The Morpho-Syntactic Ievel in Classical Arabic.

Abstract

The topic explored in this study is a hierarchal intermediary level known in linguistics as Morpho-Syntactic level, to bridge Morphology and Syntax in languages. This level in Arabic language is examined here in two parts: part one considers Derivational and Inflectional morphologies in the language, and shows how they project into syntax. It also examines central grammatical properties needed in syntax such as aspect, mood, finiteness, agreement, etc. Part two is devoted to some syntactic structures and central syntactic concepts such as positions, heads, phrases, etc., adopted in this study to attest and verify universal principles posited by the universal Generalized Phrase Marker. The structure of the Noun Phrase category and the Verb phrase complex are considered. The syntactic distinction between Complement and Adjunct categories is established in terms of adjacency and distribution. This distinction is taken as an evidence for the existence of the intermediate X-bar level in the language. Arabic coordination structures provide a further distributional evidence in support of this distinction. Structural coordination facts suggest that Strict Adjacency Principle holds at all levels, and is extendable to all head categories in the language (Rakas 2017a). Extra-position, pre-posing and questioning structures show that Complements are X-sisters and Adjuncts are X-bar sisters. Furthermore, the pronoun waahid-u/a/i-n/ ‘one’ in Arabic is a pro-N-bar, rather than a pro-N form. In line with the pro-N-bar form, the verb complex citation form /fa‘ala ka-ðaalika/ ‘(he) did so’ is a pro-V-bar, rather than pro-V form. This N-bar and V-bar parallel structural behavior indicates that sentences in Arabic are structured out of phrases, and all phrase categories observe the principles posited by the Generalized Phrase Marker (Rakas ibid). Hence, the focus of this study is placed on three grammatical relations, linking the Arabic interacted morphology with syntax, i.e. (i) the rich agreement declension on nouns, (ii) the rich conjugation on verb complex, and (iii) the relation between the functional positions of sentences and the two intermingled morphologies in the language