Ḥassāniyya Arabic in contact with Berber

Abstract Generally speaking, it is at the edges of the Arabic speaking world that one finds the most borrowings and where the influence of contact on the internal development of Arabic is most visible. Although Mauritanian Ḥassāniyya is an exception to this general trend ( Taine-Cheikh 1994 , 2007 ), the dialect has nonetheless retained traces of the region’s past and namely of the very gradual disappearance of Zenaga Berber. My goal here is to assess, based on the study of a particular lexical sub-category (verb forms with quadriliteral roots), the influence Berber may have had on lexical formation in Ḥassāniyya Arabic.