Genitive Markers in Omani Arabic

This paper investigates the role of the particles māl, ḥāl, ḥagg and ḥaqq in the Arabic dialects of Oman. These particles have often been described as markers of possession in Omani Arabic: however, the data presented in this article seem to indicate that these elements are employed to express a wide variety of NPinternal specifications that go well beyond the realm of linguistic possession, and that they can also be used predicatively outside the boundaries of a NP. ḥāl and ḥagg, in particular, should probably not be described as genitive markers at all. The syntactic and pragmatic contexts in which the aforementioned markers can be used will be discussed, along with the range of meanings and semantic categories they can express.