Abstract
This article aims to account for why verbless sentences in Standard Arabic lack a copular verb. In contrast to previous accounts which attribute the absence of the copula to some defect of present tense, I claim that a verbless sentence does not take a copula because its nominals do not need structural Case. The proposed analysis argues that structural Case is licensed by a "Verbal Case" feature on the relevant Case-checking heads, and assumes the Visibility Condition. The present analysis is based on a unique interaction between tense and word order, and on the observation that verbless sentences are finite clauses composed of a topic and a predicate, as well as on the observation that they do not involve licensing of structural Case.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-30 |
| Number of pages | 30 |
| Journal | Canadian Journal of Linguistics |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2012 |
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
Cite this
Why verbless sentences in Standard Arabic are verbless. / Al-Balushi, Rashid.
In: Canadian Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 57, No. 1, 03.2012, p. 1-30.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Why verbless sentences in Standard Arabic are verbless
AU - Al-Balushi, Rashid
PY - 2012/3
Y1 - 2012/3
N2 - This article aims to account for why verbless sentences in Standard Arabic lack a copular verb. In contrast to previous accounts which attribute the absence of the copula to some defect of present tense, I claim that a verbless sentence does not take a copula because its nominals do not need structural Case. The proposed analysis argues that structural Case is licensed by a "Verbal Case" feature on the relevant Case-checking heads, and assumes the Visibility Condition. The present analysis is based on a unique interaction between tense and word order, and on the observation that verbless sentences are finite clauses composed of a topic and a predicate, as well as on the observation that they do not involve licensing of structural Case.
AB - This article aims to account for why verbless sentences in Standard Arabic lack a copular verb. In contrast to previous accounts which attribute the absence of the copula to some defect of present tense, I claim that a verbless sentence does not take a copula because its nominals do not need structural Case. The proposed analysis argues that structural Case is licensed by a "Verbal Case" feature on the relevant Case-checking heads, and assumes the Visibility Condition. The present analysis is based on a unique interaction between tense and word order, and on the observation that verbless sentences are finite clauses composed of a topic and a predicate, as well as on the observation that they do not involve licensing of structural Case.
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M3 - Article
VL - 57
SP - 1
EP - 30
JO - Canadian Journal of Linguistics
JF - Canadian Journal of Linguistics
SN - 0008-4131
IS - 1
ER -