ABSTRACT
Maghrebi Arabic (henceforth MA) is opposed to Mashreqi Arabic and to fuṣḥā (i.e. classical and modern standard) Arabic. The main feature that differentiates them is the first-person imperfect prefix: whereas in MA it is n- in the singular (n-ǝktǝb ‘I write’) and n- plus suffix -u in the plural (n-ǝktb-u ‘we write’), we find a- in the singular (a-ktib) and n- in the plural (n-aktib) in Mashreqi Arabic, and ʔ- in the singular (ʔ-aktub) ‘I write’ and n- in the plural (n-aktub ‘we write’) in fuṣḥā Arabic. By comparing the distribution of first-person prefixes, Peter Behnstedt has identified the transition areas that mark the eastern limits of MA in Egypt (Behnstedt 1998a).
