Word Order of Wh-Questions in Omani Arabic

PLOS ONE, 2024

Unlike wh-question questions in Standard Arabic (SA), which received much attention in the past decades in different approaches within generative grammar, question particles (yes-no questions) in SA have not yet been studied thoroughly in minimalist syntax, and less attention has been paid to them. There is a need to analyze SA question articles and explore their syntactic behavior within minimalism. The reason why this topic has been selected for study is that SA question particles have not been investigated in detail yet in Chomsky's Phase Theory; it has not been analyzed how question particles are derived and represented morpho-syntactically in a clause structure. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the morphosyntax of SA question particles and provide satisfactory answers to the following questions: (i) Do question particles in SA undergo any syntactic movement to [Spec-CP] in the derivation of yes-no questions? If not, why?, (ii) Are question particles based-generated in [Spec-CP]?, and (iii) How can question particles be accounted for neatly in Chomsky's Phasebased Theory? The paper adopts Chomsky's Phase Theory to examine the interaction between the assumptions of this theory and the SA data on question particles. The study findings reveal that, unlike English, question particles in SA do not undergo any syntactic movement while deriving yes-no questions and are assumed to be base-generated in [Spec-CP]. Such question particles are not part of the verb morphology and are merely morphological affixes used as devices to mark interrogativity in the syntax; they do not carry any agreement and tense features that trigger syntactic movement to the clause-initial position.

University of Manitoba, 2016

This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of wh-question formation in Jordanian Arabic (JA) and presents a uniform approach that can accommodate all of its various wh-constructions. JA makes use of five different wh-constructions, four of which involve clause-initial whphrases and the fifth is a typical in-situ wh-construction. Although wh-phrases surface clauseinitially in four different wh-constructions in JA, I propose that bona fide wh-movement to [Spec, CP] does not occur in any of these constructions, whether overtly in syntax or covertly at LF. I abandon the classification of JA as a wh-movement language (Abdel Razaq 2011) and focus instead on identifying the syntactic role that wh-phrases realize and the underlying structures that feed each wh-construction. I propose that the clause-initial position of the whphrase results either from the syntactic function that the wh-phrase serves or from other syntactic operations that are independently attested in JA. There are three clause-initial positions that the wh-phrase can occupy: it surfaces in [Spec, TP] when functioning as the subject of a verbal or verbless structure, in [Spec, TopP] when functioning as a clitic-leftdislocated element (as in CLLD questions and ʔilli-interrogatives involving PRON), or in [Spec, FocP] when undergoing focus fronting. Thus, all instances of clause-initial wh-phrases in JA constitute what I refer to as-pseudo wh-fronting‖, as the clause-initial position of the wh-phrase arises from mechanisms other than canonical wh-movement to [Spec, CP]. To account for the interpretation of wh-phrases in JA, I adopt a binding approach in which a null interrogative morpheme (Baker 1970; Pesetsky 1987; Chomsky 1995) unselectively binds the wh-phrase regardless of its surface position, whether clause-initial or clause-internal (in-situ). A major implication of this analysis is that JA is a concealed wh-in-situ language of the Chinese type although it looks at a cursory glance as though it were a wh-movement language of the English type. A broader typological implication of my analysis is the convergence of Cheng's (1991) Clausal Typing Hypothesis to which JA previously appeared to constitute a counterexample. The recognition of the null interrogative particle, or its optional overt realization as the Q-particle huwweh, as the locus of interrogative clause typing in all JA wh-questions entails that JA employs just one unique strategy to type a clause as a wh-question, as predicted by Cheng's Clausal Typing Hypothesis, regardless of whether the wh-phrase surfaces clause-initially or clause-internally.

Language Variation and Change, 2009

This article explores the relationship between the global functions of variable subject-verb order and morpholexical class of subjects in the spoken Arabic of the Arabian peninsula. Using corpus-based methods, it is shown that lexical class -pronoun, pronominal, noun-definiteness, and the discourse-defined lexical specificity of a noun all correlate significantly with subject-verb or verb-subject word order. The global function of the two orders is explored using an array of measures to show that verb-subject order prototypically presents events, while subject-verb signals available referentiality. Using the quantitatively based study of Anthony Naro and Sebastiao Votre ([1999]. Discourse motivations for linguistic regularities: Verb/subject order in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Probus 11:75-100.) on Brazilian Portuguese as a point of comparison, a typological framework is developed for understanding languages with variable subject-verb order.

University of Sussex Working Papers in …, 2005

PLoS ONE, 2023

The Mehri Language is an endangered language spoken in eastern Yemen, a subgroup of the Semitic language family, and a Southern Arabic language. The syntax of Mehri wh-questions has not been explored within minimalism; hence, there is a morpho-syntactic need to provide a modern analysis of wh-questions in order to show how the interrogative structures can be derived. This study aims to examine the syntax of the wh-question movement in Mehri's unaccusative/ergative and unergative structures and answer the following questions within Chomsky's (2000 and 2008) Phase-based Theory: (i) Does the Mehri language allow fronting of wh-phrases to [Spec-CP]? And (ii) how can wh-movement in Mehri unaccusative and (un)ergative structures be accounted for? This work presents a novel analysis of whquestion movement in unaccusative/ergative and unergative structures in Mehri; it demonstrates that the source head C triggers the movement of wh-adjunct and wh-subject phrases. In wh-adjunct extraction, two strategies are employed: overt wh-fronting and whin-situ; when the head Foc inherits an edge feature from C, wh-adjunct overtly undergoes movement from its original position within v*P to the left peripheries of [Spec-FocP] and subsequently to [Spec-CP]. When the lexical wh-adjunct remains within v*P, its question features covertly move to [Spec-CP], because the head Foc does not inherit an edge feature from C. In wh-subject extraction, the wh-subject overly undergoes movement to [Spec-CP] because C obligatorily inherits the edge feature to the head Top, which triggers movement of the illogical subject in unaccusative/ergative structures and the logical external specifier in unergative structures to [Spec-CP]. Moreover, Mehri obeys the Phase Impenetrability Condition of Chomsky, where wh-subject and wh-adjunct phrases must pass through certain phases until [Spec-CP].

International Journal of English Linguistics, 2014

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.

2017

This study is a descriptive study which mainly deals with the positions of WH-question words in Amanatun dialect of Meto language. The purposes of this research are to identify the positions of WH-questions words in sentence constructions and propose the best way for teaching English to the Meto background students. Analyzing the data, it used translation instrument by asking them to translate sentences of Indonesia into Amanatun dialect. The findings analyzed by using syntactical analysis show that sa (what) takes the initial and the final that function to ask object (choice), reason subject (condition), and gets one variation, that is, sa to sa'a because of its initial position. sekau taking the middle position, functions to ask for object and possession, and the final position functions to ask for object. esme (where) getting ten (10) variations depending on the subject of the sentences takes the final position to ask for place (location). However, esme gets changes on its fo...

The derivation of common clause-type constructions like negation, interrogation (involving wh-elements) and declarativity (including sentences that involve topics) is a universal of sentence structure that involves a number of functional elements/items for the expression of negation, interrogation, or declarativity, cross-linguistically. However, as the present study on the derivation of syntactic word order (including subject-verb agreement configurations) in Arabic varieties shows, such functional elements/items can take a particular functional dimension within the functional domain they are part of. This study relies on sample examples from the literature on Arabic (the standard variety in particular, but also other varieties such as Tunisian Arabic and Moroccan Arabic – see Jouini, (2014) for typical sentences from these varieties) to demonstrate how functional elements can project as functional nodes or be merged as head or specifier (Spec) elements in the structure of sentences. In the inflectional domain of sentences – or Inflectional Phrase (IP) –, variation in subject-verb agreement configurations in Arabic rests on the premise that a Subject node variably projects giving rise to differing subject-verb agreement configurations. The same is true of the projection of the complementizer domain of sentences – or Complementizer Phrase (CP) – in Arabic, which splits into dedicated functional nodes in the standard variety of Arabic, but not in the modern spoken dialects. These differences in the projection of the IP-CP continuum establish functional relations upon which agreement and movement operations are derived and such notions as 'topic', 'subject' and 'focus' can be represented at the interface.

Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 2010

This paper is meant to delineate the syntax of wh-movement in Standard Arabic within the Optimality Theory framework. The scope of this study is limited to examine only simple, relativized and indirect verbal information questions. Further restrictions also have been placed on tense and negation in that only past tense affirmative questions are tackled here.

Changes in the word " s place and the formation of the structure is a system by which some words move from its place to take another due to some effects of linguistic aspects like morphology and syntax. This movement is not only restricted to the words, but that may take place in phrases as well. These changes involve constrains that governs these changes and the movements process. Syntactic structure is one of the linguistic aspects that are commonly influenced in dialect languages. The structure of the sentence, including all kinds of sentences, is a matter of change in dialect. Much concern is paid to study the notion of interrogatives whether in Arabic dialect or in Gulf Arabic dialect. Since the divers of dialects of Saudi dialects are difficult to be touched, although these dialects are mutually intelligible. One of the two dominant dialects, Hijazi and Najd, can be a good representative of the rest of the sub-dialects. This paper will be a contribution to shed light on the structure of wh-interrogatives in-situ in Najdi Arabic dialect and the movement that takes place in different positions in the sentence.