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Widely attested in both creole and non-creole languages of the Atlantic basin, the function word o has been traditionally described as a ‘sentence/phrase final particle’, owing to its typical syntactic behaviour, rather than to its multiple grammatical meanings. Based on the corpus-driven analysis of the NaijaSynCor, a ~400K words corpus of spoken Naijá (i.e., Nigerian Pidgin), this study suggests that sentence-final o can be better described as an ‘illocutionary force indicator’ whose main pragmatic function is to modify the illocutionary force associated with directive and assertive speech acts. The study also provides evidence for the emergence of new coordinating and subordinating functions of o in intra-sentential position that are semantically harmonic with its assertive (i.e. epistemic) meaning in sentence-final position. The corpus-driven analysis further shows that the higher occurrence of sentence-final o in (formal and informal) dialogic texts in comparison to monologic texts is a reflex of its basic illocutionary function.

International audience

Multiword expressions (MWEs) are known as a “pain in the neck” due to their idiosyncratic behaviour. While some categories of MWEs have been largely stud- ied, verbal MWEs (VMWEs) such as to take a walk, to break one’s heart or to turn off have been relatively rarely modelled. We describe an initiative meant to bring about substantial progress in understanding, modelling and processing VMWEs. In this joint effort carried out within a European research network we elaborated a universal terminology and annotation methodology for VMWEs. Its main outcomes, available under open licenses, are unified annotation guidelines, and a corpus of over 5.4 million words and 62 thousand annotated VMWEs in 18 languages. &nbsp

This paper presents the results of a project designed to functionally test the mutual intelligibility of spoken Maltese, Tunisian Arabic, and Benghazi Libyan Arabic. We compiled an audio-based intelligibility test consisting of three components: a word test where the respondents were asked to perform a semantic classification task with 11 semantic categories, a sentence test where the task was to provide a translation of a sentence into the respondent’s native language, and a text test where a short text was listened to twice and the respondents were asked to answer 8 multiple-choice questions. Data were collected from 24 respondents in Malta, Tunis, and Benghazi. It was found that there exists asymmetric mutual intelligibility between the two mainstream varieties of Maġribī Arabic and Maltese, with speakers of Tunisian and Libyan Arabic able to understand about 40 % of what is being said to them in Maltese, against about 30 % for speakers of Maltese exposed to either variety of Arabic. Additionally, it was found that Tunisian Arabic has the highest level of mutual intelligibility with either of the other two varieties. Combining the intelligibility scores with comparative linguistic data, we were able to sketch out the phonological variables involved in enabling and inhibiting mutual intelligibility for all three varieties of Arabic and set the stage for further research into the subject.

International audience; The closest relatives of Maltese today are North African Arabic varieties. The tendency to focus on synchronic structure in both contexts has allowed deeper insights into their respective grammars, but makes it easy to neglect the usefulness of North African data for the analysis of Maltese. In the hope of encouraging greater interaction between the two fields, this paper gives an introduction to recent work on North African Arabic, followed by five case studies illustrating how North African data allows a deeper understanding not only of the Arabic roots of Maltese but also of the role of Berber and Romance influence in shaping it.