The particle
fi is used in Classical Arabic as a local and temporal preposition, ‘in’. In the
contemporary Arabic dialects, it has the same meaning, but in addition it is used in some dialects as an existential, ‘there
is/are’. In a number of Arabic work-related pidgins, such as Gulf Pidgin Arabic and Pidgin Madame,
fi has
acquired new functions. It does not only denote nominal predication, location, and possession, but is also used in combination
with verbal forms. Several proposals have been made to explain this use of
fī.
Avram (2012) regards
fī as a progressive aspect marker, while
Potsdam & Alanazi (2014) deny the verbal nature of the construction and regard
fī as
a copula.
Bakir (2014) analyzes
fī as a marker of verbality of the
predicate. The present paper suggests that the general function of
fi is to mark the link between topic and focus
as assertive rather than modal and looks for parallels of this use in a few other work-related pidgins.