12 55 Years of Arab Studies in Romania - Secţia de Arabă

DEM all day NEG FI
„this wasn‟t [the case] every day‟
b. Abdulhamid (Punjabi; 26 years)
awwal ma fi tilifōn (Al-Moaily 2008: 95)
beginning NEG FI telephone
„there were no telephones before‟
c. Shera (Pashto; 22 years)
kahrabā ma fi gali (Al-Moaily 2008: 133)
electricity NEG FI expensive
„electricty wasn‟t expensive‟
Note that while in (10a) and (10c) it is the context which yields a past tense
interpretation, sentence (10b) contains awwal, one of the lexical items which –
according to Al-Moaily (2008: 40) – express the past tense.
Al-Moaily (2008) does not distinguish among the types of structures
containing the copula fi. An analysis of the interviews in Al-Moaily (2008) shows
that fi occurs in several such constructions. The first series of examples illustrate
the use of fi as a predicative copula:
(11) a. Abulbashar (Bengali; 11 years)
ana nafar fi ğadīd (Al-Moaily 2008: 80)
1SG person FI new
„if I‟m a newcomer‟
b. Abdulhamid (Punjabi; 26 years)
alhīn fi šabīh (Al-Moaily 2008: 86)
now FI similar
„it‟s similar now‟
c. Abdulmajid (Punjabi; 27 years)
Riyād fi ba’īd (Al-Moaily 2008: 92)
Riyadh FI far
„Riyadh is far‟
d. Sameer (Bengali; 26 years)
ma fi lāzim (Al-Moaily 2008: 108)
NEG FI necessary
„it‟s not necessary‟
e. Shera (Pashto; 22 years)
fi ahsan (Al-Moaily 2008: 127)
FI bun
„it is alright‟
Fi as an equative copula also occurs, although rather rarely:
40