Arabic-L:LING:Benefactive reference query

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 01 Feb 2001
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: Benefactive reference query

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1)
Date: 01 Feb 2001
From: "Elizabeth M. Bergman" <embergman at earthlink.net>
Subject: Benefactive reference query

Can anyone help me locate a reference?  This
was an article discussing a phenomenon I believe
was referred to as the "benefactive" in spoken
Arabic,
in one of the dialects of the eastern
Mediterranean.

This would be something like the colloquial
English, "She's got her a big truck."

The Sudanese data I'm working with has similar
examples:

/rikib lee-huu fii 9arabiyya kabiira/
'he rode himself in a big car'

But second-person references also occur:

/laabsa lee-k toob aHmar/
'she is wearing for you a red dress [where
context indicates that the listener was not
present]

And this occurs more than once with verbs
that are otherwise intransitive:

/itxarrjuu lu-hum/
'they graduated themselves'

Many thanks,

Elizabeth M. Bergman

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End of Arabic-L: 01 Feb 2001