Disjoint Reference in Modern Standard Arabic

Islam M. Al-Momani

Abstract


The paper aims at providing an explanation of pronominals in Modern Standard Arabic (hereafter MSA) by assuming that the relation between pronouns and available binders is constrained by the same syntactic condition, i.e., a pronoun cannot be coindexed with a c-commanding NP within its local domain.  It also aims at providing a unified account of two types of pronominals in MSA, referential and bound pronouns. These two types of pronouns have different values for their binders; where a referential pronoun requires a name to be coindexed with; a bound pronoun requires a distinct subject, i.e., a quantifier as its binder. The paper adopts Principle B of the theory of binding to account for these pronouns by examining how this principle can express the content of disjoint reference for pronouns embedded in Ss, NPs and PPs in MSA and  to see whether the phenomenon of disjoint reference in Arabic supports principle (B).

 


Keywords


Arabic, principle (B), pronominals, reflexives, coindexation, local domain, government

Full Text:

PDF

References


Brass, A. (1986). Chain and Anaphoric Dependency. Ph.D dissertation, MIT.

Büring, D. (2005). Binding Theory. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511802669

Chomsky, N. (1977). On Wh-Movement. Formal Syntax, eds. By P.W. Culicover, T. Wasow and A. Akmajian. New York: Academic Press, pp. 71-132.

Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.

Chomsky, N. (1982). Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (1986a). Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and Use. New York: Praeger.

Chomsky, N. (1986b). Barriers. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (1989). Some Notes on Economy and Derivation and Representation. MIT Working papers in Linguistics 10, 43-74.

Chomsky, N. (1992). A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 1

Chomsky, N. (1993). A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory. In The View from Building 20, eds. K. Hale and S. J. Keyser, 1–49. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N (1994). Bare Phrase Structure. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics, volume 5. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. and Lasnik, H. (1993). The Theory of Principles and Parameters. Syntax: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research. J. Jacobs, A. Von Stechow, W. Sternefeld and T. Vennemann. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter.

Freiden, R. and Vergnaud, J. R. (2001). Exquisite Connections: Some Remarks on the Evolution of Linguistic Theory. Lingua, 111, 639-665. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0024-3841(01)00045-6

Hestvik, A. (1991). Subjectless Binding Domains. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9 (3): 455-496. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00135355

Hestvik, A. (1992). LF Movement of Pronouns and Antisubject Orientation. Linguistic Inquiry 23: 557-594

Koopman, H. and Sportiche, D. (1982). Variables and the Bijection Principle. The Linguistic Review 2, 139-160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/tlir.1982.2.2.139

Lasnik, H. (1989). On the Necessity of Binding Conditions. In H. Lasnik, ed., Essays on Anaphora, Kluwer, Dordrecht. pp. 149-167. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2542-7_9

Lasnik, H. and Stowell, T. (1991). Weakest Crossover. Linguistic Inquiry 22, 687-720.

May, R. (1977). The Grammar of Quantification. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Pollard, C. and Sag, I. (1994).Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Postal, P.M. (1971). Cross-Over Phenomena. Holt, Reinhart and Winston, New York.

Reinhart, T. (1976). The Syntactic Domain of Anaphora. MIT, Ph.D dissertation.

Reinhart, T. (1983). Anaphora and Semantic Interpretation. Beckenham: Croom Helm Ltd.

Reinhart, T. and Reuland, E. (1993). Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry 24, 657-720.

Safir, K. (2004). The Syntax of Anaphora. New York: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166132.001.0001

Tenny, C. (2003). Short Distance Pronouns, Argument Structure, and the Grammar of Sentence. Manuscript, Carnegie Mellon University.

Wasow, T. (1972). Anaphoric Relations in English. Ph.D dissertation, MIT.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.4p.256

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2012-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD. 

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature

To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the journal emails into your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.