The fine structure of low topics in Najdi Arabic

Abstract

This article explores the low IP area of Najdi Arabic, with special reference to a construction involving a post-verbal object that is resumed on the verb (as in ‘The man saw-her the woman’). We provide evidence that the object is a topic in the low IP area in such cases. However, the position of the object in the low IP area is masked by the movement of the verb to T0 or, in some cases (if T0 is lexically filled) to the head of the low Focus Phrase. We also provide evidence that Najdi Arabic low topics exclusively express given, accessible information (i.e., familiar topics), which is found to be a prominent characteristic that distinguishes them from high topics (in the CP domain). High topics are shown to be ambiguous with respect to their specific discourse-informational value (aboutness/shifting vs. contrastiveness vs. familiarity). Additionally, we offer evidence that low topics in Najdi Arabic are recursive, dominated by a low Focus Phrase (FocP > TopP*). At a general level, the study demonstrates that topics in the low IP area are more restrictive in their informational content than previously believed.

Social Criticism on “Nah Ini Dia” Rubric in Poskota Online Newspaper

“…The key to this criticism is the never-ending phrase unfinished business. (8) What is more, it is just farmers. Even Police General like Ferdy Sambo are still being arrested.…”

“…However, criticism can be for the advantages of the party being criticized, or praise criticism, although this is very rare in the mass media. In quote (8), there is a positive criticism of the good actions of the police to arrest their officer for committing a crime as in the words of Police General like Ferdy Sambo is still being arrested. The key to a social critique of law is that the expressions still being arrested.…”

“…This is also the case with the NID discourse, which is humorous and entertaining and has the function of criticizing. The tools for criticizing are in the form of micro linguistic (words, phrases, sentences) which are in line with [8,9], and [10]. The macro linguistic element of NID discourse leads to a metaphorical aspect [11,12], and the metaphor is used as a symbol of critical messages.…”

A Cartographic Analysis of Subject Status in Root SV(O) and VS(O) Orders in Algerian Arabic

“…In this section, we present cases where that preverbal element occupies A'-position associated with topic reading, consider the following example (7).…”

“…]]] It is only through certain structural and contextual cues that we can decide which reading is more appropriate. For this purpose, let us identify the context from which (7) was extracted. It is extracted from a conversation between two friends discussing the teacher behavior with one of her students, as shown in (9) The preverbal subject 'ʔətˤofla' is a constituent of the already-established information background and is reintroduced in B's answer as a background element to keep the conversation on track.…”