with the exception of the proper foreign nouns). However, when the 
predicate adjectives and predicate nominals are defined, a 3 rd person pronoun, 
which agrees with the subject in number and gender and acts as a copula, 
is introduced before the predicate constituent; for example, lha: tha: huwa 
alkita:bu/ (This is the book). Arab grammarians have called this pronoun 
/damayi:r mafsaool/ (the pronoun of separation), because it separates the 
subject NP from the predicate adjective or nominal, which otherwise would 
be interpreted as a modifier. The subject of Arabic equational sentences; 
which may be a common or a proper noun, a pronoun or a demonstrative 
is usually definite and precedes the predicate. Yet, when the subject is 
indefinite and the predicate is an adverbial phrase, the subject could be 
placed after the predicate; e.g. /rajulun fi almanzil/ (+Nominative case) or 
I fi almanzil rajulan/ ( + genitive case) (There is a man in the house) (Abubaker, 
1970 and AbdelHamid, 1972). In Qatari Dialect /mob/ is used to negate 
such sentences. 
e.g. /altefaheh mob ekbyreh/ (*The apple not big) 
/mob heloh festa:neha/ (*Not pretty her dress) 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
VI. DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF NEGATION 
Abdulkarim and Roeper (1998:39) state that "Because negation exhibits a 
great deal of language-particular variations, a child may not initially see 
how his language represents negation". Through the analysis of the data, 
an attempt will be made to determine the stages of development of the 
acquisition of the negative formation (the most and the least favoured type 
of negative items). 
Wode (1976:92-101) proposed to cover four very early stages for the 
acquisition of negation systems in natural languages. He used data from 
different languages, mainly English, German and Swedish. The stages are 
listed below: 
Stage 1: one word negation. 
Stage Ila: anaphoric negation: the negative relationship does not hold 
between negative particle and the rest of the utterance with which negative 
occurs in construction 
e.g. (no milk) [i.e. he doesn't want to drink it] 
Stage lib: non-anaphoric negation: the negative relationship holds between 
the negative particle and some part or the whole of the sentence or phrase 
with which the negative particle occurs in construction 
e.g. I don't want to go. 
Stage Ill: intra-sentential negation: This type gradually replaces lib 
syntactically and phonetically. In addition, the range of 'negated' relations 
and constituents gradually expand. 
It should be noted, that although we present what may look like separate 
stages of development in negation acquisition, there is no clear cut difference 
between these developmental stages. On the contrary, there is an overlap 
of two or more stages in the children's utterances. 
Preliminary Staee: 
Children use /ba:h/ ( There is no + Noun I Finish) in initial or final 
position to express negation. However, in Qatari dialect /ba:hf is not 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
considered as a negative particle, since it is found only in baby talk and 
not in adult's language. Usually, the caretaker is using this baby talk form 
to indicate negation.lba:hf was found in children's speech very early (at 
the age of 19 months) even before the /la:/ (no) negative particle. The 
following examples illustrate this stage: 
1. lba:.b. aoa:n/ (there is no colours)[the second word is pronounced in 
adult's language as /aloa:n/] 
2. lbabah ba:hf (Dady is not here) 
3. Mother: /wien .b.ali:bk ?/ (Where is your milk?) 
Child: lba:.b./ (finish) 
4. lba:.b. namena/ (*no ant) ) [the second word is pronounced in adult's 
language as /namelah/] 
Stage One: 
The earliest and simplest form of negation heard from children was the free 
form /la:/ (no). Children seem to comprehend this form first (1 year 
and 8 months), may be, because it is used to warn them against doing 
something forbidden. At this very early stage /la:/ is very convenient to 
express children's feelings towards something or even someone whom 
they do not like. Children seem to have acquired a simple rule to negate 
utterances: they simply add /la:/ initially to the sentences which are kept as 
they are without the morphophonemic changes required in order to produce 
the correct negated sentences. Examples of this stage are: 
1. /la: .b.ali:b/ (no milk) [i.e. he doesn't want to drink it] 
2. /la: a.b.med/ (no Ahmed) 
3. /la: §.ama/ (no Shamma) 
4. /ma:ly kourah, la: anas/ (it is my ball, not Anas's) 
5. I la: ra:h/ (*not go) [should be /rna: ra:h/] 
6. /la: ahni:h/ (not here) 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect · 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
Staa:e Two: 
/rna:/ and /mob/+ Verb were noticed in children's speech. It is not clear if 
these patterns of negation actually develop after the form postulated as 
Stage One. However, at this early stage children were not able to use the 
negative particles with the correct tense or form of the verb. The morpheme 
/rna:/ is generally used in verbal sentences, usually to negate verbs in past 
tense. The occurrence of the negative particle /mob/ is governed by the 
aspect of the verb which must always be imperfect. 
1. I rna: sawaith/ (I didn't do it) ) [Age: 7 years and 6 months] 
2. /ma:bi a:kel/ (I don't want to eat) [Age: 6 years and 6 months] 
3. /rna: ?b.ebek/ (I don't love you) [Age: 7 years] 
4. /rna: ?:bi:/ (I don't want) [Age: 4 years and 6 months] 
5. /ana rna: xa:f/ (I am not afraid) [Age: 7 years and 6 months] 
6. Mother: /tabyi:n taklyi:n ?/(Do you want to eat?) 
Child: (1 year and 10 months): lbabi:/ (I don't want) )[the word is 
pronounced in adult's language as /ma:bi/) 
7. /mob ra:y b. almadresh bekreh/ (I'm not going I I will not go to school 
tomorrow) [Age: 6 years and 6 months] 
8. Mother: /darasti: ?/ ( * Did you study?) ) 
Child: /ma:bi/ (I don't want (to)) [Age: 6 years and 8 months] 
9. /rna sawyt alwa:jeb/ (I didn't do the homework) ) [Age: 6 years and 
10 months] 
10. Child: /xsa:reh rna: §.eft almater/ (Unfortunately, I didn't see the rain) 
[Age: 7 years] 
11. /§.o:fo: rna endeh §.a'er/ (Look, he has no hair) ) [Age: 7 years and 6 
months] 
12. /rna: 'endehum saya:reh/ (they don't have a car) [Age: 8 years] 
13. /rna: sawait/ (I didn't do) [Age: 5 years and 6 months] 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
14. /mob saya:rethum/ (*Not their car) [Age: 7 years and 11 months] 
15. /mob al'a:by/ (*Not my toys) [Age: 5 years and 6 months] 
16. /mob heloh almasrahyh/ (* not nice the play) [Age: 6 years] 
17. /mob heloh almadresh/ (* not nice the school) [Age: 5 years and 6 
months] 
18. Mother: I hatheh alkta: b ? I (Is this the book?) 
Child: /mob ha:theh/ (*not this) [Age: 7 years] 
The negation data show many instances in which children used the /rna:/ 
and /mob/ forms of negation when another form(s) should have been used 
(i.e. overgeneralization). In some cases the two particles were used 
interchangeably even at an advanced stage of childhood as can be noticed 
in example (8) above. 
1. /rna: yro:b/ [the correct form should be /rna: ra:b/ ( he didn't go). 
Usually /rna:/ is used to negate verbs in Past tense. Or /ma:bi aro:h/ 
(I don't want to go)] 
2. /rna: helo/ (not good/sweet) [The correct form is /mob helo/] 
3. /mob yl'b/ [Age: 4 years and 9 months] ] [The correct form is /mob 
la:'b/ (I'm not playing/going to play) or /ma:bi al'b/ (I don't want to 
play)] 
4. Mother(holding and pointing to a video cassette): /ha:thyh .s_efna:h 
wala la ?/(this we have watched or not?) 
Child (six years old): /mob .s_efna:h/ (we haven't watched it) [The 
correct form is /rna: sefna:hl] 
5. I hatheh rna: galam, hatheh jeha:z/ (This is not a pen, this is remote 
control) [Age: 2 years and 6 months] {The correct form is /mob 
gal am/} 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
However, in QD it could be also used to negate verbs in present tense; for 
example; 
I rna: eysi:r/ (It can not be) [Age: 5 years and 6 months] 
/rna: ey'ref/ (He doesn't know) [Age: 6 years and 6 months] 
Repeating the negativity, but not the same form of negative, is a linguistic 
device children start to use as a way of stressing their denial or refusal of 
what the adult suggests, requests or asks. This type of negation is formed 
by /la:/ plus the negative morpheme /mob/ or /rna:/. 
1. /la: mob anal (No it is not me) [Age: 5 years and 6 months] 
2. /Ia: rna: §.rabt mail (No I didn't drink water) [Age: 7 years and 6 
months] 
3. /la: rna: sawieth/ (No I didn't do it) [Age: 7 years and 8 months] 
4. /mob ahmed Ia:/ (It isn't Ahmed no) [Age: 6 years and 5 months] 
5. /la: rna: helo/ (No, not good/sweet) [Age: 5 years and 4 months] 
/la:/ occurs in a sentence initial, medial and final position at this stage. 
It can be used initially or medially depending on the speaker's intention. 
It may negate the whole utterance if used initially or may negate a 
constituent in an utterance if used medially. 
The following examples also illustrate repetition of negation with other 
devices, namely, /ma:?bi:/ +Verb+ /wala:/ +Noun. These were uttered 
nearly at the age of six. 
1. /ma:?bi: aro:h wala moka:n/ (I don't want to go (to) no where) [Age: 
7 years and 6 months] 
2. /ma:?bi: a:kel wala si:/ ( I don't want to eat nothing) [Age: 7 years 
and] 
3. /rna sa:femeh wala si:/ (We didn't travel) [Age: 7 years and 9 months] 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
1) Yes/No questions: (Declarative + Intonation) 
I. Verbal and Nominal sentences 
/rahti al'res ?/ (*you went to the wedding? [feminine]) 
In Qatari Dialect, there is a particle for the future tense : /b/ this is preceding 
the verb which should have the following characteristics [+imperfect +person 
+number] 
lbetro:hain al'res ?/ (Are you going to the wedding? [feminine]) 
II. Equational Sentences: 
/'nedech {+Noun}? I (have you got [feminine+ singular]?) 
/'nedek {+Noun}?/ (have you got [masculine+ singular]?) 
/'nedekem {+Noun}?/ (have you got [plural]?) 
2) Information questions 
For information questions there are other particles which are inserted at the 
beginning of the utterance to inquire about people, place, time, number; 
etc: 
i) /wo£o/ or /we& or /£enho/ or /seno/ or 1£-1 +Verb {present or past] 
(What) 
* 
e.g /w0£0 alqada ?/ (What for lunch?) 
/we£ betsao:y ?/ (What are you going to do?) 
/we£0 ha:thi:h ?/ (What is this?) 
/£tgo:lyn ?/(*what are you saying?) 
/we£0 etgo:lyn ?/(*what are you saying?) 
ii) /lay£/ or /i£leh/ or /e£u:lehl or /warah/ [the last form is usually used by 
old people] (Why) 
e.g. /lay£ rna: reht m'a :hem ?/ (Why didn't you go with them?) 
[masculine] 
iii) /metal (When) 
e.g. /meta benthy elfa£el ?/ (When does the term end?) 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
i v) /we in/ (Where) 
e.g. /wein sa:knyn ?/(Where are you staying/living?) 
v) /men we in/ (from where) 
e.g. /men wein ento: ?I (*from where are you?) 
vi) /men/ or /menho/ [for masculine] /menhi:/ [for feminine] (Who) 
e.g. /men(ho) edarskim ?/(Who is teaching you?) 
/men yetekalem ?/(Who is speaking?){ on the phone} 
vii) /?~lu:n/ or /kaif/ (How) or /?b~eneu/ or /?b~enhou/ (With what) 
e.g ./?~lu:n entesarf ?/(How can we manage?) 
viii) /kern/or /kam/ (How much) 
/ebkam ~aryty ~antatech ?/ (*With how much did you buy your 
bag?) 
3. Negative questions: 
Langendoen (1970: 155-69) points out that negative questions are 
semantically problematic, because they do not function as denials of 
questions. Instead, they are used when the speaker expects a positive 
answer (Yes) to the corresponding affirmative questions; e.g. when asking 
Isn't he coming?, we expect the answer to the corresponding affirmative 
question: Is he coming?, (i.e. Yes). Negative questions combine in their 
formation both questions and negative constructions. In Standard Arabic, 
in the formation of Negative Yes/No question, the interrogative particle 
/?a/ is placed before the negative element (which is usually in sentence 
initial position). 
The following are examples from QD: 
e.g. /rna: tabwn ~a:i ?/ (*Don't you like (some) tea?) 
/rna: tabwn hata eghawh/ (*Don't you want even (some) coffee?) 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
VIII. DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF INTERROGATION 
Very young children can produce questions using only a rising intonation, 
rather than a particular syntactic structure. Later, at around two to three 
years, children begin to use information questions using the appropriate 
word order. Children's speech at this stage is still telegraphic, including 
only morphemes and words that carry important semantic content. Gradually 
a child will begin to include different inflectional morphemes in his or her 
utterances, but these function morphemes are not acquired randomly. Instead, 
the child acquires them in a remarkably consistent order. In time, of course, 
they learn to consistently produce questions in the same ways that adult 
speakers around them do. 
Stage One: Yes I No Questions ( Declarative + intonation) 
The earliest form of interrogation is declarative sentences with a rising 
intonation, which is probably a stage acquired by children of age 2 or 
before during the one-word stage. This form could be universal since 
"declarative sentences are generally considered to be somehow more basic 
or fundamental than questions" (Brody 1984:713). Exceptions, however, 
are found in languages which do not make use of declarative sentences as a 
tool for questioning, e.g. Finish. 
Evidence from the available literature of acquisition of other Arabic dialects 
as a first language (Omar 1973 and Samdi 1979) indicates that intonation 
marks the differential use of questions, requests and declaratives at least 
within a few months of the first word stage. Sometimes after one year (it 
varies from child to child and has nothing to do with how intelligent the 
child is), children begin to use the same string of sounds repeatedly to'mean' 
the same thing. At this point of time, they have learned that sounds are 
related to meanings and they are producing their first'words'. Most children 
seem to go through the 'one-word=one sentence' stage. According to 
Stubbs (1995:379) "holophrases are a feature of early child language". 
These one-word sentences (if one can call them sentences at all) are called 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
holophrastic sentences. Of the various grammatical devices children might 
begin to learn after intonation, order is the first to be used (Jannedy et al. 
1994). The Yes/No interrogative sentences develop in length and complexity 
corresponding to the development of the declarative sentences. Examples 
of this stage are: 
I. Verbal and Nominal sentences 
1 /ab.med fi albyt ?/(Ahmed at home?) [Age: 2 years and 10 months] 
2. /enti: t'ba:neh ?/(You [feminine] are tired?) [Age: 3 years] 
3. /enteh 'yza:n ?/(You [masculine] are tired?) [Age: 3 years] 
4 /tel'ab m'a:y beteh ?/ (*[you] play cards with me?) [Age: 5 years 
and 7 months 1 
5. /rah babah ?/ (*daddy went?) [Age: 3 years] 
6. /aziz xatheh ?/ (*Aziz took it?) [Age: 5 years and 6 months] 
7. /edeedeh fi almeste§.fa ?/(Granny in hospital?) [Age: 7 years and 6 
months] 
8. /reh.ty 'ny assoq ?/(*you went to the market without me)?) [Age: 7 
years and 4 months 1 
9. I haya ga:let lech ?I (*Haya told you?) ?) [Age: 6 years and 9 
months] 
10. /ba:bah ei:£ ?/(*Daddy sleep?) [Age: 2 years and 6 months] 
11. /§.efty alma1er ?/(*you saw the rain?) [Age: 5 years and 10 months] 
12. /sej tag almater ?/(*really, it rained?) [Age: 6 years and 9 months] 
13. /babah §.efet a§.fo:r ?/(Daddy, you saw bird?)?) [Age: 2 years and 5 
months] 
14. /benro:h almadreseh bekreh ?/(Are we going to school tomorrow?) 
[Age: 6 years] 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
15. lbetel'ab ko:reh ?/(Are you going to play football?) [Age: 6 years and 
7 months] 
16. !betl'abeen hebel ?/(Will you [feminine] play skipping rope? [Age: 7 
years and 4 months] 
17. !beta:kleen ma'a:i: ?/ (Will you [feminine ]eat with me?) [Age: 5 years 
and 7 months] 
18. lbete£treen ly askreem ?/(Will you buy ice-cream for me? [feminine]) 
[Age: 7 years and 2 months] 
19. lbetrooh ma'a:neh lal'a:b ?/(Will you come with us to the playground? 
[masculine]) [Age: 6 years and 11 months] 
20. lbetsa:'di:ny fy alwa:jib ?/ (Will you help me with the homework? 
[feminine]) [Age: 6 years and 10 months] 
21. lbetal'ab sony?/ (You [masculine] will play Sony?) [Age: 7years] 
I. Equational Sentences: 
/'endek eflu:s ?/ (You [masculine] got money?) [Age: 6 years and 8 
months] 
/'nedech marywo:l llmdreseh ?/(You [feminine] got a uniform for school? 
[Age: 6 years and 11 months] 
Stage Two: Information Questions: 
Interrogatives with questions particles are acquired slightly later than the 
Yes/ No type of interrogation; but also relatively early. One of the first 
question particle learned is /wein/ (where) at the age of one year and eleven 
months, which is used to ask about places of objects. There is also the 
question particle /we£o/ (what) and /men/ (who) which is the child learns 
when being asked to identify people. /lay& (why) is also noticed very early 
at the age of 2 years and 4 months. /metal (when) was acquired at a later 
stage not before the age of 2 years and 10 months, as it could be noticed 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
from example (23) below. At the beginning, question particles are used 
alone. A gradual development in the rules seems to occur at this stage. The 
same form of questioning, that is Yes/No questions continued as in Stage 
one. Some of the examples of this stage are: 
1. /enti: wein rehti: alyo:m ?/(Where did you go today?) [Age: 7 years 
and 3 months] 
2. /meta benroh byi:t edaid ?/(When are we going to Granny?) [Age: 8 
years] 
3. /men?/ (Who?) {Child hearing the door bell ringing} [Age: 2 years 
and 3 months] 
4. /lay£ rna: £aryt li: methelham ?/(Why didn't you buy for me same as 
them?) [Age: 7 years and 5 months] 
5. /yemah lay£ e:di:d sa'reh abyag ?/(Mummy, why Granny has gray 
hair?) [Age: 6 years] 
6. I lay£ ma:ma:h/ (Why Mum?) [Age: 2 years and 4 months] 
7. /meta betsao:n li hafelah ?/ (When are you going to have a party for 
me?) [Age: 7 years and 1 month] 
8. Child pointing to her toy's place [Age: 1 year and 11 months]: lwien 
?I (Where?) 
9. /dhabyah wien ?/ (Dhabyah where?) [Age: 2 years and 1 month] 
10. /yemah wein betro:hi:n ?/(Mummy, where are you going?) [Age: 5 
years and 9 months] 
11. /yebah 'a:d go:ly wein ben sa: fer fy alaja:zeh ?/ (Daddy, tell me where 
are we travelling in the holiday?) [Age: 7 years and 9 months] 
12. /ko:leh wein ?/[the first word is pronounced as /ko:reh/ in adults' 
language](* ball where) [Age: 2 years and 1 month] 
13. /weinh/ (Where is he?) [Age: 6 years and 7 months] 
14. /weinh wein ra:h ?/(Where is he, where did he go) [Age: 8 years] 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
15. /we in et.s_o:fo:n ?/ (Where are you looking?) [Age: 2 years and 5 
months] 
16. /men wein .s_aryty elsi:di: ?/(*from where did you buy the CD?) [Age: 
8 years and 2 months] 
17. /menho 'end alba:b ?/(Who is at the door?) [Age: 8 years] 
18. /men yetekalem ? I (Who is speaking?){ on the phone} [Age: 6 years 
and 3 months 1 
19. /?b.s_enho sawyti:h ?/ (How did you do it i.e. with what?) [Age: 7 
years and 5 months] 
20. /ebkam .s_aryty elsi:di: ?/ (*With how much did you buy the CD?) 
[Age: 8 years and 2 months] 
21. /kern ha:theh/ (How much is this) {should be /ebkem ha: eh/} [Age: 2 
years and 1 month] 
22. /wein ana ba:lwneh ?/(Where is my balloon?) {should be /wein 
ba:lonti/}[Age: 2 years and 5 months] 
23. Mother: /meta rehtey elm!a:r ?/ (When did you go to the airport?) 
Child: /erya:l/ (one Ryal) {the answer should be referring to time but 
this is an answer to a question with How much } [Age: 2 years and 
6 months] 
Stage Three: Negative Questions: 
Negative interrogation was acq\lired in a later stage; some examples are 
mentioned below: 
1. /enti: rna: et'rfyi:n ?/ (* You don't know?) [Age: 5 years and 1 month] 
2. /dhabyeh rna: etsa:'dny lay.s_ ?/ (* Dhabyah doesn't help me, why?) 
[Age: 7 years and 2 months] 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
3. /enti: rna: sawytyeh lay.s, ?/(You didn't do it why?) [Age: 6 years and 
1 month] 
4. /hy rna etxa:f min alleh ?/(she doesn't afraid of God?) [Age: 6 years 
and 8 months] 
5. I ya'ny ahmed rna: eyhbny ?/ (* i.e. Ahmed doesn't love me?) [Age: 
6 years] 
6. /mama rna: saweteh?/ (Mummy didn't you do it?) [Age: 6 years and 4 
months] 
7. I mamah rna: gelty ly ?/(Mummy you didn't tell me) [Age: 6 years 
and 6 months] 
8. I yemah lay.s, rna: 'lamteeny ?/ (Mummy, why you didn't tell me) 
[Age: 6 years and 6 months] 
9. llay.s, rna: gelt heg umy ank btesabh gably ?/(Why didn't you tell Mum 
that you will take a bath before me?) [Age: 8 years] 
In this stage (about 5 years old), children learn the stylistic placement of 
the words in various positions in the sentence and use them with prepositions. 
This stage can be described as mastery of the adult usage of the interrogative 
word particles of question. 
fheg men alfesta:n ?/ ( For whom is this dress?) [Age: 7 years and 6 
months] 
I h:thyh ebkam ?/(How much is this?) [Age: 6 years and 6 months] 
/men leh eljo:ty elahmer ?/(For whom are the red shoes?) [Age: 7 years] 
IX. DISCUSSION: 
Certainly, it is very interesting to know how children acquire these discourse 
constraints. Language production and language comprehension processes 
are so complex. People are capable of always producing and comprehending 
new words, constituents, sentences and texts (Els et al. , 1984: 18). Children 
manage to develop their creative ability (Chomsky, 1959, 1980, 1981, 
1986) within a relatively short period of time and almost without explicit 
information on language. 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
(Gleitman, 1993:S32-S33) states that "The universality of language is,( ... ) 
no quirk or back corner of human mentality but rather one of the central 
cognitive properties whose possession makes us truly human. It is realistic 
to regard the language-acquisition task as a complex interaction between 
the child's innate capacities and the social, cognitive, and specifically 
linguistic supports provided in the environment". 
Observation has indicated it to be the case in the acquisition of Qatari 
dialect as well. Our data shows that children generally follow a pattern of 
hierarchy in terms of accuracy of negative and interrogative production. 
Another point to observe in the data is that the negative particle /la:/ was 
used in the early stages. /la:/ was placed before the negated verb (in verbal 
sentences) or noun (in equational sentences). Omar ( 1973) in a cross-sectional 
study, as well as Samdi (1979) in a longitudinal study found the negator 
/la:/ (in Egyptian and Jordinian Arabic Dialects respectively), the first to be 
acquired. This is a strong indication that there is universality (systematicity) 
among children acquiring syntactic structures. The implication is that there 
are universal processes underlying language acquisition. It is assumed that 
these processes are closely related to the semantics of the intended meaning 
of communication. 
The children's utterances reflect a continuum of development. By 
developmental continuum, it is implied the increasing frequency of the 
introduction of new linguistic forms or the gradual change of the probability 
of use of particular forms. The movement follows the patterns of increasing 
complexity. Complexification involves the substitution of general by more 
specific rules when conditions of appropriateness become evidenL The 
General- Specific distinction in negation is exemplified by the 
overgeneralization of some negative variants. It was found that /la:/ was 
the most overgeneralized negator. The use of one Negative particle for 
another indicates the general rules of acquisition of negation, for example 
/La:! to negate sentences. 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
Increasing complexity of child language may result from increasing degrees 
of analysis of linguistic knowledge. For example, it was observed that the 
negative particles were used as unanalysed negative particles at early stages 
of development. This indicates undifferentiation of the negative particles as 
tense markers. As semantic complexity increases both in comprehension 
and production, negative particles reanalysed as: 
Type of Sentence : 
Negative Particle: 
Verbal 
/Ia:/ 
/rna:/ 
/mob/ 
Tense 
present 
past/ present 
future 
By posting an inherent order within the QD negation categories, we are, in 
fact, stating another axiom- that the semantic notions (here Negation) and 
linguistic manifestations of tense (since the negative particle is a tense 
marker in QD), while strongly correlated are different from each other. It is 
possible to suggest a tentative explanation for the early acquisition of /la:/ 
over the other particles for the correct and appropriate use of that means of 
negation. Basically, to produce categorical realization of Arabic negation 
in general, various aspects of acquisition are interacted, e.g. word order 
development, tense development, negation development and inflection 
development. By negation development, we mean the realization of the 
correct form of the negative particle (for sentence type) and its placement in 
the appropriate position in relation to the verb which involves word order 
development. Tense development indicates the ability to realize negative 
particles as tense carriers. By inflection development, we mean being able 
to express number, gender, person and tense. 
Another indication of complexity is inflection. The acquisition of inflectional 
morphology has been the subject of numerous studies since Berko (1958). 
Inflectional morphology is, on the one hand, rule-bound, semantically 
predictable, obligatory and generally applicable (Bybee 1985; Katamba 
1993), and is therefore marked early on in child language (Brown 1973) as 
in English. However, inflectional systems such as the German noun plural 
- 33 -
Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
marking are fraught with irregularities, which prevent their early mastery 
(Clahsen et. al., 1992, Kuczaj 1977). Ravid and Farah, (1999:192) reported 
that number and gender are marked early on, although mastery of all stem 
changes takes until age 7-8. 
Omar (1973) reported that inflections were the last to be fully acquired and 
the order of acquisition was found to be determined by their regularity and 
essentiality of convergence of meaning. It is assumed that a general 
uninflected main verb (or adjective) is the all-purpose tool. The analysis 
shows the structural poverty of the negative and interrogative structures in 
early stages since these stages have no inflection at all, therefore inflections 
for number, tense, person and gender are not indicated anywhere in the 
sentence. Increase in complexity means the gradual acquisition of QD 
negative and interrogative systems as well as the gradual acquisition of 
inflected forms of verbs, nouns, etc. It also involves knowledge of the 
underlying grammatical categories and their relationships. 
Looking at the data, it seems that the order of interrogative particles from 
the most to the least favoured are: 
i) Yes/No Questions (Declarative+ intonation) 
ii) Information Questions 
iii) Negative Questions 
This is in keeping with the belief that declarative sentences are the easiest 
sentence type (Brody, 1984). 
The analysis shows that child's language is one that is developmental and 
one that is expanding in complexity from a basic'semantax' (Traugott, 
1977). Abdulkarim and Roeper (1998:43) agree that "semantic accounts 
exist which claim that part of the data has a semantic explanation. " However 
they also argue "that the acquisition evidence continues to indicate a unified 
syntactic account." Also they concluded "the intricacy of both syntactic and 
semantic theories makes it often difficult to determine which part of the 
syntax/semantic interface is at work. 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
Hopper and Naremore (1978:58-59) summarize 3 main points in children's 
syntax development: 
1. Children's earliest word combinations are probably a reflection of 
their semantic structures rather than indication that they know much 
about syntax. 
2. The first indications of grammatical knowledge can be seen when 
children begin to apply morphological endings to words. 
3. Later stages of language development reflect the child's increasing 
competence with syntax. 
X. CONCLUION: 
The developmental stages of the acquisition of Negation and Interrogation 
by children native speakers of Qatari Dialect are described in this paper. 
However, the beginning and end of the developmental stages of structures 
are not as abrupt as it may appear. They do overlap. According to the 
developmental stages of negation and interrogation, the children move in 
successive steps in their acquisition of the linguistic structures. Their 
progression does not result from conscious learning strategy or from a 
teaching method devised by their caretakers, but instead a consequence of 
the human brain's innate capacity (Chomsky, 1959) for learning language. 
From the data "rules" were written and these were hypothesized as the 
representation of the child's internal rules for generating utterances. Although 
language acquisition is systematic, there are a lot of variabilities in it. 
Writing grammar, for a "dynamic system" however, is very difficult. Thus, 
developmental language is possible to be described, but, certainly, not to 
make strong claims. More research is needed in language acquisition of 
Arabic dialects as a first language. 
0•!•0•!•0 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition ofNegation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
The following phonological transcription* IS used in this study: 
Consonants Description 
b y ....................................... voiced bilabial stop 
t u.................................... voiceless alveolar stop 
1 ..k ........................................ voiceless'emphatic' alveolar stop 
d .) ....................................... voiced alveolar stop 
.d J:' ....................................... voiced'emphatic' alveolar fricative 
k ~ ........................................ voiceless velar stop 
q J ......................................... voiceless uvular stop 
? ~ ......................................... glottal stop 
J r· ........................................ voiced palato-alveolar affricate 
t.: ........................................ voiced phryngeal fricative 
f J ........................................ voiceless labiodental fricative 
th 6 ........................................ voiceless dental fricative 
th ~ ......................................... voiced dental fricative 
dh ..& ........................................ voiced 'emphatic' dental fricative 
s ~,.}'~·····································~·voiceless alveolar fricative 
s ,r'······································· voiceless'emphatic' alveolar fricative 
z j ......................................... voiced alveolar fricative 
~ ~ ....................................... voiceless alveolar fricative 
X • . 1 1 f. t• (· ........................................ vmce ess uvu ar nca tve 
gh t_. ........................................ voiced uvular fricative 
h (- ........................................ voiceless pharyngeal fricative 
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Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 2512 002 
h L ........................................ voiceless laryngeal fricative 
r .) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 alveolar trill 
1 J ........................................ .lateral alveolar 
m j· ......................................... bilabial nasal 
n ~ ......................................... alveolar nasal 
w .J ......................................... bilabial approximant 
y tJ ........................................ palatal approximate 
dz ................................ voiced Plato-alveolar 
ch [:········································oiceless palato-alveolar 
g Li ....................................... voiced velar stop 
Based on Bukshaisha (1985). 
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Developmental Stages of the Acquisition of Negation and Interrogation by 
Children Native Speakers of Qatari Dialect 
Dr. Haifa Al-Buainain 
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