The Syntax of Arabic From A Generative Perspective

Abstract

Research on Arabic varieties within modern syntactic approaches has tracked the debates that have preoccupied the field of generative linguistics in its different incarnations throughout the last six decades. The debates centered on the nature of linguistic categories, syntactic configurations and their constituents, syntactic alternations and processes that alter the order of constituents, and dependencies between members of the syntactic representations. This article considers the main issues within Arabic syntax and the influential approaches that have been advanced. It focuses on debates surrounding phrase structure and word order, the syntax of the noun phrase, subjects and subject agreement, negation, long A’-dependencies, and wh-in situ constructions.