Place and Archaeological Sites Names in the Ha'il Region: A Study of their Semiotics, Morphophonemic Structures, and Lexical Transformations

Authors

  • Fahad Salem Muhammed Al-Moghlouth

    Department of Arabic Language, College of Arts, University of Ha’il, Ha' il 55476, Saudi Arabia

    Humanities Research Centre, University of Ha' il, Ha' il 55476, Saudi Arabia
  • Ahmed Awad Salamah Al-Shammari

    Department of Arabic Language, College of Arts, University of Ha' il, Ha' il 55476, Saudi Arabia

    Humanities Research Centre, University of Ha' il, Ha' il 55476, Saudi Arabia
  • Mujahid Ahmed Mohammed Alwaqaa

    Humanities Research Centre, University of Ha' il, Ha' il 55476, Saudi Arabia

    Department of English, College of Arts, University of Ha' il, Ha' il 55476, Saudi Arabia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i12.12352
Received: 4 October 2025 | Revised: 3 November 2025 | Accepted: 5 November 2025 | Published Online: 28 November 2025

Abstract

The Ha’il region is located in the northwestern part of Saudi Arabia connecting the far northern and southern regions of the Kingdom. It boasts of its unique location, rich geographical structures, and archeological sites. Thus, the current study attempts to explore different geographical and archeological sites names in the Ha'il region through an in-depth analysis of their morphological and phonological structures and the transformation of their meanings and connotations. In other words, it is an exploratory study of the toponymic system of the Ha’il region. The study reveals how morphological structures of place names are varied, and how they have been changing their sounds, meanings, and connotations throughout ages. Moreover, it finds out that the lexicosemantic shifts and morphophonological diversity found in the toponymic system of the Ha’il region can be ascribed to a variety of synchronic and diachronic factors such as scribal inaccuracies, orthographic distortions, and poetic requirements existing in Arabic lexicographies and published literature. Furthermore, the topographical and geomorphological transformations have also contributed to the morphophonemic and semantic divergences of the place and archeological names under study. The scope of the current study is confined only to discussing and analyzing twenty-five place and archeological names in the region of Ha’il. As a theoretical framework, this research adopts historical and descriptive-analytical approaches as well as Peircean theory of semiotics to consolidate its thesis.

Keywords:

Lexis; Place names; Archeological Sites; the Ha' il Region; Linguistics

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How to Cite

Al-Moghlouth, F. S. M., Al-Shammari, A. A. S., & Alwaqaa, M. A. M. (2025). Place and Archaeological Sites Names in the Ha’il Region: A Study of their Semiotics, Morphophonemic Structures, and Lexical Transformations. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(12), 1671–1685. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i12.12352

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 12 (December 2025): In progress

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Article

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Copyright © 2025 Fahad Salem Muhammed Al-Moghlouth, Ahmed Awad Salamah Al-Shammari, Mujahid Ahmed Mohammed Alwaqaa

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.