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

NEG FI same girl DEM true
„the girls aren‟t like that, right?‟
c. C1 (Bengali; 7 years)
aleyn hāda mafi mustamil (Næss 2008: 76)
now DEM NEG-FI used
„Nowadays these aren‟t used.‟
d. C4 (Malayalam; 7 years)
ana fi zeyn māl hindi (Næss 2008: 66)
1SG FI good PREP India
„I‟m well [when I‟m] in India.‟
e. C5 (Malayalam; 7 years)
’umān alhīn mafi ġāli (Næss 2008: 75)
Oman now NEG-FI expensive
„Oman is not expensive now.‟
f. D1 (Javanese; 4 years) (Næss 2008: 82)
ana fi miskin
1SG FI poor
„Poor me!”
Note that, according to Næss (2008: 81), in such sentences “the norm in GPA [=
Gulf Pidgin Aabic] is to omit the copula”.
Fi as an existential copula – considered to be a “syntactic expletive” by
Næss (2008: 81) – is widely attested in the corpus:
(30) a. B2 (Sinhala; 5 years)
ana bilād pi hāda muškila akel, ma pi akel (Næss 2008: 60)
1SG country FI DEM problem food NEG FI food
„In my country there‟s this problem with food, there‟s no food‟
b. C1 (Bengali; 7 years)
dākel fi šay (Næss 2008: 35)
inside FI thing
„Inside there were some things.‟
c. D2 (Tamil; 12 years)
fi muslim fi mafi muslim (Næss 2008: 77)
FI Muslim FI NEG-FI Muslim
„There are Muslims [and] there are non-Muslims.‟
d. D4 (Tagalog; 9 months)
fi sahīr dukān (Næss 2008: 76)
FI small shop
„There was a small shop.‟
48