North Levantine Arabic

Alternative forms

• ياللي ‎(yallī) (see usage notes below)

Pronoun

اللي ‎(llī, illī)

1. (relative) who; whom; which; that; what

   هيدا المستشفى اللي بتشتغل إمي فيه‎

   Haydā l-mistašfā llī btištaḡil ʾimmī fīh.

   This is the hospital in which my mother works.

Usage notes

• In some phonetic environments, particularly in fast speech, the pronoun may be contracted to just -ll- or -l-.
• The variant ياللي ‎(yallī) can be used interchangeably, but it occurs most often when used without an antecedent, that is in the senses “he who”, “that which”, etc.:

فيك تؤول ياللي بدك‎

Fīk-i tʾūl yallī baddak.

You can say what you want.