Demonstratives and the emergence of a definite article in Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi

Abstract

In this study I provide a description of the morphosyntax and the functions of demonstratives in Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi, two closely related Arabic-based contact languages. The study describes the process of acquisition of demonstrative pronouns and determiners and it explains the formal and functional changes that have taken place in the demonstrative system of Arabic as a consequence of pidginization and subsequent creolization. Broadly speaking, the reduction of the inflection of Arabic demonstratives and the gradual loss of their deictic value corresponds to a change of their grammatical functions along the common grammaticalization pathdeictic demonstrative > anaphoric demonstrative > definite article. However, Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi clearly differ in terms of both forms and functions of pronominal and adnominal demonstratives. If Juba Arabic demonstratives are characterized by a certain morphological continuity with those of its Arabic lexifier, Ki-Nubi gives evidence of an innovative, and rather complex, system of demonstrative pronouns and determiners. This morphosyntactic divergence is also reflected on a functional ground insofar as the adnominal demonstrativede“this” is mainly used as a tracking device in Juba Arabic, whereas it can mark nominal definiteness in Ki-Nubi. The study eventually proposes a unified diachronic hypothesis that accounts for a greater degree of grammaticalization of nominal determination in Ki-Nubi as a result of its radical creolization.