Anti-Locality and Covert Movement in Arabic

Abstract

This paper provides a new argument for the specifier-to-specifier anti-locality constraint from covert movement. The argument is based on an observed asymmetry behavior of the Quantifier Raising (QR) of the superlative morpheme in two superlative adjectives modifying relative clauses in Levantine Arabic (LA): the two superlative modifiers give rise to different paradigms of high and low interpretations. The paper shows that a configuration restricted by the specifier-to-specifier anti-locality constraint straightforwardly explains the asymmetry lending further evidence supporting this syntax-economy condition from covert movement. The data discussed in this paper follow from the authors’ native speaker intuitions. To replicate the judgements, five native speakers of Jordanian Arabic were consulted: three males and two females who are in their late twenties or late thirties. All consultants, including the author(s), are based in Eastern Amman; an urban area of the capital Amman of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It is worth mentioning that Jordanian Arabic is a dialect of Southern Levantine Arabic. It is one of the mutually intelligible varieties of Levantine Arabic that is spoken by the people of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The two dialects are used in daily conversational exchange along with the most official diglossia of Modern Standard Arabic used in official written documentation and mass media (See Ababneh et al., 2017; Fukara, 2022; Zyoud & Zyoud, 2022 and Abu Helal, 2021a) for more information).