Arabic Indefinites, Interrogatives, and Negators

This book traces the origins and development of the Arabic grammatical marker š/šī, which is found in interrogatives, negators, and indefinite determiners over a broad dialect area that stretches from the southern Levant to North Africa and includes dialects of Yemen and Oman. David Wilmsen draws on data from old vernacular Arabic texts and from a variety of Arabic dialects, and shows that, contra...