The Preposition fi-as an Object and Aspect Marker in a South Tunisian Bedouin Dialect1

Abstract

The following article deals with the preposition fi- in the Bedouin dialect of Dūz in Southern Tunisia, not in its well-known local and temporal functions, but rather as a marker of various, mainly progressive, durative and habitual aspects. In this function fi- may precede only direct objects of transitive verbs in the imperfect. In addition to an extensive survey of the scattered information found on this topic in numerous publications on Arabic dialects, this study also offers a broad analysis of contexts in which fi- is required for aspectual reasons and those in which it is precluded. The many examples that are embedded in the analysis of fi- provide a detailed insight into a very typical but hitherto understudied syntactic phenomenon of Tunisian Arabic.