Introduction

     In Egyptian, ايه رايك can precede a rhetorical question. As you will see below, when used rhetorically, ايه رايك is usually followed by the complementizer إن . It does not have to be as examples 8 and 9 show, but of the 35 sentences in the corpus CALM that contain ايه رايك as part of a rhetorical question, only 4 are without إن . Rather than truly seeking an opinion or offering a suggestion, the clauses after ايه رايك إن introduce new information or a new claim into the conversation.
     The words طب and بقى are much more part of this structure than they are when ايه رايك is used to introduce a suggestion. Of the 35 instances when ايه رايك is used as part of a rhetorical question, 21 contain both طب and بقى as in "طب ايه رايك بقى". Only 7 contain neither of the two words.
     Another feature of this structure is that the pronominal subject of the clause following إن is usually represented as the nominative form of the pronoun and not the accusative pronominal clitic. Therefore ايه رايك إن انت is much more common than
ايه رايك إنك. In fact, of the 35 sentences mentioned above, 28 contain إن followed by a clause with a pronominal subject (e.g. I, you, he,). Of these 28 sentences, 23 express the pronominal subject with the nominative form of the pronoun (ايه رايك ان انت). Only 4 sentences attach the subject to إن using the accusative pronominal clitic (ايه رايك إنه). The final sentence leaves off the subject completely
(ايه رايك إن ساعات أقوم).

     ايه رايك إن انت
     Rhetorical ايه رايك without إن
     ايه رايك with إن but not rhetorical

     Although the rhetorical ايه رايك frequently appears in the corpus with the complementizer إن , it can appear without it. However, of the 35 instances of the rhetorical ايه رايك, only 4 did not use إن .

     Although the rhetorical ايه رايك frequently appears in the corpus with the complementizer إن , the complementizer can also appear when ايه رايك is used to mark a suggestion. However, in the corpus, this only occured in 2% of sentences where ايه رايك precedes a suggestion.