No abstract

The paper investigates the syntax and semantics of an indirect causative construction, ‘make’ causatives, in Sason Arabic with a focus on the syntax of the embedded structure and the status of the implicit embedded agent. On the basis of several diagnostics, the study demonstrates that ‘make’ embeds an agentive VoiceP, which also manifests an active-passive alternation despite the absence of any morphological reflex. Regarding the nature of the implicit embedded agent, the paper argues that it is present as a free variable à la Heim (1982) generated on the Voice head itself. In so doing, it adds to the ontology of null arguments as well as suggesting that licensing of a grammatical object is dissociated from the projection of a specifier.

In this paper, we discuss a number of morphosyntactic properties of Sason Arabic, which could be strongly argued to be due to contact with the neighboring languages, some of which have head-final properties. We argue that Sason Arabic patterns with both its Arabic neighbors and the typologically different surrounding, and sociolinguistically dominant languages, particularly Kurdish and Turkish. We aim to show that syntactic constructions in contact contexts can provide important insights into the nature of the contact and the history of the language and its speakers.

This paper focuses on a type of direct address in Sason Arabic that fails to behave like a regular vocative phrase. In particular, unlike regular vocative phrases, this form of address spells out both the speaker and the addressee, and it is conditioned by the speaker’s expression of affection towards the addressee. A DP and its adjacent invariable clitic (i.e., a frozen 3rd person singular form of a possessive pronoun) are the constituents of this form of direct address, and either of them can equally spell out the speaker or the addressee; hence, the label mutable direct address (MDA) for this construction. Coordination, constituency, pluralization and substitution tests indicate that the derivation of MDAs does not involve the left periphery of DPs (as vocative phrases do) but the left periphery of clauses. In this respect, we adopt the cartographic representation of speech act phrases (SAP) (e.g., as in Haegeman & Hill 2013) and argue that MDAs instantiate a possible variation within SAP structures. That is, while a regular SAP field is split (over speaker and hearer heads), the SAP underlying MDAs remerges the two heads, so the speech act functional features are bundled and associated with a single SA head. Thus, MDAs provide new evidence for the extent of derivational variations that may arise on the basis of the feature inventory currently accepted for SAP domains.

We examine a set of agreement asymmetries in the Turkish nominal domain, motivating two core generalizations. Firstly, the assignment of genitive case yields an opacifying effect, making certain large nominals, but not pronouns, into domains inaccessible for agreement. Secondly, this opacifying effect is overridden in cases of binding: if an element that normally fails to agree acts as a binder, it can exceptionally participate in an agreement relationship. We examine the implications of these findings for recent proposals on the nature of the Anaphor Agreement Effect, and for the relationship between case, agreement, and binding.