Chapter 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic David Wilmsen American University of Sharjah The many varieties of Arabic together exhibit numerous existential particles, all of them negated with the usual verbal negator mā or occasionally the common Semitic lā. A few of those, ʔys, šī, and bī, exhibit stages of a negative existential cy- cle. All three cycles share commonalities. Associated with an incipient stage A>B, each undergoes a univerbation between the negator and the existential particle. With the šī cycle, this involves either reflexes of a fusion between the negator mā and šī as māšī, or a further step involving the negator mā, a 3rd-person pronoun hū or hī, and the existential particle šī: mā hū/hī šī > mahūš > mūš > muš/miš. A univerbation of the existential bī proceeds along an analogous pathway: from mā bi through mā hū bi > mahub > mub. As for ʔys, it has fused with the negator lā to form laysa. In all three cycles, these univerbations extend into the domain of equational sentence negation. Another commonality is that as the cycles progress, the original existential particles themselves disappear, to be replaced by new ones. In the bī and šī cycles, it is the preposition fī ‘in’, which has become grammati- calized as an existential particle. In the laysa cycle, existential ʔys is replaced by demonstratives hunāka and θamma ‘there’. The univerbations in all three cycles can operate in sub-domains of verbal negation. The stages that the three cycles have reached permit a comparative diachrony. Because the laysa cycle is the only one to reach a full-on stage C>A, it must be the longest running, followed by the šī cycle, which appears to be entering upon a Stage C in Egyptian Arabic and has done in one southern Yemeni variety. The bī cycle, having reached only an incipi- ent stage A>B and beyond would be the most recent. David Wilmsen. 2022. Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic. In Ljuba Veselinova & Arja Hamari (eds.), The Negative Ex- istential Cycle, 141–172. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo. 7353605 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7353605 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7353605 David Wilmsen 1 Introduction Extant spoken Arabic varieties exhibit amongst themselves reflexes of at least six separate existential particles. Of these, two show developments characteristic of a negative existential cycle (Croft 1991) variously distributed amongst Arabic di- alects. For its part, the Arabic of writing, descended from an archaic form, no longer spoken as a native language and different in many ways from the many varieties of spoken Arabic, also shows signs of having passed through a nega- tive existential cycle. We shall summarize the workings of the cycle with each of the three existential particles, observing the commonalities that their cycles share with each other.1 The stages of completion that these respective cycles have reached will admit proposing a relative chronology. The first of the cycles to be addressed in §2, is called the laysa cycle, after the negator laysa, which derives from an existential ʔys, no longer in use. The earliest Arabic writing of any length, the Quran, dating to the seventh century, exhibits an early stage of the cycle, with later stages to be seen in collections of the prophetic tradition of the ninth century, in some writings fromMuslim Spain of the twelfth century, and subsequent writings, up to the present day. The second, addressed in §3, is called the šī cycle, after an existential particle šay(y)/šē/šī of the southern Arabian Peninsula attested in spoken Arabic dialects of the lower Arabian Gulf, Oman, and Yemen. Some original data from Emirati Arabic that will be presented as examples of usage are drawn from a series of oral history recordings, in which pre-nineteen-sixties residents of the old town of Sharjah describe life in the emirate before the oil boom. These are housed at the Sharjah Museums Authority (SMA), acknowledged here with thanks. The third, addressed in §4, is the bī cycle, named for an alternate to the better- known existential particle fī of which Croft speaks (1991: 7). Some of the data from that discussion are also drawn from the SMA recordings. Statistics pertain- ing to usage of existential negators involving bī come from a corpus of Gulf Arabic (Gumar).2 Finally, §5 addresses some of the salient commonalities that the three Arabic cycles share, placing those into the broader typology of negative existential cy- cles, there and in the conclusion placing them into a historical perspective. 1The four other Arabic existential particles (listed in Table 1 at the start of section 3) show no sign of entering a negative existential cycle. 2https://camel.abudhabi.nyu.edu/gumar/ 142 https://camel.abudhabi.nyu.edu/gumar/ 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic 2 The laysa cycle An existential particle ʔys is attested in a few medieval Arabic lexicographical works.3 In the earliest of these, the eighth-century Omani lexicographer al-Fara- hidi (d. 786 AD) says that, in his day, ʔys may have fallen out of usage except for a single living idiomatic expression, which he adduces: (1) ʔat-ni come.pfv b-h prep-pro.m.3sg mn prep ḥyθ adv ʔys ex w conj lys neg.ex ‘He came [to] me with him/it from wherever. (lit. where there and not there)’ (al-Farāhıd̄iı ̄ 2003: 105) al-Farahidi remarks that ʔys denotes existence, and lys, which he derives from lā ʔys, denotes nonexistence. Some ninth-century Arabic philosophical writing uses the two with those meanings (Gihami 2002: 35). Soon afterwards, the affir- mative existential particle ʔys disappears from living usage, leaving the negative laysa abundantly attested in the Arabic of writing from that day to this. Conse- quently, we may assume that an existential particle ʔys did once obtain in some varieties of Arabic and it that was negated with the common Semitic negator lā:4 (2) lā neg ʔys ex ‘Not there [is]’5 (al-Farāhıd̄iı ̄ 2003: 105) The regular Arabic verbal negator, lā, negating an existential particle, makes this a characteristic type A construction, in which, as Croft defines it, “there is no special existential negative form, and the negative existential construction is the positive existential predicate plus the ordinary verbal negator” (1991: 6–7). In the Arabic of writing, verbal negations almost always proceed with a reflex of lā (sometimes mā): (3) lā neg a-ʕraf 1sg-know.ipfv ‘I [do] not know.’ (Adwan 2000: 144, 158) 3The laysa cycle is examined in much greater detail in Wilmsen (2016a). 4Other Semitic languages possess similar existential particles, with some, including Arabic, re- taining only the negated form. Their origins are much discussed and debated amongst Semiti- cists. Nevertheless, despite some disagreement around the derivation of laysa (Wilmsen 2016a, Al-Jallad 2018), a plurality consensus holds that it does, indeed, derive from lā ʔys (see Blau (1972), Gensler (2000), Lipiński (2001: 464–465, 488–489); summarized inWilmsen (2016a: 329– 331) & Wilmsen (2017: 298–299). 5In Arabic, a copula is usually not expressed in present time predications. The enclosing of the English copula in brackets in the gloss is meant to reflect that. 143 David Wilmsen 2.1 Stage A>B of the laysa cycle Croft continues, defining a stage A>B as involving “a special existential negative form, usually but not always a contraction or fusion of the verbal negator and the positive existential form” (1991: 7). This is what the surviving negative exis- tential particle laysa is. A Stage A>B would have seen a conventional negation of existential ʔys with lā, as that in example (1), coexisting with laysa. That may have happened before Arabic became fully attested in writing, but there is no remaining record of it. Nevertheless, laysa can stand by itself in denying the ex- istence of something, to the extent that the thing denied need not be mentioned. In modern writing, this holds especially for negating locational sentences of the type, ‘At/for/in/with the X is/are Y’ (4a). Nor is laysa the sole negator of existen- tial predications; the regular negator lā also negates them without the need for an expressed existential particle (4b):6 (4) a. laysa neg.ex fī prep l-maktab det-office illā conj anā pro.1sg w conj anta pro.m.2sg ‘There [is] not in the office except you and I.’ (Adwan 2000: 273) b. lā neg ilāha god illā except llāh Allah ‘[There is] no god except Allah.’ (Quran 37:35) As such, laysa does function as a special negative existential form in certain types of existential negations, whereas the usual negator lā can also negate ex- istential predications, albeit without need for an expressed positive existential. This would be a type of a stage A>B. 2.2 Extension into equational sentence negation Aside from that, laysa also negates non-verbal predications of all sorts, whether existential or otherwise. This has been the case at least since the 7th century AD, when extensive Arabic writing began to appear: (5) a. laysa neg.ex ka-miθli-hi prep-likeness-pro.m.3sg šayʔ thing ‘There [is] not [a] thing like His likeness.’ (Quran 42:11) 6The examples of usage with laysa are from written sources, meaning that geographical prove- nance is largely irrelevant. A map charting the spoken Arabic dialects that are passing through negative existential cycles that are addressed below can be found in Figure 1. 144 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic b. laysa neg ð-ðakaru det-male ka-l-ʔunθā prep-det-female ‘The male [is] not like the female.’ (Quran 3: 36) Sentences of the type in (5) are what Li and Thompson call “equational sen- tences … in which an identificational or member/class relationship is expressed between two NPs” (1977: 419). That is, equational sentences express relation- ships between the subject and predicate that in languages like English, French, and Spanish require a copula. Equational sentences are characteristic non-verbal predications in spoken and written Arabic alike, in which a copula, verbal or oth- erwise, is lacking. When a copula is needed, it is usually one of the 3rd-person pronouns (Li & Thompson 1977: 431–433):7 (6) Palestinian Arabic (Li & Thompson 1977: 431) a. hiyye pro.f.3sg le-mʕallme det-teacher ‘She [is] the teacher.’ b. il-bint det-girl hiyye pro.f.3sg le-mʕallme det-teacher ‘The girl [is] the teacher.’ Li & Thompson (1977: 420) label sentences of the first type (6a) “topic-comment constructions” and the second “subject-predicate constructions”, noting that both Hebrew, and Palestinian Arabic (among other languages) have developed a cop- ula by means of the topic-comment construction. In actuality, what holds for Palestinian Arabic holds, with minor variations, for all varieties of Arabic: when a copula is needed, it is expressed as a 3rd person pronoun. As far as written Ara- bic is concerned, topic-comment and subject-predicate constructions alike are characteristically negated with laysa, while verbal predications are negated with reflexes of lā, as in (3). 2.3 Subsequent stages of the laysa cycle A stage B would see “only a special negative existential form” (Croft 1991: 9). Ve- selinova (2014: 1338; 2016: 153) observes that stages of the cycle, especially a stage B, may be skipped entirely, and it appears that the laysa cycle has done so. Oc- casionally, however, laysa can negate verbs, characteristic of a stage B>C (Croft 7For more on equational sentences and the copular function of 3rd person pronouns in Arabic, see Eid (1983, 1991) and Choueiri (2016). 145 David Wilmsen 1991: 9–10), and when it does, it is usually for pragmatically marked purposes, no- tably in posing contrasts between a denial and an assertion (7a) or in rhetorical negations (7b), as in the following from an early genre of Arabic literature, col- lected sayings of the prophet Muhammad (Hadith) compiled by al-Buḫārı ̄ (2000: d. 870): (7) a. laysa neg.ex ya-riθ-u-ni 3m-inherit.ipfv-ind-pron.1sg ʔillā except ʔibnat-i daughter-pro.1sg ‘None inherits [from] me except my daughter.’ (al-Buḫārı ̄ 2000: Vol. VIII p. 151) b. a q laysa neg.ex ʔamara-kum command.pfv-pron.2mpl ‘[Has] he not commanded you?’ (al-Buḫārı ̄ 2000: Vol. VI p. 864) In (7a), the predication might still be read as an existential negation: ‘There is none inherits from me.’ Nevertheless, laysa can occasionally negate verbs in apparently unmarked usage:8 (8) laysa neg ya-drī 3m-know.ipfv kayfa adv ħadaθa happen.pfv al-ʔamr det-thing ‘He knows not how the thing happened.’ (Kanafani 2006: 28) Because the negation in (7) and other verbal negations with laysa would usu- ally be effectuated with a reflex of lā, the choice to negate the verb with laysa must invest the statement so produced with some added pragmatic meaning. As for a Stage C, “in which the negative existential form is the same as the ordinary verbal negator” (Croft 1991: 11), the laysa cycle reached it only in the extinct 12th century Arabic dialect(s) of Muslim Iberia (Al-Andalus), where re- flexes of laysa had become, “an almost universal negator of the perfective, … imperfectives, and nominal sentences” (Corriente 2013): (9) a. las neg.ex kān be.pfv.3s dara-yt-uh know.pfv-1s-pron.3m ‘I had not known it.’ (Corriente 2013: 126) b. las neg.ex ni-sammī 1s-name.ipfv aḥad one ‘I mention not anyone.’ (Corriente 2013: 126) 8A rarity in other spoken varieties of Arabic, reflexes of laysa survive as what Holes (2006: 26) calls a “fossilized remnant” in some southern Peninsular dialects of Arabic, where they can negate verbal predications (Al-Azraqi 1998: 142–144), typical of a stage B>C. 146 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic c. las neg.ex niḥun pro.1pl ṣibyān children ‘We [are] not children.’ (Corriente 2013: 126) 2.4 Terminal stage of the laysa cycle Nevertheless, laysa has everywhere entered upon a Stage C>A, “in which the negative-existential-cum-verbal-negator begins to be reanalyzed as only a nega- tor, and a regular positive existential … comes to be used with it in the negative existential construction” (Croft 1991: 12).9 In the Arabic of writing especially, two existential particles θamma and hunāka, both meaning ‘there’, and a passive- voice construction involving the verb ya-ǧid ‘he finds’ > y-ūǧad ‘it [is] found’ appear in the 8th and 9th centuries (Wilmsen 2016a: 354–356). The usual verbal negator lā most often negates the verb form: lā y-ūǧad (lit. ‘it [is] not found’ understood to mean ‘there is not’; example [10a]). Otherwise, laysa negates the two existential particles, as in the following from the Hadith collections of Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 855) and al-Buḫārı ̄ (10b & 10c): (10) a. fa-lā conj-neg y-ūǧad m.3sg-found.ipfv fī-hi prep-pro.m.3sg šayʔ thing ‘And there [is] not in it [a] thing.’ [lit. ‘And not found in it thing’] (al-Buḫārı ̄ 2000: Vol. VIII p. 1256) b. laysa neg.ex θamma ex dinār currency wa-lā conj-neg dirham currency ‘Not there [is] [a] dinar and not [a] dirham.’ (al-Buḫārı ̄ 2000: Vol. VIII p. 1323) c. laysa neg.ex hunāka ex dinār currency wa-lā conj-neg dirham currency ‘Not there [is] [a] dinar and not [a] dirham.’ (Ibn Ḥanbal no date: Vol. IX, p. 507) Both of the latter two existentials, originate as remote demonstrative pro- nouns, corresponding in usage to English ‘there’. In the earliest extensive Arabic writing, the Quran, dating to the middle seventh century, θamma appears once as an existential particle, but a reflex of hunāka appears only as a demonstrative. 9Croft actually says “a regular positive existential verb” (Croft 1991: 12). But in Arabic, the ex- istential particles are almost always not verbs. For its part, laysa exhibits the peculiar quality of inflecting as a perfective verb to negate present-time predications. There is no sign that it ever existed in an imperfective form (see discussion in Wilmsen 2016a: 341–346). 147 David Wilmsen Negation of either with laysa begins to appear in writing after the middle of the ninth (Wilmsen 2016a: 354–355). The laysa cycle had thus passed through all of its stages by that time. It can rightly be askedwhy all stages of the laysa cycle appear to be stacked one atop the other. In the first place, Croft himself notes the overlap of stages (1991: 22; c.f. Veselinova 2016: 146, 149, 151–154). In the second, the Arabic of writing was codified in the eight through tenth centuries and has changed but little since then, such that Arabic texts produced in the eighth century remain intelligible to readers today, and modern writers adhere to their modes of expression (Wilmsen 2016a: 340). As it stands, the laysa cycle is not likely to proceed further, with laysa becoming the regular negator, precisely because of the archaic character that its users cultivate to the present day, tolerating but little deviation from it. Noteworthy, too, is that laysa is used in writing but hardly ever in speech. 3 The šī cycle For their parts, spoken varieties of Arabic possess between themselves several existential particles (Eid 2008).10 These are listed in Table 1. Table 1: Existential particles in spoken Arabic varieties Existential particle Negation Provenance aku mā-kū(-š) Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain bī mā bī(-š) Syrian steppes, central/ southern Arabian Peninsula fī mā-fī(-š) Libya, Egypt, Levant, Arabian Peninsula/Gulf kāyen mā-kāyen-š Morocco, Algeria šī mā šī Bahrain, UAE, Oman, Yemen θamma, famma, emm mā (θ/f)ammā-š, mem-š Tunisia, Malta Most dialects of Arabic possess only one existential particle, but the Arabic varieties of the southern Arabian Peninsula are remarkable for the presence of multiple particles. Bahrain has aku, fī, and šay (Holes 2016: 110); the Yemen has šī, fī, and bī (Behnstedt 2016: 346–348, maps 136 & 137); and Oman and the UAE 10The šī cycle is examined at greater length in Wilmsen (2020a). 148 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic possess both fī and šī – the latter variously realized as šayʔ, šayy, šē, or šī (Rein- hardt 1894: 112; Johnstone 1967: 170; Brockett 1985: 24; Holes 1990: 71; Holes 2016: 24–28; Davey 2016: 162). All of these are negated with the negator mā common to all spoken dialects of Arabic, which, characteristic of a stage A, negates verbal predications and non-verbal existential predications alike. Indeed, (Croft 1991: 7) adduces usage from Syrian Arabic as an example of a stage A. Compare Croft’s examples with an almost identical matched pair from Emirati Arabic: (11) Emirati Arabic (Sharjah) a. mā neg a-ʕraf 1sg-know.ipfv ism-ǝ name-pro.m.3sg ‘I know not its name.’ (SMA data) b. mā neg šay ex biyūt houses ‘There [were] no houses.’(SMA data) For its part, the exential particle fī has not proceeded beyond Stage A, but exential particle šī has. In Emirati Arabic, šī shares the existential function with fī : (12) Emirati Arabic (Sharjah) mā mā neg šī fī ex fayda fayda benefit ‘There [is] no benefit.’ (SMA data) A contrast in usage obtains between the two particles in their affirmative and negative functions in Emirati Arabic. Wilmsen (2020a: 528) had observed from limited data that the negation mā šī occurs about twice as often as the affirmative šī and that affirmative existential predication occurs more oftenwith fī thanwith šī. The SMA recordings, from which some of the data for the current study come, reveal a more precise view of the matter. In them, speakers who have occasion to use existential predications use a reflex of māši in negation 90 times, as opposed to 32 with mā fī. To the contrary, they use fī in affirmative existential predication 34 times as opposed to their using šī in the affirmative only six times, with some speakers not using it at all. That is, full 85 percent of existential predications are with fī and 72.8 percent of existential negations are with a variant of māši.11 11A similar situation obtains in Yemeni Dialects of Arabic, in which, as Behnstedt observes, “the negative form may differ from the positive one in its base lexeme … such as bū ‘there is’, mā šī ‘there is not’ (2016: 345). We shall return to existential bī below. 149 David Wilmsen These figures are summarized in Table 2. Table 2: Occurrences of Emirati existentials and their negations in SMA oral histories šī fī māšī mā fī Speaker 1F 0 0 25 4 Speaker 2F 3 1 21 5 Speaker 1M 0 10 18 8 Speaker 2M 2 13 17 7 Speaker 3M 1 5 6 4 Speaker 4M 0 5 3 4 Totals 6 34 90 32 Percentages 15 85 72.8 26.2 3.1 Stage A>B of the šī cycle Such alternation in usage is in accordance with Croft’s conception of Stage A>B, in which “a special negative existential form is found … in addition to the regular existential form” (1991: 7). In this case, the regular existential form being precisely the fī that he adduces, albeit for the Syrian Arabic of Damascus. So, too, are uni- verbations between the negator and the existential particle common in a stage A>B, the negator so formed existing side-by-side with the regular negator + ex- istential particle construction. Existential šī does form a univerbation with the negator mā to form maši. In such a form, reflexes of maši can stand alone as an element of negation: (13) Emirati Arabic (Sharjah) lāʔ neg (.) mašay neg.ex (.) inʕidm-it disappear.pfv-f.3sg ha-l-ašyāʔ dem-det-things ‘No. There [are] not. These things have disappeared.’ (SMA data) A caveat is that according Croft, “the contracted form is the newer one” (Croft 1991: 7). This is likely true of maši; but existential fī and its negation mā fī are relatively new, too. This much has been said about Omani dialects of Arabic (Brockett 1985: 24; Holes 1990: 71; Bernabela 2011: 61; Davey 2016: 171). It appears to be true of Emirati Arabic, too. 150 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic 3.2 Extension of Stage A>B in the šī cycle A further univerbation occurs between the negator mā, a 3rd-person pronoun hū ‘he/it [is]’ or hī ‘she/it [is]’), and the existential šī, usually but not always reduced to /-š/: (14) a. mā hū šī neg pro ex > māhūš neg > mūš neg > muš neg b. mā hī šī neg pro ex > mahīš neg > mīš neg > miš neg A clear indicator of the derivation comes from Tunisian Arabic and the closely related peripheral (or remnant or enclave) variety of Arabic Maltese. Tunisian Arabic exhibits several reflexes of both, including māhūš(i) mauš(i), mūši, muši, muš, and māhīš(i) mayīš, maiš, mîši, miši, miš; it even has a reduced form mumš, derived in the samemanner as that in (14), but with the plural 3rd person pronoun hum ‘they/them’ (Singer 1984: 718). For its part, Maltese exhibits the derivation in its orthography, which represents the word, realized mūš in speech, as . Other such precursors to muš and miš are widely attested and well documented in Arabic dialects from the Yemen to Morocco.12 Like laysa, both maši and muš/miš have extended into the negation of equa- tional sentences, especially in dialects of the Yemen (Watson 1993: 253, 258),13 where, for example, in the dialect of Sana’a, Yemen, either miš or muš in addi- tion to shortened forms māš or maš negate equational sentences (Watson 1993: 253–256): (15) a. māš neg hī prep.f.3sg ħāliy-ih pretty-f.sg ‘She [is] not pretty.’ (Watson 1993: 256) b. anā pro miš neg fi-l-bayt prep-det-house ǧāls-ih sitting-f.sg ‘I [am] not sitting at home.’ (Watson 1993: 258) In Arabic varieties elsewhere, reflexes of muš/miš and maši also negate non- verbal predications as the usual negator of equational sentences: 12Rather than reference the many studies documenting the phenomenon, reference is here made to the discussion in Wilmsen (2014: 100–101). 13In Emirati Arabic, equational sentences are usually negated with mū or mub, more on which below. 151 David Wilmsen (16) a. Lebanese Arabic (Beirut) hiyye pro.f.3sg miš neg hōn dem ‘She [is] not here.’ (Own data)14 b. Egyptian Arabic (Cairo) ir-rayyis det-headman miš neg hina dem ‘The boss [is] not here.’ (Woidich 2006: 334) c. Moroccan Arabic (Casablanca) huwa pro.m.3sg maši neg hna dem ‘He [is] not here.’ (Harrell 2004: 155) The negator miš is found in Emirati Arabic, too, but it is likely a borrowing from Egyptian and Levantine varieties of Arabic, brought to the Emirates by the large expatriate populations of speakers of those varieties, who are attracted to the Emirates by the many career opportunities. 3.3 Excursus on grammatical šī It behooves us to note the plural ašyāʔ ’things’ in (14) and its singular form šayʔ ’thing’ in (10a), one of the many words with that designation in Arabic (c.f. ʔamr in [8]). Before much was known about existential šī,15 speculation had it that the ši in negation (i.e., the suffixed /-š/ in some varieties in Table 1) derives from the word for ‘thing’. The stock demonstration of this being as follows: (17) mā neg katab write.pfv ši thing > mā neg katab-š write.pfv-neg ‘He wrote not [a] thing.’ > ‘He wrote not.’ As such, it has even been suggested that it plays a role in a presumed Jesper- sen cycle in Arabic (Lucas 2007). Briefly, Jespersen cycle refers to the process whereby a lexical item such as, emblematically, the French word pas ‘step’ be- comes closely bound up with negation and can come to replace the negator itself, 14The Lebanese examples in (17) and (19) are drawn from my observations while living in Beirut from 2007 to 2016. 15Although it had been attested sporadically since the late 19th century (Reinhardt 1894: 112; John- stone 1967: 170; Brockett 1985: 24), it has remained largely unexamined until recently (Holes 2016: 24–28, Wilmsen 2017, 2020a). 152 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic as with some colloquial French varieties, which negate with pas alone without the standard preposed negator ne. The difficulty with postilating this cycle for Arabic, as pointed out by Woidich (1990: 139), is in the unmotivated change of valence between the transitive ‘he didn’t write a thing’ and ‘he didn’t write’ and the loss of the predicate between ‘it is not a thing’ and ‘it is not.’ What is more, it happens that reflexes of šī performmany functions in spoken Arabic varieties; in interrogation, negation, as an indefinite article, and a quantifier (Wilmsen 2014: 44–63; Wilmsen 2017). All of these are presumed to derive from the šī of ‘thing’ (for a recent iteration of this, see Glanville 2018), even though many of them are quite un-thing-like in semantics. 3.4 The B>C Stage of the šī cycle A true stage B would see “only a special negative existential form” (Croft 1991: 9). That has not yet occurred in the Arabic dialects possessing reflexes of šī as an existential particle. Like the laysa cycle, the šī cycle appears to have skipped a stage B. It resumes in Stage B>C, which Croft defines as “gradual substitution of the negative existential for the verbal negator in only part of the verbal gram- matical system” (1991: 10). Accordingly, miš/muš and reflexes can occasionally negate verbs: (18) Egyptian Arabic (Cairo) a. miš neg ħa-yi-gi fut-3-come.ipfv ‘He will not come.’ (Doss 2008: 87) b. miš neg Ɂul-ti say.pfv-1sg la-k dat-pro.m.2sg ‘[Did] I not tell you?’ (Doss 2008: 87) c. miš neg ittafaʔ-t agree.pfv-1sg maʕ-āh prep-pro.m.3sg wa-bass prep-adv maḍḍ-ēt-uh had.sign.pfv-1s-pro.3m ‘I didn’t just agree with him; I had him sign.’ (Doss 2008: 86) d. bi-ya-axud hab-3-take.ipfv fulūs money miš neg bi-y-gīb hab-3-get.ipfv fulūs money ‘He takes money; not brings money.’ (Al-Sayyed & Wilmsen 2017: 248) 153 David Wilmsen e. Lebanese Arabic (Beirut) b-a-ʕzim-kon hab-1sg-invite.ipfv-pro.2pl ʕalā prep Ɂahwe coffee miš neg ti-šrab-ū 2-drink.ipfv-pl šāy tea ‘I’m inviting you for coffee; [Mind] you not drink tea [beforehand].’ (Own data) Verbal negation with miš/muš instead of the usual mā usually imparts some especial pragmatic meaning to the negation. That in (18b) is a rhetorical negation, a negative assertion intended to solicit an affirmative reply; in (18c) it is metalin- guistic negation, denying something other than the truth value of the utterance (the speaker, did, in fact, agree); (18d) contrasts a negated proposition against its affirmative; and (18f) is a dehortative (Wilmsen 2016b). In any of these, the reg- ular verbal negator mā can, and usually does, apply. As such, these are not true instances of a Stage B>C. For its part, (18a), as an example of a regularly applied verbal negations in a specific sub-domain of verbal negation, is a manifestation of a true Stage B>C. It furthermore appears that miš/muš is trending towards the negation of pragmatically unmarked verbs in the dialect of Cairo (Brustad 2000: 303; Doss 2008; Håland 2011; Wilmsen 2020a: 519). 3.5 Stage C and beyond of the šī cycle A characteristic Stage C appears in only two dialects of Arabic: the Egyptian Arabic of the Sharqia governorate north of Cairo, and in the dialect of the Abyan province of southernmost Yemen. As for the former, miš “used for negation of imperfect and perfect verbs … appears to be common” (Håland 2011: v, 70–72): (19) Egyptian Arabic (Sharqia Governorate) a. miš neg xad-it take.pfv-f.3sg ʕalā prep l-luġa det-language ‘She [has] not taken to [= gotten used to] the language.’ (Håland 2011: 59) b. miš neg yi-nfaʕ 3-benefit.ipfv ‘It benefits not.’ (Håland 2011: 72) So, too, have there been reports of the spread of verbal negation with muš/miš in the dialect of the capital city Cairo (Brustad 2000: 301–306; Doss 2008; Wilm- sen 2020a: 525), but these remain to be explored in greater detail. It is, neverthe- less, a phenomenon of which speakers of Egyptian Arabic are aware (Brustad 2000: 301; Håland 2011: 65–72). 154 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic As for the latter, “the Abyani dialect, in particular the Zingabari dialect ... em- ploys a single negative marker mish [sic] to negate all types of constructions” (Ahmed 2012: 33), making it a true stage C: (20) Yemeni Arabic (Abyan Governorate) a. bū-k father-pro.m.2sg miš neg dafaʕ pay.pfv dayūn-uh debts-pro.m.3sg ‘Your father paid not his debts.’ (Ahmed 2012: 35) b. miš neg ya-zūr-u 3-visit.ipfv-pl giddit-hum grandmother-pro.3pl ði-l-ayām dem-det-days ‘They visit not their grandmother these days.’ (Ahmed 2012: 38) A stage C>A appears to be attested only in dialects of Egypt, wherein muš/miš may occasionally negate the existential fī, which is otherwise more normally negated with the verbal negator mā: (21) a. Egyptian Arabic (Cairo) miš neg fī ex sabab reason muħaddad defined ‘There [is] no special reason.’ (Doss 2008: 89) b. Egyptian Arabic (Sharqia Governorate) miš neg fī ex šuɣ l work hina dem ‘There [is] no work here.’ (Håland 2011: 71) Meanwhile, the erstwhile existential particle šī/šay has almost completely lost its identity in most varieties of Arabic, where it has become grammaticalized into a new negator miš/muš, as well as assuming other functions (Wilmsen 2014: chpt. 3; Wilmsen 2017). This bespeaks another commonality with the laysa cycle: As the existential particle is incorporated into a negator and becomes involved in all manner of equational-sentence negation, it loses its existential identity and is replaced by a newer existential particle. 4 The bī cycle An existential bī obtains from the Syrian Plateau (Behnstedt 1997: 346–348, map 336), throughCentral Arabia (Ingham 1994: 44–45), to the Yemen (Behnstedt 2016: 346, map 136).16 As with the existential particle fī (Croft 1991: 7), negations of ex- 16I have addressed the bī-cycle in greater detail in an as yet unpublished manuscript Wilmsen (2020b). 155 David Wilmsen istential particle bī are usually type A, with the regular verbal negator (in spoken Arabic mā) negating the existential particle: (22) a. Yemeni Arabic (al-Hudeidah) mā neg ya-ʕref-š m.3sg-know.ipfv-neg ðe dem ‘He knows not that.’ (Simeone-Senelle 1996: 210) b. Yemeni Arabic (Sana’a) hānā dem mā neg bih ex ħadd one ‘Here there [is] no one.’ (Watson 1993: 163) Both existential bī and existential fī likely derive from an original common Semitic preposition *pi meaning ‘in’ (Lipiński 2001: 470), and, as prepositions, the two are often interchangeable in their usage (Cowell 2005: 479). Likewise, as existential particles, the two are also almost identical in their usage, albeit usually appearing separately in distinct dialects, probably both deriving from the preposition and an affixed 3rd person pronoun: (23) bī-/fī-h prep-pro.m.3sg > bī(h)/fī(h) ex Of the two, bī shows signs of entering a negative existential cycle, whereas fī does not. 4.1 Excursus on grammatical bi- Aside from being an existential particle and a preposition meaning ‘in’ or ‘with’, the latter often with instrumental usage, for example, bi-l-īd ‘by hand’, bi- per- forms other grammatical functions in diverse varieties of Arabic, serving as a proclitic marker of the indicative mode in Egyptian (Woidich 2006: 61, 280–284) and Levantine (Cowell 2005: 180, 324–329) varieties of spoken Arabic.17 Woidich delineates its major functions in Egyptian Arabic as marking the actual (a) or habitual (b) action of the verb: (24) Egyptian Arabic (Cairo) a. dilwaʔti adv bi-t-labbis ind-f.2sg-dress.ipfv il-ʕarūsa det-bride ‘Now, she [is] dressing the bride.’ (Woidich 2006: 281) 17Retsö (2014: 64) lists other Arabic dialects where it also functions as such. 156 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic b. l-ʔaṭri det-train bi-y-ʔūm hab-m.3sg-arise is-sāʕa det-hour tamanya eight ‘The train leaves at eight.’ (Woidich 2006: 281) It also functions as a marker of futurity (Cowell 2005: 326): (25) Syrian Arabic (Damascus) baʕd prep bukra tomorrow b-i-rūħ fut-3-go.ipfv ʕa-l-madrasa prep-det-school ‘The day after tomorrow, he will go to school.’ (Cowell 2005: 324) Marking futurity is also one of its main functions in the dialects of the Arabian Gulf, Oman, and Yemen (Persson 2008, Retsö 2011, 2014). In Egyptian and Syrian Arabics, the future so marked is more of an imminent potentiality, whereas in southern peninsular Arabic the future could be any time from near (26a) to far (26b): (26) Emirati Arabic a. iðā cond ṣār happen.pfv maʕ-i prep-pro.1sg šayy thing b-a-ttaṣil fut-1sg-contact.ipfv fī-k prep-pro.m.2sg ‘If anything happens with me, I’ll call you.’ (Jarad 2017: 750) b. b-a-kammil fut-1sg-continue.ipfv dirāst-i study-pro.1sg f-amrīkā prep-name ‘I will continue my studies in America.’ (Jarad 2017: 751) The origins of the verbal prefix bi- are also disputed, with some proposing that in Gulf and southern peninsular varieties of Arabic it is a verb of volition abā/y-abī ‘he/it wanted/he/it wants’ (Retsö 2014: 67; Owens 2018: 217–219), while that of the Egyptian and Levantine dialects of Arabic is the preposition bi- (Retsö 2014: 66, 70).18 18The derivation of the bi- verbal prefix in the Arabian peninsular dialects makes sense, in that verbs of volitions are very common sources for future markers. A simple reconstruction from that source, however, is complicated by its use in Yemeni and Omani Arabic as marking both the habitual/indicative and the future. See discussion of the merits of these and other deriva- tions and references to the pertinent studies of the matter in Wilmsen (2020b), where it is argued that another grammatical function of bi-, as an adjunct to negation, addressed in the next section, does, indeed, arise from the preposition bi-, but by way of existential bī (< bi-hi ‘in it’), which then becomes involved in an attenuated negative existential cycle. 157 David Wilmsen 4.2 Negations with bi- in equational sentence negation Another grammatical function of bi-, not hitherto explored in any depth, is its involvement in negation, whereby it may act conjointly with the regular verbal negator mā, usually in the negation of equational sentences: (27) Emirati Arabic (Sharjah) čidb lie ʕalā prep xaṭa fault mā neg bi-zēn neg-good ‘[A] lie about an error [is] not good.’ (SMA data) The two negators mā and bī canmerge into a single negative particle, bywhich they act upon equational sentences in a manner analogous to that of māšī : (28) a. Omani Arabic (Sharqiyya) ʕadan name māb neg zēna good al-ħīn det-time ‘Aden [is] no good now.’ (Holes 2008: 485) b. Emirati Arabic (Sharjah) ba-ti-ylis-ūn fut-2-sit.ipfv-pl fī prep l-maylis det-majlis ti-smaʕ-ūn 2-hear.ipfv-pl fī-h prep-pro.m.3sg šay thing mab neg.ex zēn good ‘You would sit in the majlis, hearing something in it not good.’ (SMA data) Another commonality, attested form in Gulf Arabic from Kuwait through the Emirates is a univerbation of the negator mā, the 3rd person pronoun hū, and bī, yielding mub (Holes 1990: 64, 73, 116, 243): (29) Emirati Arabic (Sharjah) mub neg fi-š-šarǧǝ prep-det-place.name ‘Not in Sharjah.’ (SMA data) The derivation of mub would have proceeded along a similar pathway to that of muš/miš : (30) mā hū bi > mahub > mub 158 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic 4.3 The mā hū bī sequence: Southern Arabia mā-hū Remnants of this process are on display in southern Arabic varieties from the southernmost Hadramawt province of Yemen (Al-Saqqaf 1999: 185–186) into Najd (Ingham 1994: 44) in central Arabia, and the Hijaz along the west coast (Omar 1975: 41). In these dialects, personal pronouns can affix to the negator mā: (31) a. Haḍrami Arabic (Southern Yemen) māhu neg.m.sg rayyiẓ agreeable minn-ak prep-pro.m.2sg il-kalām det-word da dem This word [is] not right from you.’ (Al-Saqqaf 1999: 186) b. Haḍrami Arabic (Southern Yemen) is-sitra det-wall māhi neg.f.sg mumħūẓa mudded ‘The wall is not plastered.’ (Al-Saqqaf 1999: 186) c. Zahrani Arabic (Southern Saudi Arabia) al-bint det-girl māhi neg.f.sg fi-d-dār prep-det-house ‘The girl [is] not in the house.’ (Alzahrani 2015: 305) d. Zahrani Arabic (Southern Saudi Arabia) ar-raǧǧāl det-man māhu neg.m.sg hinya here ‘The man [is] not here.’ (Alzahrani 2015: 307) In the central Hijaz, a reduced form mū exists alongside māhu: (32) huwwa pro.m.3sg mū neg min prep hina dem ‘He [is] not from here.’ (Omar 1975: 41) 4.4 The mā hū bī sequence: Central Arabia muhub Some of the dialects of the central Arabian Peninsula take māhū and mū a step further, affixing /-b/ on the negator + pronoun:19 19See Prochazka (2010: 127) for a rough distribution of peninsular dialects that augment mā + pronominal suffix with /-b/. 159 David Wilmsen (33) Najdi Arabic (Central Saudi Arabia) a. Ali name muhub neg.m.3sg fi prep l-bēt det-house ‘Ali [is] not in the house.’ (Binturki 2015: 75) b. as-syār-a det-automobile-f mahīb neg.f.3sg xarban-a ruin-f ‘The car [is] not broken down.’ (Binturki 2015: 76) According to Ingham (1994), the elements can be further reduced, while re- maining discrete units: In nominal sentences the construction ma...b- occurs. This is a peculiarity of Central Najdi [Arabic] and occurs also as an alternative structure in Clas- sical [i.e., written Arabic].20 With the ma...b- construction, the relevant per- sonal pronoun is also introduced producing a topicalized structure of the type ‘Hasan, he is not here’. The resulting complexes ma hu b- ‘he is not’ or ma hi b- ‘she is not’ are often reduced to mu hu b- or mu b- and mi hi b- or mi b-. (Ingham 1994) Ingham does not speculate as to the origin of the b- in these. For his part, Binturki (2015: 74, 133; after Matar 1976) proposes that it derives from an “an emphatic –b”. The parallel development between muš/miš and mub, however, suggests the possibility of a derivation from the existential particle bī. Wilmsen (2017: 288–289) discusses the quasi-copular qualities of grammaticalizations of existential šī. The bī of negation also possesses a quasi-copular quality. 4.5 The mā hū bī sequence: Arabian Gulf mub Negating non-verbal predications with mub is emblematic of Gulf Arabic in gen- eral, but it is more common in the southern Arabian Gulf than in the northern, with the frequency of usage increasing dramatically between Kuwait, where mū accounts for more than 90 percent of usage, and the United Arab Emirates, where mū barely reaches 40 percent of usage, and mub approaches 50. These figures, summarized in Table 3, come from an electronic corpus of Gulf Arabic (Khalifa 20The reference is to negations of equational sentences with laysa, which can optionally occur with bi-; for example, laysa ǧayyid and laysa bi-ǧayyid both mean ‘[It is] not good,’ with no apparent pragmatic difference between the two. Negations with mā … bi- are a less-common option in written Arabic. 160 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic et al. 2016). The corpus comprises a genre of online conversational novels, com- posed in conversational Gulf Arabic of the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Not every country (and thus its corresponding dialect) is represented equally in the corpus, with roughly 61 percent of the texts coming from Saudi writers, to only thirteen percent from writers from the UAE, with numbers dropping consider- ably from there. Nevertheless, by comparing frequencies within each dialect area, an idea may be formed about the common usage within each one. Table 3: Instances and relative frequencies of non-verb negators in Gulf Arabic varieties Kuwait Bahrain Qatar UAE % # % # % # % # mū 92.46 18609 67.28 475 27.75 543 39.71 20065 mahub 0.15 30 10.20 72 6.75 132 1.60 809 mub 5.41 1089 20.25 143 46.29 906 47.43 23963 hub 1.98 399 2.27 16 19.21 376 11.26 5690 Totals 100% 20127 100% 706 100% 1957 100% 50527 As may be seen, negation techniques for non-verbal predications form a cline from Kuwait to the Emirates, whereby Kuwaiti Arabic uses mū in roughly 93 percent of such negations and mub a scant 5.4 percent. The further south the dialect area, an inverse relation develops, with Qatari and the Emirati dialects use of the negator mub rising to between 46 and 47 percent against the use of mū. Noteworthy, too, is the negator hub, used in Qatari and Emirati Arabic. As for the dialects of the two other GCCmember states, the Gulf Arabic corpus shows an 86.5 percent usage of mū in texts from Saudi Arabia and a correspond- ing 9 percent usage ofmub. For its part, usage inOmani texts is almost exclusively with mū at over 98 percent of occurrences. Omani dialects are a separate group- ing from those of the Arabian Gulf, and the Saudi Arabian dialects represent at least four distinct regional groupings, central (Najdi); western (Hijazi); southern, closely related to Yemeni Arabic; and those of the eastern seaboard, which fall within the Gulf Arabic type. The origins and locales of the Saudi authors cannot always be determined, such that it cannot be certain whether they are all writing from the eastern province, in which Gulf dialects prevail. Nevertheless, the ratios of mū and mub conform to the cline from the northern Gulf to the southern. 161 David Wilmsen 4.6 Subsequent stages of the bī cycle Generally, a negator of non-verbal predications, mub may occasionally negate verbs with the same sort of pragmatic intent with which the negation of verbs with miš/muš in (18), that in (34a) being a dehortative and in (34b) contrasting a negated proposition against its affirmative: (34) Emirati Arabic (Sharjah) (SMA data) a. mub neg t-yī-ni 2-come.ipfv ʕugub pro.1sg sana prep ti-gūl year waṭani 2-say.ipfv patriotic ‘[Mind] you not come [to] me after a year, to say [that you are a] patriot.’ b. sār go.pfv i-ṭāliʕ 3-see.ipfv mnū who yi-digg 3-knock.ipfv il-bāb det-door mub neg gāl 2-say-pfv gūm-ī arise.imp-f fulān-a so-and-so-f inti prep tāliʕ-ī-h look.imp-f-pro.3ms wa conj lā neg fulān so-and-so gūm arise.imp tāliʕ-ah look.imp-pro.m.3sg ‘He [himself] went [to] see who knocks [at] the door; he said not “Get up you or you, see who”.’ As with verbal negations with mub or miš/muš, any of these negations can also be accomplished with the regular verbal negator mā or, in the prohibitive, lā. The use of an otherwise non-verb negator invests the utterances with an added element of meaning. As such, verbal negations with mub are not true expressions of a stage B>C, but they do provide impetus for a “gradual substitution of the negative existential for the verbal negator in only part of the verbal grammatical system” (Croft 1991: 10), as would be characteristic of that stage. There is a stage C in the bī cycle. It is possible, however, to find mub negating existential fī in a manner consistent with a stage C>A: (35) Emirati Arabic (Abu Dhabi) il-ʕarab det-ethnonym mub neg fī ex fi-l-bēt prep-det-house ‘The people [are] not there in the house.’ (Al-Rawi 1990: 121) 5 Discussion Of the three Arabic negative existential cycles, the laysa cycle has progressed through all stages of the cycle, reaching Stage C in an extinct variety of Arabic in 162 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic which reflexes of laysa were the most common negator of verbal and non-verbal predications alike. It also, to this day, usually negates newer existential particles, in the characteristic manner of a Stage C>A. The šī cycle has progressed into a characteristic Stage B>C in its regular negation of futurity in verbs with miš/ muš, a univerbation of the regular verbal negator, the 3rd-person pronoun, and the existential particle. As for the C stage and beyond, only in a few dialects of Egyptian Arabic does it appear to have moved or to be moving into a true stage C. Otherwise, only the dialects of the Abyan province of the southern Yemen have reached a complete stage C. For its part, the bī cycle only manifests stages of the A arc of the cycle, its sole similarity of a stage A>B being its univerbations leading to mub, analogous in all respects to miš/muš of the šī cycle. A univer- bation by itself is not a condition for a stage A>B; the negator so formed must also continue to negate existential predications. Only in the laysa cycle is that to be seen, and then only in certain contexts involving locatives. It would appear that in all three cycles, the univerbation forms in an incipient stage A>B, where- upon the new negator begins to act upon other types of predications, notably equational sentences of all types. In that respect, neither mub nor miš/muš are negative existential particles as such, negating, as they do, other types of equa- tional predications than the existential (‘it is not’ as opposed to ‘there is not’). They do, however, derive from univerbations between the negator, a 3rd-person pronoun, and an existential particle. A word about the missing Stage B is in order. Calling for elaboration of the negative existential cycle model, Veselinova (2014) holds that it should, “allow for lexicalizations of negation other than special negative existentials to enter the Cycle”, observing that “it is a process in which not just negative existen- tials but also other lexicalizations of negation are involved” (2014: 1338, 1139). A commonality between all three cycles in Arabic is in an incipient stage A>B uni- verbation extending into equational sentence negation. Considering that at that stage in all three, too, the existential particle begins to lose or completely loses its identity as such, skipping a stage B seems inevitable. The stages of all three cycles are tabulated in Table 4, the darkly shaded cells indicating a clear manifes- tation of the relevant arc of the cycle, the lightly shaded ones indicating a partial or incipient entry onto a stage: A relative chronology emerges from this. In her examination of the cycle in sev- eral language families, Veselinova (2014: 1373; 2016: 154) estimates a time frame of about two millennia for the completion of the cycle. Accordingly, by the schema in Table 4, the laysa cycle would be the longest running. It appears in the earliest extensive Arabic writing, dating to the 7th century AD, more than 1,300 years before present, by which time, it had reached Stage A>B (Wilmsen 2016a: 350). 163 David Wilmsen Table 4: Stages of Arabic negative existential cycles Cycle Stage A Stage A>B Stage B Stage B>C Stage C Stage C>A laysa 3 3 3 3 3 šī 3 3 3 3 3 bī 3 3 3 3 By Veselinova’s reckoning, the laysa cycle should have begun more than half a millennium before attested usage appears, that is, around the 2nd century AD. Indeed, it could have begun even earlier than that. Considering that it reached Stage C in the Arabic of Al-Andalus at the latest by the 12th century, its begin- nings may extend to the 9th century BC. By that same scenario, the šī cycle must have begun later, although it is impos- sible to date howmuch later, because the earliest documentation of an existential šay does not come until the end of the 19th century (Reinhardt 1894: 112), late in the progression of the cycle. By that time, the univerbation miš/muš had been ob- served as a negator of equational sentences and in the negation of verbs (Vollers 1890: 44). If the šī cycle has taken anywhere as long as the laysa cycle to come near to completion, it must have begun about the time that the laysa cycle was reaching Stage B, that is, the 8th or 9th century at the latest. For its part, the bī cycle is evidently the youngest of the three, having reached incipient stages A>B and early manifestations of a stage A>B only. Nor does it seem likely that it will progress further. It appears that the negator mub had only recently reached its current form in Gulf varieties of Arabic after 18th century tribal migrations to the Gulf from the Najd (Holes 2006: 28–30), where a negator bī appears to have originated. 5.1 Extensions and commonalities In worldwide and family-based sampling of languages Veselinova (2016) presents a preliminary typology of the negative existential cycle, cataloguing numerous features that appear frequently in languages undergoing it. The three Arabic cycles share in some of these, also exhibiting some properties of their own. 5.1.1 Overlap of stages Noticeable is the cotemporal occurrence of several stages of a negative existen- tial cycle. This is a defining feature of the negative existential cycle as Croft ini- 164 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic tially conceived of it: “The sequencing is not absolute: it is not the case that one diachronic process is completed before the next process in the sequence begins […] Thus, sequencing of diachronic processes must allow for temporal overlap” (Croft 1991: 22). This is seen to an extreme degree in the laysa cycle, in which all stages are present and overlapping. Otherwise, a complete overlap of stages is unusual. Veselinova (2016: 151–154 and passim) confirms this, finding, “over- lap of different, non-sequential types/stages […] in one and the same language” (2016: 154, emphasis added) to be common. More typical, then, is the šī cycle, in which stages A and A>B overlap in the Arabic dialects of the Yemen, where univerbations māšī and miš/muš are both found, both extending into the realm of equational sentence negation. Elsewhere, in the dialects of the Levant and Egypt, the existential particle is fī, not šī, al- though remnants of an affirmative existential šī persist in an indefinite quanti- fier (Wilmsen 2017), but the univerbation miš/muš of a stage A>B persists as an equational-sentence negator and as a negator of a specific subdomain of verbal negation, characteristic of a stage B>C. Verbal negations with miš/muš are doc- umented in Egyptian Arabic in the late nineteenth century and mid-twentieth century, but they must have been occurring earlier. Wagner (2010: 158) has re- cently documented a verbal negation with mš in a fifteenth-century document from Egypt. A stage C is not documented until the 20th century in a provincial dialect of Egyptian Arabic, but it, too, likely emerged before then. In the bī cycle, too, the existential particle is present in a stage A in a set of Arabic dialects, in the Yemen, central Arabia, and the Syrian Plateau, but the later stage A>B appears in the univerbations mab and mub in Gulf dialects. In those latter dialects, too, the existential particle is either šī or more recently fī, not bī, but remnants of an existential bī persist in the negation complex mā b(i). Indeed, in the Gulf dialects, with their A>B univerbations māšī and mub, the šī cycle and the bī cycle themselves overlap. The same might be said for Yemeni varieties, where mā b(V), mā šī, and māšī are found. 5.1.2 Renewal of the existential particle Veselinova speaks of the “constant renewal of the negative existential” (2016: 173). In the Arabic cycles it is the affirmative existential particle that is constantly be- ing renewed. In all three, the original particle disappears as the cycle progresses. That of the laysa cycle, ʔys, has long ago disappeared. In those Arabic varieties outside the southern Arabian Peninsula passing through the šī cycle, the exis- tential particle šī has ceased to be used as such. Although grammaticalizations of the particle do persist, their existential origin is no longer transparently rec- ognizable. In all cases, other existential particles arise to take the place of the 165 David Wilmsen erstwhile existential particles that have disappeared into other grammatical op- erations. To paraphrase Veselinova, existential predication “is so important in human language that it is constantly maintained” (Veselinova 2016: 173). 5.2 A final commonality between Arabic negative existential cycles We may coincidentally end, as Veselinova does (2016: 174), by drawing a distinc- tion between the negative existential cycle and the Jespersen cycle. The bī and šī cycles share another remarkable commonality between the negators mahub and mahūš, by which each may do without negative element ma, resulting in the negators hub (cf. Holes 1990: 64, 73, 116; 2016: 106) and huwāš (Reinhardt 1894: 22): (36) a. Emirati Arabic (Dubai) anā pro.1sg hub neg hindiyy-a Indian-f ‘I [am] not Indian.’ (Gumar) b. Omani Arabic (Ad Dakhiliyah) huwā-š pro.m.3sg ʕumāni Omani ‘He [is] not Omani.’ (Own data) This gives the appearance of a so-called “Jespersen cycle” but Veselinova 2016: 53 points out a crucial difference between the two cycles: In the Jespersen cycle a particle that has little or nothing to dowith negation eventually comes to oust the older negator. Contrariwise, in the negative existential cycle, an item that does belong to the negative domain is gradually incorporated into verbal negation. 6 Conclusion The manifestations of the Arabic negative existential cycle are scattered across the map of the Arabophone world, with some varieties exhibiting only parts of the cycle. The negator laysa, is used universally in writing throughout the Arabo- phone world, but it is almost non-existent in speech, surviving as a remnant only in dialects of central and southern Saudi Arabia. The laysa cycle had reached the final C>A arc of the cycle but it was effectively blocked from proceeding further after the codification of the Arabic of writing beginning in the 8th century. For its part, existential bī has not spread beyond the Arabian Peninsula, in- cluding the Syrian Steppes, and the bī cycle, too, appears the have been stymied from further development. Because the Gulf varieties of Arabic, where mub is 166 4 Extensions and commonalities in negative existential cycles in Arabic most often found, already possess other existential particles, it appears that mub itself has been shunted into the negation of equational sentences. The existential particle šī exists as such only in the dialects of the southern Arabian Gulf, Oman, and the Yemen, yet its grammaticalizations occur in Arabic varieties from the Yemen to Morocco. So, too, is it the only one of the three cycles that appears to remain active, having already reached a full-on stage C in the Arabic of the southern Yemen, and it appears to be entering a stage C in Egyptian varieties of Arabic, too. It appears, then, that the origin of the three existential cycles of Arabic is in Arabic varieties of the southern Arabian Peninsula, for it is there that remnants of all three remain. Abbreviations 1 1st person 2 2nd person 3 3rd person conj conjunction dat dative dem demonstrative det determiner ex existential f feminine fut future hab ongoing/habitual imp imperative ind indicative ipfv imperfective m masculine neg negator neg.ex negative existential pfv perfective pl plural prep preposition pro pronoun q interrogative sg singular SMA Sharjah Museums Authority Sources Gumar corpus: https://camel.abudhabi.nyu.edu/gumar/ References Adwan, Mamdouh. 2000. ʿadāʾi (My Enemies). Beirut: Riyāḍ al-Rayyis. Ahmed, Jaklin Mansoor Mohammed. 2012. The syntax of negation in Yemeni Arabic. Unpublished PhD dissertation, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. 167 https://camel.abudhabi.nyu.edu/gumar/ David Wilmsen Alzahrani, Salih Jamaan. 2015. Topics in the grammar of Zahrani spoken Arabic. Newcastle, Australia: University of Newcastle. (Doctoral dissertation). Al-Azraqi, Munira Ali. 1998. 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