Mixed order cases in the Arabic determiner phrase (DP)‎

Abstract EN

By ‘mixed order cases’ in the Determiner Phrase (DP) in Arabic (and other languages) is meant the order where modifiers appear both before and after the noun.

These mixed order cases have always been analyzed in terms of partial N(P) movement to intermediate positions within an ordinary DP structure (as opposed to a Construct State (CS) DP structure) (Cinque 1996, 2000, 2003, Fassi Fehri 1999, Kremers 2003, Shlonsky 2000, among others).

In this paper I argue that the so-called “mixed order cases” are actually Construct State (CS) DPs (or what is known in Arabic traditional grammar as Haalatu l-iDaafah) and that the so-called “prenominal modifiers” are actually (multiple) heads of the CS construction whose annex is the noun (and its postnominal modifiers).

That is, I argue that the pre and post nominal modifiers belong to different DPs, which form together one complex DP, and that the pre nominal modifiers are heads of the (multiple) CS DP and that the noun and the post nominal modifier(s) belong(s) to an independent DP of the “ordinary type” which is selected by (the most embedded modifier in the series of) the pre nominal modifier(s) to form a CS construction with it.

To support these arguments I show that “mixed order cases” in the Arabic DP have exactly the same characteristics of a CS construction in Arabic and I also appeal to Case and Agreement facts of the Arabic DP.