Standard Arabic VSO evidence from syntax and semantics

Abstract EN

The fact that clause structure in Standard Arabic (SA) is asymmetric in nature arouses much controversy in generative syntax.

In this article, I argue that SA is purely a VSO language, providing empirical evidence from the syntax and semantics of this language.

The syntactic evidence is built on Case properties, weak crossover, floating quantifiers, wh-extraction, pro-drop property, clitic arguments, negation and modality and aspectuality.

The sematic evidence, however, is based on idiomaticity, discourse interpretation, ambiguity, (in)definiteness of the subject and exclamation.

Almost all the evidence examined indicates that SA is mainly a VSO language.

To examine the evidence provided, I have employed an Agree-based approach.

This approach solves one of the most important requirements for Spec-head configuration that was assumed to be the trigger of agreement intrinsic features in the preminimalist syntax.

In that an Agree operation is established between T and the subject DP, which is base-generated in Spec-vP, the result of which is valuing the unvalued features of both at a distance.

It is also proposed that sometimes multiple Agree takes place in structures where floating quantifiers are involved.