Argumentum, Vol. 22 (2026), pp. 1–16.

An Experimental Study on Locative Demonstratives in Tunisian Arabic

Azza Slama

    University of Debrecen, Doctoral School of Linguistics, Literary and Cultural Studies

    azzza.slama@gmail.com

DOI: 10.34103/ARGUMENTUM/2026/1

Abstract

This study investigates the meanings of the two non-proximal locative demonstrative forms (non-prox1: ghadi and non-prox2: ghadika) in Tunisian Arabic (TA). The aim is to determine whether TA employs a genuine three-way locative demonstrative system or a two-way system with an additional emphatic component that is not part of the deictic core. Under a two-way analysis ghadika is expected to encode an additional emphatic meaning which can be interpreted as intensification or contrast. In comparison, under a three-way analysis, the distinction may be speaker-hearer anchored (ghadi means close to hearer and ghadika means far from both speaker and hearer) or speaker-anchored (ghadi means medium distance from speaker and hearer and ghadika means far from both speaker and hearer). Two experiments were conducted with two independent groups of 45 native speakers of TA. The results suggest that TA operates with a two-way locative demonstrative system, in which ghadi functions as the sole non-proximal form and ghadika functions as the emphatic component.

Keywords: Tunisian Arabic, locative demonstratives, contrastivity, two-way system, three-way system

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