The Enigma of Mehri and Southern Peninsular Arabic Existential śī and šī

Abstract

Abstract The Modern South Arabian languages and the many varieties of Arabic share in the functions of a particle, realised in the largest extant MSA language, Mehri, as si and variously in Arabic as šay(y), še, ši and ši. In the Modern South Arabian languages and in the Arabic varieties of southern Arabian Peninsula, si and reflexes of ši serve as existential particles with a meaning analogous to English ‘there is/was’. The doublet si/ši also performs other grammatical operations in both sets of languages, functioning as partitives, polar interrogatives and as expressing the various meanings of ‘thing’. This similarity of form and function in Arabic and MSA suggests borrowing from one language to the other, although shared inheritance cannot be discounted completely. The assumption about Arabic reflexes of ši is that their grammatical functions derive originally from that word for ‘thing’ (of which there are others in both languages). Similarly, the assumption has been that MSA si is borrowed from the same Arabic word. Nevertheless, the analogous usages between Mehri and Arabic give cause to reassess such assumptions, leading to the opposite conclusion: The borrowing proceeded from MSA to Arabic and the substantive meaning is the end form, not the origin.