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- Seiten 53 - 70
- pp. 53 - 70
The history of the am- definite article – South Arabian or Arabic?
Seiten 53 - 70
DOI https://doi.org/10.13173/zeitarabling.73.0053
This essay reconsiders the history of the
which by Islamic times had become one of the most salient linguistic features of
Southwest Arabia. Drawing on historical and epigraphic sources, I argue that
this article form originates in north-central Arabia sometime in the first half
of the first millennium CE. The article form was brought to Yemen as part of an
early diffusion of Arabic dialects to southwest Arabia in the late pre-Islamic
period.
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