Existential predication and predicative possession in Arabic dialects

Abstract

In the existential domain, Classical Arabic expresses the ground > figure perspectivization in locational predication by a mere change in constituent order, but Modern Arabic varieties have variously grammaticalized existential particles that tend to acquire verb-like properties. In the possessive domain, Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic have a typical oblique-possessor (or locational possessive) construction in which the possessor phrase is flagged by a preposition. In the vernacular varieties, this preposition has become a possessive predicator with some verbal properties, whose coding frame is similar (although not fully identical) to that of a transitive verb. More radical changes in the existential and possessive domains are attested in pidginized/creolized Arabic varieties.