On Formal Feature Licensing in Minimalism: Aspects of Standard Arabic Morphosyntax

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dc.contributor.advisorUriagereka, Juanen_US
dc.contributor.authorSoltan, Usamaen_US
dc.contributor.departmentLinguisticsen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2008-04-22T16:00:46Z
dc.date.available2008-04-22T16:00:46Z
dc.date.issued2007-08-28en_US
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation investigates a set of phenomena in Standard Arabic at the syntax-morphology interface, providing an analysis for each within the assumptions of the minimalist program, particularly those related to mechanisms of formal feature licensing. Among the issues discussed are the subject-verb agreement asymmetry, case-assignment, default agreement, nominative Themes, as well as interactions between tense, negation, and modality heads. In this regard, I provide an analysis for word order alternation in the language in terms of left dislocation rather than via movement, showing that the language does not show A-movement effects in SVO orders, passives, raising constructions, or object shift. The same is also shown to hold in what is usually referred to as raising-to-object constructions. The proposed analysis shows that formal features such as case and agreement can be licensed in absence of movement, a conclusion more compatible with the Agree-based approach to formal feature licensing in minimalism than with the Spec-head approach. Finally, I propose to extend Agree to head-head relations in the functional domain, accounting for the interesting, though rather intricate, paradigm of inflecting negatives as well as person-less imperatives in Standard Arabic and languages that exhibit similar behavior.en_US
dc.format.extent2694478 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/7581
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledLanguage, Linguisticsen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledSocial Worken_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledAgreementen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledcase-assignmenten_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledStandard Arabicen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledminimalist syntaxen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledformal feature licensingen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledAgreeen_US
dc.titleOn Formal Feature Licensing in Minimalism: Aspects of Standard Arabic Morphosyntaxen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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