Movement, scope, and LF between al-Jurjani and chomsky

Abstract EN

The current research centers on the concepts of Movement, Scope, and Logical Form (LF) - as explored by al-Jurjani, specifically, the terms al-taʔθiːr and al ħaiz which correspond to the terms of Scope and Domain respectively.

The main objective is to investigate the semantic Scope and syntactic C-Command relation of the logical operators in Classical Arabic (CA).

It has been argued that the universal quantifier kul “all” has a narrow scope reading conveying the existential meaning ‘some’ when it is c-commanded by the past-tense negative operator lam.

However, when it undergoes syntactic movement to the left periphery where it c-commands the negative operator, it takes a wide scope over the negative operator, and thus has universal reading.

Therefore, Scope in CA is determined at surface structure, not at the LF level.