Who is What and What is Who: the Morphosyntax of Arabic WH

256 Pages·2015·1.55 MB·English

by  Issa M. Abdel-Razaq

Who is What
and What is Who

Who is What
and What is Who
The Morphosyntax
of Arabic WH
By
Issa M. Abdel-Razaq
Who is What and What is Who: The Morphosyntax of Arabic WH

By Issa M. Abdel-Razaq

This book first published 2015

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2015 by Issa M. Abdel-Razaq

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-7184-2
ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7184-6
To Muhammad (PBUH)…

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix
Introduction................................................................................................. 1
Chapter One ............................................................................................... 10
Copular Constructions in Arabic
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Proposal
1.3 Copular Constructions
1.4 Brief Review
1.5 A Unified Analysis for Copular Constructions
1.6 Summary and Conclusion
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 57
Meno is ‘Who is he’
2.1 The Core Problem
2.2 Approaches to wh-in-situ
2.3 Morpho-syntactic Analysis of Iraqi Argument Wh-phrases
2.4 The syntax of men-o
2.5 Derivation of men-o wh-questions
2.6 Conclusion
Chapter Three .......................................................................................... 111
What is ‘Which thing is it?’
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Proposal
3.3 Lebanese wh-in-situ
3.4 The syntax of šu
3.5 Conclusion
viii Contents
Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 161
Wh-cleft questions
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Arabic (Wh-) Clefts
4.3 Previous Analyses
4.4 A unified analysis for Arabic (Wh-) Clefts
4.5 (Wh-) clefts are equative copular (Wh-) constructions
4.6 šu-(cid:1164)illi-questions
4.7 Summary and Conclusion
Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 220
Summary and Conclusion
Notes ........................................................................................................ 228
Bibliography ............................................................................................ 238
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I consider myself fortunate to have met David Adger, my supervisor,
who made the writing of this thesis not only possible, but also enjoyable.
Whatever words of thanking and appreciation are said, they cannot be near
enough to express my gratitude to David. I want to express my sincere and
deepest thanks to him for his continuous support and for believing in me,
even in the hardest times when confidence and enthusiasm were ebbing
away. I am also indebted to David for helping me overcome all the
difficulties to do with the administrative and financial sides of my PhD. I
owe David a great deal for his insightful comments, one-to-one
discussions, suggested readings and, above all, for his enormous and
impressive knowledge in the various fields of linguistics that will be the
beacon of my academic ambition in the years to come.
To my examiners, Dr. Hans van de Koot and Dr. Bernadette Plunkett,
I want to express my gratitude for the insightful comments and valuable
suggestions that tremendously helped me elaborate on certain aspects of
my theory. I would like also to extend to my thanks for all the teaching
staff in the School of Languages, Linguistics & Film at Queen Mary.
Special thanks to Paul, Sue, Daniel, Luisa, and Linnaea for their vibrant
contribution in the seminars and workshops held in the School. I am also
grateful to all PhD students in our Linguistics Laboratory for their help in
organizing all background work for the Syntax-Semantics Reading Group
and for being so pleasant. Thank you for such a wonderful experience. I
am also thankful to the administration staff at the School, especially
Sharon who has always been a great help. I am also grateful to the staff
who organised and taught for the ACTL program at the UCL that provided
a wealth of knowledge in the many fields of linguistics.
To my friends in the UK, I am very grateful to you for all the help and
support you have given me. A huge thank you to my friend Haythem
whose advice was always a guiding light for me. Special thanks to my
friends in Reading for easing the burden of being away from family:
Skeik, Thanos, Mohsen, Motez, Khalid, Hakeem and Abu-Raghad. To
Paulina, a very warm thank you for making my readings away from
university surroundings so wonderful.
I would like to take this opportunity and thank my friends from Jordan,
Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt for their judgements and