Les mots de la sexualité dans l’arabe de Tripoli (Libye) : désémantisation, grammaticalisation et innovations linguistiques

Abstract

A linguistic corpus gathered from recordings of spontaneous exchanges between young single men in Tripoli, reveals everyday language as it is evolving, which serves to speak about sexuality as well as events that are not sexual in nature. Taboo words are recurrent in the sociolect studied. The terms zəbb, zəbr, kāțu “cock” et dlāwəz “balls” are used in interjective, adverbial and adjectival locutions. The noun gaḥba “whore” is used in interjective locutions. Related verbs (gəḥḥəb and tgəḥḥəb) are desemanticized and grammaticalized. The verb nāk “to fuck” is also grammaticalized and changes categories from simple verb to support verb to serial verb.

Keywords

• sexuality
• Tripoli
• Libya
• desemanticization
• grammaticalization