The fine structure of low topics in Najdi Arabic

Abstract

AbstractThis 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.