TY - JOUR
T1 - Subject licensing in non-verbal clauses in Arabic
AU - Al-Balushi, Rashid
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019.
PY - 2019/12/5
Y1 - 2019/12/5
N2 - This paper investigates the licensing of subjects in Standard Arabic participial clauses. Unlike verbal clauses, whose subject may appear post-verbally, the subject of participial clauses must precede the participle, having properties of topics of verbal clauses. I claim that this is because the canonical subject position, [Spec, vP], is not available for subjects of participles, due to lack of Nom Case. It is shown that neither tense nor a copula is sufficient to license structural Nom Case on a subject in [Spec, vP]. I conclude that the licensing of Nom Case on post-verbal subjects is dependent on V-to-T raising; that is, Nom Case is licensed by the T-V complex. The present account has implications for the nature of pre-verbal subjects in Arabic as well as for the categorial status of copular elements like kāna.
AB - This paper investigates the licensing of subjects in Standard Arabic participial clauses. Unlike verbal clauses, whose subject may appear post-verbally, the subject of participial clauses must precede the participle, having properties of topics of verbal clauses. I claim that this is because the canonical subject position, [Spec, vP], is not available for subjects of participles, due to lack of Nom Case. It is shown that neither tense nor a copula is sufficient to license structural Nom Case on a subject in [Spec, vP]. I conclude that the licensing of Nom Case on post-verbal subjects is dependent on V-to-T raising; that is, Nom Case is licensed by the T-V complex. The present account has implications for the nature of pre-verbal subjects in Arabic as well as for the categorial status of copular elements like kāna.
KW - Arabic
KW - Kāna
KW - Nom Case
KW - Participles
KW - V-to-T movement
KW - Verbal Case
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U2 - 10.1163/18776930-01102002
DO - 10.1163/18776930-01102002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85091243188
SN - 1876-6633
VL - 11
SP - 249
EP - 282
JO - Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics
JF - Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics
IS - 2
ER -