The structure of wh-exclamatives in Jordanian Arabic and beyond

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper presents an analysis of the characteristics of wh-exclamatives in Jordanian Arabic. I argue that exclamatives are not complete sentences because they are temporally deictic to the moment of utterance. In other words, they lack Tense specification and are considered tenseless expressions (i.e., root small clauses). Two notable complexities arise in wh-exclamatives in Jordanian Arabic, namely the obligatory presence of the demonstrative-like element ha- and fixed word order. These intricacies are attributed to the exclamative head’s requirement for a specifier. This requirement can be fulfilled either through the combination of a wh-form (external merge) or the movement of the degree phrase to the specifier position (internal merge). The study proposes that the demonstrative-like ha- functions as the actual manifestation of the Relator head which connects and establishes the relationship between the two constituents in exclamatives. Furthermore, based on the distinct semantic and distributional properties of the auxiliary kān ‘was’, the paper argues for the differentiation of the auxiliary in exclamatives from other typical auxiliaries that occupy verb or Tense nodes in sentences. Therefore, it suggests that exclamative auxiliaries encode and express the grammatical features of the functional head, labeled as Excl.