Abstract:
A diALect boundAry, or isogloss, exists between the eastern and western Arabic vernaculars in their treatment of ditransitive verbs with two pronominal arguments (Brustad 2000, 372-73; Retsö 1987, 225, 227, 242). Just where the line should be drawn may be a matter yet to be determined precisely, but it is convenient to draw it at or near the eastern shore of Egypt. Eastward of that line the spoken vernaculars tend to place the pronominal indirect object (the beneficiary) of a ditransitive verb before the pronominal direct object (the patient). For now, let us call this order verb-indirect object-direct object (V-IO-DO) (after Gensler 1998, 2003). Meanwhile, the vernaculars westward of the isogloss place the pronominal patient before the pronominal beneficiary (V-DO-IO). On either side of the divide, however, when a verb has two nominal objects or when one of the objects is pronominal and the other nominal, the word order is flexible, with either the beneficiary preceding the patient or the opposite. This flexibility in word order is illustrated in table 15.1. © 2012 Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved.