Functions and Uses of Active and Passive Participial Forms in Al-'Awābī District Vernacular of Northern Oman

This article investigates the use and functions of the active and passive participial forms in the Omani vernacular spoken in al-'Awābī district, in al-Bāṭina region of northern Oman. This dialect was first described by Carl Reinhardt in 1894. No sections of his work, however, deal with the analysis of functions of participial forms in the dialect, although they are common in his texts. The data presented in this article aim to show the uses of the active participle in the everyday speech of my participants living in al-'Awābī district and the different syntactic and semantic functions it conveys. The syntactic functions of the participle in Arabic linguistics has long been debated since it is neither completely a verbal form nor a nominal. This article fits into this discussion as it brings new data and analysis of active and passive participles in Arabic dialectology with regard to the Omani vernacular spoken in al-'Awābī district.