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In the vast majority of Arabic dialects, fi (rarely bi-) is the most used differential object marker. This contribution follows in the same vein as M. Woidich’s presentation on Egyptian Arabic at the 6th AIDA conference and other recent papers on Maghrebine dialects (mainly Tunisian). In it, we first consider whether it is appropriate to see the origin of this dialectal construction with fi in the bi- construction of Ancient and Middle Arabic. Then, within the limits of the presently available documentation on both Oriental and Maghrebine dialects, we try to provide a comprehensive overview of highly contrasting situations and, in an attempt to suggest future lines of research, we highlight the main differences existing between these situations. Finally, we propose to consider this use of fi as one of the ways through which to describe a verbal process in a concrete and detailed manner, a characterization that allows for an explanation of the variety of context-induced values that we observe.

With this detailed and comprehensive survey, Maarten Kossmann provides not only Berberists and Arabists, but also all linguists interested in language contact and related issues, with an impressive amount of data and with food for thought. Based on considerable documentation, his work offers a synthesis that had never been attempted before of most of the elements in the Maghrebian Berber languages that could be considered to be borrowings from Arabic, with a careful evaluation, in each case, of the validity of such an attribution. For this purpose, the author gives a summary of the relevant Arabic facts, followed by a detailed account of the Berber ones, which often leads him to real small monographic treatments of problems. From this point of view, his work can be considered, at least regarding the many issues studied, a historical and comparative grammar of ‘Northern Berber’. Therefore it seemed to us that this significant work deserved far more than a short notice, and we decided to review it in detail.

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