Case and Embedding According to the Arabic Linguistic Term “fi maħal ʔiҁraab: that serves a grammatical function”: A Generative Approach

Document Type : Academic research papers

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Department of English Language and Literature, the Faculty of Women, Ain Shams University

Abstract

This paper addresses embedding and case in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) through investigating the meaning and the distribution of the Arabic Linguistic term fi maħal ʔiҁraab: “that serves a grammatical function”. This term is concerned with the constituents that cannot carry morphological case for various reasons. MSA has a surface structure constraint (SSC) that requires every lexical word to carry a morphological case marker irrespective of its grammatical function. To satisfy this SSC, embedded clauses are assigned a hypothetical case according to this term fi maħal ʔiҁraab: “that serves a grammatical function”. Regarding the term fi maħal ʔiҁraab: “that serves a grammatical function”, Arab Grammarians have classified embedded clauses, in MSA, into two main types. The first type deals with embedded clauses that can carry the hypothetical case markers, whereas the second is concerned with embedded clauses that are not allowed to carry a hypothetical case. Based on Chomsky’s Principles and Parameters and the Generative enterprise, the main objective of this paper is to explore the implications of this term for embedding with respect to the behaviour of case assignment and parsing in MSA.

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Buhūth
Volume 4, Issue 9
Volume 4 issue 9- Humanities and languages
September 2024
Pages 1-21

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