She said to him, 'Husband, the woman ate her son-this is the second wife {talking)-two women the guy married, the other wife told him, the woman ate her own son.
Kuwaiti /mal/ often occurs in phrases contrasting with other named or implied entities. In the first example, the speaker uses /mal/ to contrast the forgetfulness of old age with that other kind. In the second, she contrasts love in the old days with love in the post-oil era:
K3
\!J ljJ L..
u� .,.... '>P JL.. u� Ijlll - "la -- haga nisyan mal kubur, mil nisyan mal gak
no--this forgetfulness gen old-age, neg forgetfulness gen that No-this is forgetfulness of old age, not that other kind of forgetfulness
K3
V"� .l..:!IJ 'V"�' C:J�J �
�I ,�IJL..
J-A ..J�i
��ubb 'awwal ... mil mal I-�In, al-�In y�ibbha w yril�, flils, wayid flils
love of-old-days ... neg gen now, now he-loves-her and he-goes, money, much money
Love in the old days ... not (like love) of today, these days he loves her and leaves (her) , money, lots of money
Similarly, here one particular house of this member of the ruling family is contrasted to his other houses:
Kn b�..J 1 J L.. ..H4J1
�I �bet a�mad l-yabir mal id-dlra
house Ahmed al-labir gen- the-old-city
Ahmed AI-laber's house (the one) of the old city
Nouns that play a role as discourse topic, that is, figure importantly in a narrative, often attract special syntactic marking ( 1 .5, 2. 1 ). Genitive phrases with exponents often play a role as discourse topic. In the following, the hair of a lion will play a discourse role in the story, hence its first mention is marked with /mal/:
K3 � JL.. � � � �JJ
ril�i ylbI-li sa'ar mal sibi' go-f bring-f hair gen lion Go bring me a hair of a lion
2.4 Genitive and Possessive Constructions
79
Another factor at work in this example is the identity of the possessor.
Although the genitive phrase remains indefinite, the identity of the possessor is implicitly contrasted, since the woman is requested to get the hair of a lion, not the hair of any other animal.
Haming found Syrian to have one of the lowest frequencies of genitive exponents of any urban dialects ( 1980: 1 5 8). One reason for this low frequency may be that Syrian speakers have at their disposal another construction that helps the speaker package (and helps the listener process) genitive information. This construction is the so-called
"object marker" /la-/ (see further 10.3.5). The following example contains a complex possessive construction consisting of four terms, /sikirter(t)/ secretary, /mar(t)/ wife, /ra'is/ president, and fmally /�j-jam'a/
the university. The genitive is formed in a two-step process: first, the secretary's relationship to a female figure is established using a possessive pronoun, /sikirtert[h]a/ her secretary, then the second figure is defined as /mart ra'is �j-jam'a/ the president of the university's wife, using a three-term construct. The larger possessive consists of two parts, both genitive constructs, combined using the resumptive topic marker /la-/
(see further 10.3.5), which places a topical focus on the latter term.
S5 u� ..:.::..� ��,
�J .� t+;�..,s...sikirtert[h]a la-mart ra'is ij-jam'a da"it talifon
secretary-her obj-wife of-president of-the-university called-she telephone
The secretary of the president of the university's wife called Although the primary function of /la-/ involves marking a resumptive topic, it often occurs in genitive constructions, where it fulfills a role similar to that of genitive /taba'/ in that both particles allow the speaker to order and rank the relationships among multiple terms in a way that aids the listener to keep track of them. In Egyptian, the only acceptable way to express this idea would contain genitive /hita'/ (or feminine /bita'it/):
E ��I
�J .'J-A �� .�..P-J ' is-sikritera bta'it mirat ra'is ig-gam'athe secretary gen wife of-president of-the-university The secretary of the wife of the president of the university
Egyptian /bita'/ shares with Syrian /taba'/ syntactic restrictions and most semantic and pragmatic functions, the main exception being the greater Egyptian use of /bita'/ in defining social relationships, as contrasted to Syrian /taba'/ (see 2.4.5). From this perspective, the discrepancy Haming finds between the frequency of the exponents in these two urban areas is unexpected. However, the availability of /la-/
to Syrian speakers as an infonnation packaging device helps to explain both the lower frequency of /taba'/ and why Syrian speakers tend not to use it as often in describing social relationships.
2.4.4 Exponents and Individuation
The genitive exponents tend to reflect a high degree of specification or individuation as contrasted with the construct phrase. Syrian and Egyptian exponents seem to be limited to this pragmatic function for the most part. Moroccan and Kuwaiti, on the other hand, allow exponents to classify (rather than individuate) nouns. In syntactic terms, the exponents in Moroccan and Kuwaiti are more frequently used to modify indefinite nouns and/or nonspecific possessors than their Egyptian and Syrian counterparts.
Haming notes "qualification" as a common semantic characteristic of exponent phrases, but she does not make the distinction that Cowell does between classification and identification. Thus her examples of
"qualification" include the use of exponents to individuate, such as Egyptian /il-kitab bita' is-sil:lr/ the book of magic, which clearly refers to a specific book (87) and Moroccan /l-ma d[�] l-bakor/ Ie jus des figue-fleurs [sap of unripe figs 1 ( 1 36), a classificatory identification.
It is important to make this distinction between classification (generic identity, low individuation) and identification (specific identity, high individuation), because it corresponds to a difference in the usage of the exponents in the dialects. Moroccan and Kuwaiti speakers use their exponents to classify and individuate, while Egyptian and Syrian speakers generally use the exponent to individuate but not to classify (except in certain idiomatic expressions noted below).
The following examples from Moroccan and Kuwaiti data show the exponents qualifying or classifying, but not individuating the nouns
2.4 Genitive and Possessive Constructions
8 1
they modify. The nouns that constitute the first tenns of these genitive phrases are all indefinite, and the possessors are generic rather than specific. The genitive phrase as a whole is thus low in individuation:
M6
UI J
l:!J t:.� I�
�ra magana dyal l-ma
bought-he watch gen the-water He bought a waterproo/watch M
<:,� I J 4 � c.r '":-'� �
m�a zab-li �i-z;)ld d;)-I-b;)gri
[went-he brought-me some skin gen the-cow]
He went and bought me some old cowhide (Harrell 1 962: 1 83)
K3
H,rJ1JL..
..::.ol..eI.,r:...;,.1 '.H�. L:.:.L..j
�.i"":;�J
� LaJ.,i
J 4SJ 1 'awwal rna mI� daxatra, 'ala zwniinna, 'ayayiz, xtara'at mal ;)I-l)anm;)I-kubar
first neg-there-is doctors on time-our, old-women, inventions gen the-women the -old
In the old days there [were] no doctors, in our time, [just] old women, the inventions of old women
In contrast to these Moroccan and Kuwaiti examples, in which the genitive exponent is used to classify rather than individuate, the following Egyptian example shows /hita'/ in an individuating phrase.
Although the first noun /Qaga/ thing is indefmite and non-specific, the high individuation of /rabbina/ God allows the exponent /hita'it/, since a thing 0/ God's is unique among all other things:
ElO
L.:...:aJ �� 46.., �., t...lIJ
d:a� ..:.J.lL.. <:,j
zayy rna 'ult li-l)a<;lritik da 'isma wi na�ib wi l)aga bita'it rabbina as nom said-I to-presence-your this fate and lot and thing gen Lord-our
Like I told you, Ma'am, this is/ate, and something of God's Syrian and Egyptian infonnants reject constructions with non-specific possessors as weak. Grammars of both dialects confinn: Cowell remarks that it is rare for Syrian /taba'/ to annex an indefinite possessor ( 1 964:489); for Egyptian, el-Tonsi specifies a limited set of idiomatic,
predicated contexts in which /hita'/ can annex an indefinite noun ( 1982i:20).
One of the few instances in which Egyptian and Syrian exponents /hita'/ and /taba'/ annexes an indefinite possessor is a shared idiomatic expression meaning someone who likes (a meaning I have not found for Moroccan /dyal/ or Kuwaiti /mal/):
E w 1y....:.
t. � � I J IJHe likes women/is a ladies man
w i y....:. t-:U "...
huwwe taba' niswan he gen women
He likes women/is a ladies man
I'm not all talk [and no action] construction, /fed/, which Ingham defines as ( 1 994: 1 82):15