This study explores the system of locatives—linguistic elements denoting place or direction—in the spoken Arabic of Mardin, a peripheral dialect with unique features preserved through limited external influence. Drawing upon a corpus of recordings from 2002 to the present, the research builds on prior work, including L’arabe parlé à Mardin (Grigore, 2007) and comparative frameworks such as Arlette Roth's (2006) analysis of Kormakiti Arabic and Stephan Procházka’s (1993) studies on Arabic prepositions.
The analysis identifies two main categories of locatives: independent semantic markers (locative adverbs) and dependent ones (locative prepositions). Adverbs, such as taḥt ('under'), fōq ('above'), and hawn ('here'), function autonomously, situating actions in spatial relation to fixed reference points either within the discourse or the situational context. Conversely, prepositions like ʿala ('on'), mən ('from'), and qəddām ('in front of') operate relationally, requiring determiners such as nouns or pronouns to define spatial relationships.
The study highlights structural innovations specific to Mardin Arabic, such as the use of adverbs in status constructus formations (e.g., ḥāṛṛ hawnake—‘the heat there’), diverging from broader Arabic norms. Despite significant contact with Turkish and Kurdish, Mardin Arabic retains its locative system largely intact, reflecting the resilience of its prepositional framework rooted in Classical Arabic. This stability underscores the distinctiveness of Mardin Arabic within the broader landscape of Arabic dialectology.