Resumption in Jordanian Arabic : definite relative clauses and Wh-questions

Other Title(s)

ضمائر الاستئناف في اللهجة الأردنية : ضمائر الوصل و الاستفهام

Dissertant

al-Kasasibah, Mays Awdah

Thesis advisor

al-Aqarbah, Raniya Nayif

Comitee Members

Abd al-Haqq, Fawwaz Muhammad
al-Rashdan, Bashshar Shahir
al-Sarayirah, Atif Ata Allah Id

University

Mutah University

Faculty

Faculty of Arts

Department

Department of English Language and Literature

University Country

Jordan

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2017

English Abstract

This study investigates gap and resumption strategies in Jordanian Arabic (JA).

Resumption strategy is classified into two types according to its availability to be part of the languages' grammar; grammatical resumptive is assumed to be part of the language's grammar as in Jordanian Arabic (JA), and intrusive Resumptive is not a part of the language's grammar as in English.

The researcher conducted two Acceptability Judgment Tasks on wh-interrogatives and definite relative clauses in JA to examine the impact of three independent variables: Resumption, Length, and Islandhood on the acceptability of Gaps versus Resumption in a grammatical resumption language, a rarely investigated variety from the most recent experimental approach to syntax.

The findings reveal that grammatical resumption patterns with intrusive resumption in showing sensitivity to islands.

This finding undermines the assumption that grammatical resumption saves island violations.

It also has some important implications to the syntactic accounts of resumption.

First, if sensitivity to islands is a robust diagnosis of movement, then resumption is a result of movement but differs from gaps in the Spell-Out.

Alternatively, if resumption is only base-generated, then the sensitivity to islands as a diagnosis of movement should be reconsidered.

Main Subjects

Languages & Comparative Literature

No. of Pages

108

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-780314