وقت اللي

• وقت لي (waʔt li), وقت الـ (waʔt l-)
• وقت الي (waʔt lli) (alternative spelling)

From وَقْت (waʔt, “time”) +‎ اللّي (lli, “that”), literally “time that”. Presumably originally either الوقت اللي (l-waʔt lli, “the time that”) or borrowed from dialects that allow the omission of this definite article الـ (l-, “the”) into ones that normally forbid this. Once the term grammaticalized into its own conjunction, stopped requiring a resumptive pronoun as اللي (lli, “that”) normally does; see usage notes.

• IPA^(key): /waʔt lli/ [ˈwæʔ‿tə̯lli], (regional, Lebanon) /waʔt lle/
• IPA^(key): (regional) /waʔˤ-/ [wɑʔ-]
• IPA^(key): (Druze, coastal Syria) /waq-/

وَقْت اللّي • (waʔt lli)

1. when

   Synonym: لَمَّا (lamma)

2. whenever

   Synonym: وَقْت مَا (waʔt ma)

• The relativizer اللي typically requires a resumptive pronoun, Arabic ضَمِير عَائِد (ḍamīr ʕāʔid, literally “returning pronoun”):
  • اللي بَدَّك ياه ― lli baddak yā ― what you want; whichever you want (literally, “what you want it”), in most dialects not اللّي بَدَّك ― lli baddak
• However, وَقْت اللّي (waʔt lli) does not have this requirement:
  • وَقْت اللي بَدَّك ― waʔt lli baddak ― whenever you want

• → Western Neo-Aramaic: (Maaloula) ܘܩܬܠ (waḳčil, “when”), (Bakh’a) ܘܩܬܠܝ (waḳćilli, “when”), (Jubb’adin) ܘܩܬܝ (uḳči, “when”), ܘܩܬܠ (uḳčil, “when”)