Question affix analysis in English and standard Arabic : a minimalist perspective

Abstract EN

The study aims to explore question affix analysis in English and Standard Arabic within the minimalist framework of Chomsky (1995; 1998; 1999; 2000; 2001) and points out the differences and similarities between both languages in terms of feature strength, feature checking, I-raising to Q (i.e., raising of the head INFL to the head Comp) and other morpho-syntactic properties involved in the analysis of yes-no questions in these two languages.

The paper also attempts to show how feature licensing takes place in the right checking domains in the derivation of yes-no questions.

It points out that English resorts to Adjunction because of auxiliary inversion, while Standard Arabic resorts to Merge because auxiliary inversion does not exist in it, and that the question particles in Standard Arabic are viewed merely as morphological affixes placed sentence-initially to form yes-no questions.

Furthermore, we argue that the interrogative particles in Standard Arabic have just one function, i.e.

that of showing interrogativity, since they do not stand for any DP or PP or AP argument.

Given this, we propose that the question particles in Standard Arabic are base-generated in the head C position of CP, since they never undergo any morpho-syntactic movement.