THEMES IN ARABIC AND HEBREW SYNTAX

THEMES IN ARABIC AND HEBREW SYNTAX

Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory VOLUME 53 Managing Editors Liliane Haegeman, University of Lille Joan Maling, Brandeis University James McCloskey, University of California, Santa Cruz Editorial Board Carol Georgopoulos, University of Utah Guglielmo Cinque, University of Venice Jane Grimshaw, Rutgers University Michael Kenstowicz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Hilda Koopman, University of California, Los Angeles Howard Lasnik, University of Connecticut at Storrs Alec Marantz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology John J. McCarthy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Ian Roberts, University of Cambridge The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

THEMES IN ARABIC AND HEBREW SYNTAX Edited by JAMAL OUHALLA University College Dublin, [reland and URSHLONSKY University of Geneva, Switzerland Springer-Science+ Business Media, B. V.

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-4020-0537-4 ISBN 978-94-010-0351-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-010-0351-3 Printed on acid-free paper AlI Rights Reserved 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2002 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Contributors... vii Preface... ix Introduction Jamal Ouhalla & Ur Shlonsky... 1 Postverbal Subjects in Arabic and the Theory of Agreement Wayne Harbert & Maher Bahloul....45 Agreement, Clitics and Focus in Egyptian Arabic Eloise Jelinek... 71 Cognate Objects in Modem and Biblical Hebrew Asya Pereltsvaig... 107 Constituent Questions in Palestinian Arabic Ur Shlonsky... 137 Adjectival Constructs and Inalienable Constructions Tal Siloni... 161 Nominal Tough-Constructions Miriam Engelhardt... 189 Gapping and VP-Deletion in Moroccan Arabic Ibtissam Kortobi... 217 Hebrew Lexical Causatives Maya Arad... 241 The Manifestation of Genericity in the Tense Aspect System of Hebrew Nominal Sentences Yael Greenberg... 267 The Structure and Logical Form of Negative Sentences in Arabic Jamal Ouhalla... 299 Index... 321 v

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Maya Arad Departement de Linguistique Generale Universite de Geneve 1211 Geneve 4 Switzerland Maher Bahloul American University of Shmjah P.O. Box 26666, Sharjah United Arab Emirates Miriam Engelhardt and Philosophy, E39-245 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Yael Greenberg Bar Han University Ramat Gan 52900 Israel Wayne Harbert 203 Morrill Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853-4701 Eloise Jelinek PO Box 210028 The University of Arizona Tucson AZ 85721-0028 Ibtissam Kortobi University of Southern California 3601 Watt Way Grace Ford Salvatori 301 Los Angeles, CA 90089-1693 JamalOuhalla University College Dublin John Henry Newman Building Belfield, Dublin 4 Ireland Asya Perelsvaig Faculty of Humanities University of Tr0mso N-9037 Tr0mso Norway Ur Shlonsky Departement de Linguistique Generale Universite de Geneve 1211 Geneve 4 Switzerland Tal Siloni Tel Aviv University Ramat Aviv 69978 Tel Aviv Israel vii

PREFACE The aim of this enterprise is to assemble together in one volume works on various syntactic aspects of Arabic and Hebrew, in the hope that it will spur further comparative work within the Semitic family at the level of richness achieved in other language families such as Germanic and Romance. Although a substantial amount of work on the syntax of Arabic and Hebrew already exists in various forms, volumes of the type we have attempted are still practically non-existent. Moreover, apart from some notable exceptions, existing studies rarely take a systematic within-family comparative stance towards the phenomena they discuss, although cross-references between studies on Arabic and Hebrew are not uncommon. Obviously, we would ideally have preferred the volume to include papers on numerous other Semitic languages, including the languages of the Ethio Semitic branch as well as numerous spoken varieties of Arabic that have yet to be explored. Unfortunately, this was not possible due to circumstances beyond our control. We very much hope that the existence of this volume will make more inclusive volumes on the syntax of the Semitic languages only a matter of time. The twelve chapters of this book deal with different empirical topics in the syntax of Arabic and Hebrew. What binds these chapters together is not only common interest in a language family, but a shared theoretical interest in tracing the structure and understanding the functioning of Universal Grammar. Within Chomsky'S Principles and Parameters model and the more recent Minimalist Program, empirical phenomena are studied from the perspective of a universal set of principles allowing limited variation or parameterization. Through the study of related languages (the Arabic dialects, Hebrew and Arabic, etc.) linguists in this school of thought attempt to define and refine grammatical principles by studying minimal variation in their parametric settings. The Introduction to the volume presents, in a rather terse manner, the state of the art of Semitic syntax from a generative perspective. We must apologize in advance for the superficiality of our expose; we cannot hope to cover the terrain of an introductory textbook to the field. Our references and bibliography are also restricted and do not do justice to the wealth of recent research. Some references are missing due to lack of space, our wish to retain a 'Semitic' orientation, oversight and ignorance. IX