Not Such a Dummy or Otiose After All: NENA Verbs with Non-referential 3FS Object Pronouns

This article investigates a syntactic phenomenon in Neo-Aramaic dialects: the use of a seemingly redundant third-person feminine singular (3fs) pronominal object or object index with intransitive verbs. Common in Jewish North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects and attested in some Christian varieties, this construction occurs with verbs such as ‘flee’, ‘laugh’, ‘be happy’, and others denoting bodily actions. The construction of ‘flee’ in certain dialects provides synchronic evidence of a grammaticalisation path leading to the development of the non-referential 3fs object index or pronoun as a middle marker. This Neo-Aramaic middle marker likely originated from a crosslinguistically common strategy for expressing middle voice semantics—namely, the reflexive construction—through the ellipsis of the reflexive pronoun noš- or gyan-, both originally grammaticalised feminine singular nouns, while preserving the 3fs pronoun or intraconjugational index as a differential object marker. The original reflexive construction with differential object marking explains the striking combination of transitive morphology and intransitive semantics.