The relative clause in Arabic : a surface oriented study

Abstract

The objective of this study is to provide a descriptive analysis of relative constructions in Arabic. Relative constructions are subsumed by the term 'conjunctive constructions' in classical and contemporary Arabic literature. The term 'conjunctive constructions' for Arab grammarians means 'subordination', of which the relative construction is an instance. The conjunctive construction is decomposed into its two basic constituents, namely, the conjunctive pronoun and the conjunctive sentence. Notions central to the conjunctive sentence, such as the governing principles and the resumptive pronoun, are discussed in terms of function and distribution. The universal hypothesis, 'Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy' proposed in the literature for the typology of relative clauses is adopted to attest relativization in Arabic. Under the resumptive pronoun strategy, Arabic is shown to relativize all grammatical functions specified on the hierarchy. Arabic has two, syntactically independent and semantically related relative clause systems. A brief overview of the theoretical framework assumed in this work, namely, the Principles and Parameters theory of syntax is presented .. A modified version of Rizzi's (1990) Complementizer typology is proposed to account for the complementizer system in Arabic. Relative operator movement is assumed to account for relativization and agreement facts in a unified manner. Resumptive pronouns are discussed in detail and analyzed as pronominal phi-features base-generated in the Agr projection of a complex DP in any of the complement positions. Finally, the gap, which is virtually restricted to the (D)irect (O)bject position and specific to classical Arabic, is extensively discussed in relation to the co-occurrence of the resumptive pronoun in various contexts.