Studies in Arabic Syntax

Al-Balqa Journal for Research and Studies البلقاء للبحوث والدراسات, 2013

An Arabic sentence is dealt with in this article as SVO at spell-out and VSO at the logical form (LF). Thus, the objective of this study is to check the grammaticality of the mandative subjunctive structure in the absence of a case assignor for the nominative case. It also checks the relevant syntactic and semantic formal and informal features that support the grammaticality of mandative subjunctive at LF. To achieve the objectives, the researcher refers to Chomsky' s (1981, 1986a, 1986b and 1995) Minimalist Views and Radford' s (1988) Empty Tense Theory. The problem is to find out the actual nominative case assignor for the subjunctive subject in the absence of an overt tense. The study illustrates that the only case assignor for the nominative case in these types of structures in Arabic is the empty tense [e]. The formal features ([T],[D-], [P-] and ['an]) are proved to be parts of numeration, and they have [+interpretable] features at LF; however, informal features, namely, (nominative case, theta-marking and Agrs") are not. The study concludes that the complementizer ' an 'that' and the subjunctive marker [a] are necessary to be overt for the grammaticality of the subjunctive sentence. It is proved that a mandative subjunctive sentence occupies an argument position and must be theta marked at spell-out to render a well-formed sentence at the logical form. The study is significant because the researcher found syntactic solutions to the grammaticality of these types of structures in Arabic syntax.

1st International Conference on Communications, Signal Processing, and their Applications (ICCSPA'13), IEEE, 2013

In this paper, we employ the Government and Binding theory (GB) to present a system that analyzes the syntactic structure of some simple Arabic sentences structures. We consider different word orders in Arabic and show how they are derived. We include an analysis of Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), Verb-Object-Subject (VOS), Verb-Subject-Object (VSO), nominal sentences, nominal sentences with inna (or sisters), and question sentences. We use the analysis to develop syntactic rules for a fragment of Arabic, such that we include two sets of rules (1) rules on sentences structures that do not account for case and (2) rules on sentences structures that account for Noun Phrases (NPs) case. We present an implementation of the grammar rules in prolog. The results of testing the system t were reasonable with a high accuracy especially when the input sentences are tagged with identification of end cases.

2019

Finally, the syntactic and semantic properties of exceptives in SA are examined in chapter (5), with the scope limited to exceptives in VSO clauses and how their syntax interacts with their IS effects. I argue that full exceptives can be analyzed as connected exceptives (CEs) with two configurations; one that has the excepted phrase as a DP-level adjunct in a vP-internal position and another that has the excepted phrase in a right-peripheral non-focused position. They also can function as free CP-level exceptives, in which case the excepted phrase originates in a second clause from which it moves to the left peripheral focus position while the remainder of the clause is deleted or gets phonologically suppressed at PF. As for incomplete exceptives, I argue that they too are CP-level exceptives in which the domain XP is a null pro and the excepted phrase is in focus. The analysis shows that exceptives have interpretative effects stretching beyond their truth conditions. v

The Syntax of Secondary Predicates in Standard Arabic: A Minimalist Approach, 2023

This paper examines the structure of the secondary predicates in Standard Arabic using the Minimalist Program. The main aim of the paper is to make generalizations about the structure as well as to find a uniform analysis of this structure. Among the most important results reached are as follows: The secondary predicates have a unified structure that is derived from small clauses that form a phase. In addition, despite having one unified structure, these predicates have distinct positions. Moreover, secondary predicates also possess shared arguments (with main predicates) and secondary predicates differ depending on the types of shared argument it modifies. We also find that the apparent 'accusative' Case shown on the secondary predicates has nothing to do with verbs. In fact, the Case hosted on secondary predicates is an abstract Case, which is derived through the genitive Case parameter. Finally, the control structure provided by some predicates is derived by copying and merging the shared argument from the specifier of the small clause to a higher position in the sentence structure, noting that the empty element PRO does not exist within the proposed analysis.

Journal of Applied Language and Culture Studies, 2018

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.

RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics

The main focus of the study is to analyze the simple sentence structure and its word-order patterns of Standard Arabic syntactically. Main methods concern description and comparison of word-order patterns observed. Primarily the current study deals with some differentiations of the terms on sentence types and word-order patterns described by both medieval grammarians and modern linguists. Moreover, the so called Sībawayhian theory of ʿamil’ also provides some explanations of sentence structures and word-order patterns in Standard Arabic. Simple sentences are highlighted to examine the occasions for using different patterns and where they are commonly found, along with examples to facilitate the explanation and use of these patterns. It is essential to point out that Standard Arabic is considered to be a language with a flexible word-order, which is why there exist word-order patterns of both VOS and SVO languages, though the latter is more frequently used.

Romano-Arabica XX, 2020

Abstract. In this paper I present the results of a corpus-based study of the use of the constructions tamma S [Predicate + Undergoer] (so called periphrastic passive) and qāma S [Actor] bi-O [Predicate +Undergoer] (no term currently) in classical and modern Arabic texts. By means of a qualitative analysis of the intra-clausal contexts of use of the two verbs in the corpora I was able to distinguish the cases of their use as auxiliaries from the cases of their use as lexical verbs, and demonstrate the process of auxiliation of the verbs and grammaticalization of the respective constructions as analytic equivalents of the synthetic constructions expressing the active and the passive variant of a transitive clause: VPassV [Pred] S [UG] and VActV [Pred] S [Act] O [UG]. A quantitative analysis, based on the results of the qualitative analysis, shows that the two verbs are used in the corpora of modern texts more often as auxiliaries than as lexical verbs, not only in the newspaper corpora, but also in the corpora of fictional and non-fictional prose. A comparative analysis in terms of the Performance–Grammar Correspondence Hypothesis of Hawkins (2004) provides for the conclusion that the analytic constructions have evolved and spread due to their lower level of complexity and higher level of processing efficiency.

The research studies the role of the Grammatical Government in interpreting Vowel and Semantic Changes in Arabic grammar in explaining the semantic changes resulting from phonetic changes, especially in respect to vowels. In order to signify the changing of vowel, the role of grammatical government will be accounted based on some cases in Arabic grammar.

Journal of Semitic Studies, 2010