A Multi-locus Analysis of Arabic Negation

A micro-syntactic analysis of negation in three varieties of Arabic

This book studies the micro-variation in the syntax of negation of Southern Levantine, Gulf and Standard Arabic. By including new and recently published data that support key issues for the syntax of negation, the book challenges the standard parametric view that negation has a fixed parametrized position in syntactic structure. It particularly argues for a multi-locus analysis with syntactic, semantic, morphosyntactic and diachronic implications for the various structural positions. Thus accounting for numerous word order restrictions, semantic ambiguities and pragmatic interpretations without complicating narrow syntax with special operations, configurations or constraints.

Includes

• Data from Southern Levantine, Gulf and Standard Arabic shed light on word order contrasts in negative clauses and their interaction with tense/aspect, mood/modality, semantic scope over adverbs, and negative sensitive items
• New data challenges the standard claim in Arabic linguistics literature that negation has a fixed parametrized position in the clause structure
• Non-parametric analysis challenges the parametric view of cross-linguistic negation studies and supporting a multi-locus analysis