Null/ overt subject pronoun expression in Tunisian Arabic

Abstract

The present article examines the overall frequency of overt subject pronouns in cases where their use is nonobligatory in Tunisian Arabic, the factors that condition their usage in such contexts, implication for word order, and finally the effect of contact with French on subject pronoun expression. Using a corpus of 12 sociolinguistic interviews recorded by the author with speakers from the Greater Tunis area (approximately 28,000 words), the study concludes that of a total of 1653 tokens there are 248 cases where an overt subject pronoun was used in a context where it could have been null as well, representing 15% of the data. This amounts to a very high rate of use of null subject pronouns in Tunisian Arabic, reaching 85%. Similar to previous studies, coreferentiality plays a determining role: When the subject is the same, overt pronouns are used in 9.8% of the cases, but when the subject is switched, overt pronouns are used in 20.1% of the cases. This proves that Tunisian Arabic is primarily a pro-drop variety with coreferentiality playing the most important role in overt pronoun use. Results also show that with pronominal subjects, the SVO word order is the more common structure: overt pronouns occurred in preverbal position in 74.6% of the cases (185/248) and in postverbal position in 25.4% of the cases (63/248). Contact with French, on the other hand, proves not to be a relevant factor.