The study examines question affix analysis in Standard Arabic within the minimalist framework of Chomsky (1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001) and shows how Standard Arabic is different from English in terms of feature strength, feature checking, and I-raising to Q (i.e., raising of the head INFL to the head COMP). The objective is to present a unified treatment of question affix analysis in Standard Arabic and illustrate to what extent possible the Arabic data interacts with Chomsky's minimalist analysis. It also demonstrates how feature licensing takes place in the right checking domains in the derivation of yes-no questions. It points out that Standard Arabic resorts to 'Merge' because it does not have auxiliary inversion, while English resorts to 'Adjunction' because of auxiliary inversion. Besides, question particles in Standard Arabic are viewed as merely morphological affixes placed sentence-initially to form yes-no questions. Furthermore, we argue that the interrogative particles in Standard Arabic have one function (that of showing interrogativity) since they do not stand for any DP, 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.
In this study I aim to explore the syntactic behavior of subject wh-movement in Najrani Arabic and it attempts to provide a unified account of the following questions: 1. Does Najrani Arabic allow the subject wh-phrase to undergo syntactic movement from [Spec, VP] to [Spec, IP] and then to [Spec, CP] at PF? 2. Is illi 'that' a complementizer or a relative pronoun? 3. Can the subject wh-phrase be accounted for via Focus movement? Does Najrani Arabic allow the subject-wh to move overtly to [Spec, FocusP] for feature checking? I attempt to explore whether it is possible for the subject-wh to move overtly from [Spec, VP] to [Spec, IP] and then to [Spec, CP] at PF. This analysis postulates that illi ('that') is viewed as a complementizer which heads the head C position of CP. However, this line of argument is observed to be unsystematic because the complementizer illi 'that' constitutes an island constraint to subject wh-movement when compared to Focus movement analysis presented as an alternative. Furthermore, following Focus movement analysis in Rizzi (1997, 2001) and Gad (2011), it is proposed in the alternative analysis that illi is treated as a relative pronoun and heads the Focus projection. The subject-wh moves overtly to [Spec, Focus] for feature checking considerations. The movement is triggered by the strong Focus feature on the head illi which occupies the FocusP projection; this movement takes place before Spell-Out. Hence, it is the alternative analysis that offers a neatly unified account of illi-questions in Najrani Arabic.
(2001); it has been observed that when all syntactic operations in a given phase have been completed, the complement or the domain of the phase becomes impenetrable to any further syntactic operations. This happens when the structure is sent to the interface levels for interpretation. Furthermore, in the syntactic derivation of subject and object wh-questions, it can be observed that both the subject and object wh-phrases have to pass through certain phases till they reach [Spec, CP]. At the end of the derivation, the head C and its specifier (the subject/object wh-phrase) undergo transfer to the PF and LF levels for proper representations, and hence the clause is interpreted as an interrogative.
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