Related Papers
Al-Karmil: Studies in Arabic Language and Literature
THE POSTVERBAL POSITION OF THE SUBJECT IN MODERN WRITTEN ARABIC -SYNTACTIC, SEMANTIC AND PRAGMATIC FACTORS
2021 •
Tsvetomira Pashova
This article presents the results of a corpus-based investigation aimed at establishing the criteria defining the post-verbal position of a lexically encoded Subject in MWA, not only in relation to the Object, but to all post-verbal constituents of the clause. The analysis was conducted on a database of 323 main clauses extracted from a corpus of narrative fiction comprising nearly 50,000 words. Theoretically, I relied on Functional Discourse Grammar for the description of the pragmatic, semantic and morphosyntactic levels of organization of the clauses and their interrelations. For information packaging, I also relied on that the assignment of the syntactic function of Subject to a constituent of the clause is linked to the semantic function of that constituent as the Actor or Undergoer, whereas the position of the constituent to which the Subject is assigned depends on the pragmatic function of the constituent as the Topic or (part of the) Focus.
Journal of Applied Language and Culture Studies
Aspects of the Clause Structure and Word Formation in Arabic
2018 •
Ayoub Loutfi
The present dissertation is a defense of the hypothesis that word formation is syntactic. As its title indicates, two lines of investigations are pursued. The first one has to do with clause structure, in which we examine the role of functional heads in determining grammatical processes in both Standard Arabic (SA) and Moroccan Arabic (MA). The functional heads investigated are: VoiceP, vP and NegP. As far as VoiceP and vP are concerned, we explore their role in introducing arguments into verbal argument structures. The effects of the split VP structure proposed are further adumbrated with data from double object constructions, location verbs, causatives, anticausatives and passives. As for NegP, we show how it interacts with TP and CP to derive Subject-Neg agreement and the temporal interpretation associated with lam and lan in SA. We take these two properties to be explained using Chomsky’s (2005) Feature Inheritance mechanism. The other formal line of investigation concerns word formation, in which we investigate the mechanisms whereby morphologically simplex and complex words are formed. The claim we defend here is that the structure below the word level and the structure above the word level are derived using the same formal syntactic rules. For example, negation in MA supports the assumption that word structure and syntactic structure share the same general formal properties. In this regard, we provide an analysis of the distribution of the discontinuous negative morpheme and the co-occurrence restriction that holds between {-ʃ} and Negative Polarity Items. For the former, it is shown that the distribution of negation supports the existence of syntactic phenomenon at the word level, namely the existence of phase-by-phase Spell-Out. For the latter, a general context-sensitive constraint is developed to capture this generalization, which is shown to be an instance of Syntactic Haplology.
Case, Agreement and Wh-Movement in Verbless Constructions in Standard Arabic: A Minimalist Perspective
Prof. Abdul Hafeed A L I Fakih
The objective of this paper is to provide an adequate account for the following two questions: (a) How are Case and agreement features checked in verbless constructions in Standard Arabic?, and (b) What motivates Wh-movement in such verbless sentences? This paper examines the distribution of verbless sentences, explores their syntactic behavior and spells out two Minimalist proposals to account for these two questions above. Interestingly enough, we have observed that although the verbless sentence in Standard Arabic does not contain any overtly lexical copular verb in the present tense context, there is still a licensing of Case and agreement features. Following analyses in Chomsky (1995), Bemamoun (2000) and (Fakih 2003, 2005), we have attempted to account for this phenomenon by claiming that, given feature checking considerations and the EPP, such verbless sentences behave as such because their tense is specified only for one categorial feature, namely the feature [+D] which must be checked by the subject in the syntax; we argue here that it is this nominal [+D] feature which is responsible for licensing Case and agreement features. Interestingly, when the tense of the verbless sentence is in the past or in the future context, the verbal copula must lexically show up; we argue here that the tense is specified for two categorial features, namely the feature [+V] and the feature [+D] which must be checked by a legitimate head in the course of derivation. Moreover, this paper seeks to account for what really forces Wh-movement in verbless sentences in Standard Arabic. Following Chomsky's (1995) Minimalist analysis of Wh-movement in English and Fakih's (2003, 2005) account of wh-raising in Standard Arabic, we propose that in a simple interrogative clause of Standard Arabic C (i.e., COMP) has an abstract strong [+Q] feature and that the question word operator, which raises to it (i.e., COMP), has also a strong [+wh]feature that moves overtly for feature checking. We argue that the question word in Standard Arabic is motivated to move overtly to [Spec, CP] to check its own morphological features against that hosted in the interrogative C under the Spec-head agreement relation.
Information Structure in Standard Arabic Verbal Sentences
2019 •
Salem Albuhayri
European Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics Studies SPLITTING THE CP DOMAIN OF STANDARD ARABIC CLAUSAL STRUCTURE
Abdulkhaliq Alazzawie
This paper argues that the CP (Complementizer Phrase) clause structure of standard Arabic shows a split in all clausal stages in the sense of Rizzi (1997, 2004). In Rizzi's system, there is a Finiteness (Fin) node dominated by a Topic (Top) node which is dominated by a Focus (Foc) node. The Foc node is dominated by another Top node which is in turn dominated by the Force node heading the entire clausal structure-the Force Phrase (ForceP). The present work seeks to establish such a parallel articulation of the left periphery of the clause in Standard Arabic as comprising such functional categories as Topic, Focus and Finiteness, highlighting in the meantime the role of Topics in 'higher predication' in the clause structure of Standard Arabic. The proposed decomposed CP of Standard Arabic will be motivated by data from sentences displaying the Sbject-Verb-Object (SVO) order, specifically topicalized/cl*tic left-dislocation structures. These constructions provide evidence for a decomposed CP and for the correlated Topic and Focus interpretation at the interface level.
The Syntax of Elliptical Constructions in Jordanian Arabic
2016 •
Juman Al Bukhari
The Syntax of Word Order Derivation and Agreement in Najrani Arabic: A Minimalist Analysis
Prof. Abdul Hafeed A L I Fakih
The paper aims to explore word order derivation and agreement in Najran Arabic (henceforth, NA) and examines the interaction between the NA data and Chomsky's (2001, 2005) Agree theory which we adopt in this study. The objective is to investigate how word order occurs in NA and provide a satisfactorily unified account of the derivation of SVO and VSO orders and agreement in the language. Furthermore, the study shows how SVO and VSO word orders are derived morpho-syntactically in NA syntax and why and how the derivation of SVO word order comes after that of VSO order. We assume that the derivation of the unmarked SVO in NA takes place after applying a further step to the marked VSO. We propose that the default unmarked word order in NA is SVO, not VSO. Moreover, we propose that the DP which is base-generated in [Spec-vP] is a topic, not a subject. We adopt Rizzy's split-CP hypothesis on the basis of which we assume the existence of a Top Phrase (TopP) projection in the clause structure of NA. We postulate that the phase head C passes its ϕ-features to the functional head T and the Edge feature to TopP. We assume that T in VSO lacks the Edge feature which motivates movement of the subject DP to [Spec-TP]. As a consequence, the subject of VSO structure remains in situ in the subject position of [Spec-vP]. In addition, it explores subject-verb agreement asymmetry (henceforth, SVAA) and shows that the asymmetry in NA is not related to word order differences but rather to gender agreement differences.
2010. Deixis, information structure and clause linkage in Yafi' Arabic (Yemen). Clause Linking and Clause Hierarchy. Syntax and Pragmatics. I. Bril (ed.). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins: 333-354.
Martine Vanhove
Several particles in the Arabic variety spoken in the area of Yafi‘ (Yemen) show tight recurring links between deixis, informational hierarchy, and syntactic hierarchy, both diachronically and synchronically. In the light of Robert’s (1993, 2000) findings on focusing strategies, these links are discussed in detail for two polyfunctional particles, ra', and ta, which can be used, among other things, as deictics, topic markers, focusing particles and clause-linking devices (Vanhove 1996 & 2004). The present paper shows how, in a language where subordinating constructions and markers are also available, topicalisation and focusing strategies may become the preferred strategies for clause-linking, especially in causal, relative and complement clauses.
The clause structure of periphrastic tense sentences in Standard Arabic
Atef Alsarayreh
This paper investigates the clause structure of periphrastic tense constructions with two fully inflected auxiliary and lexical verbs. The recent accounts of the syntax of tense assumes that the semantic categories of time; the time of utterance, the topic time, and the time of situation, are syntactically mapped into the clause structure of these constructions (Giorgi and Pianesi, 1997). Previous accounts of the syntax of these constructions in Arabic assume that they are biclausal with two TPs (Fassi Fehri, 2004). Contra to these accounts, we contend that these constructions in Standard Arabic are monoclausal with an embedded AspP and not biclausal with two TPs. The lack of two TPs is supported by independent semantic and morphosyntactic evidence such as the impossibility of distinct temporal modification and the unacceptability of embedding a tensed negative particle. However, the potential recursion with two vPs and two independent AspPs is supported by the possibility of allowing two independent subjects and the availability of two fully aspectual and agreement inflections on both verbs, respectively.
Parameters and micro-parameters in Arabic sentence structure
2014 •
Kemel Juini
