Abstract
This paper is concerned with a hitherto undiscussed type of tough-construction in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Our starting point is the observation that the tough-adjective in this construction invariably displays nominative masculine singular morphology, a pattern of ‘default’ agreement which does not seem to occur elsewhere in the grammar of MSA. At a semantic level, the relevant adjective is argued to form a complex predicate with a deverbal nominalization that acts as its complement: together, these two elements indirectly modify the subject noun phrase. To explain the default agreement pattern, we propose that MSA tough-constructions involve two distinct subjects, viz. a phonologically null expletive subject which controls agreement on the tough-adjective, and a Broad Subject which acts as the semantic subject of the whole construction. We show that there is independent evidence for the existence of both null expletives and Broad Subjects in MSA.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Contact-induced change in Surgut Khanty relative clauses
- From constructions to functions and back: Contrastive negation in English and Finnish
- Copula functions in a cross-Sinitic perspective
- Reported speech in Kakabe: Loose syntax with flexible indexicality
- Demonstratives as spatial deictics or something more? Evidence from Common Estonian and Võro
- The syntax and semantics of Modern Standard Arabic resumptive tough-constructions
- Book Reviews
- Anja Šarić, Nominalizations, double genitives and possessives
- Geoff Thompson, Wendy L. Bowcher, Lise Fontaine & David Schönthal (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics
- Fernando Zúñiga & Seppo Kittilä, Grammatical voice
- Abdelkader Fassi Fehri, Constructing feminine to mean: Gender, number, numeral, and quantifier extensions in Arabic
- Bodo Winter, Sensory linguistics: Language, perception and metaphor
- Hussein Abdul-Raof, Text linguistics of Qur’anic discourse: An analysis,
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Contact-induced change in Surgut Khanty relative clauses
- From constructions to functions and back: Contrastive negation in English and Finnish
- Copula functions in a cross-Sinitic perspective
- Reported speech in Kakabe: Loose syntax with flexible indexicality
- Demonstratives as spatial deictics or something more? Evidence from Common Estonian and Võro
- The syntax and semantics of Modern Standard Arabic resumptive tough-constructions
- Book Reviews
- Anja Šarić, Nominalizations, double genitives and possessives
- Geoff Thompson, Wendy L. Bowcher, Lise Fontaine & David Schönthal (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics
- Fernando Zúñiga & Seppo Kittilä, Grammatical voice
- Abdelkader Fassi Fehri, Constructing feminine to mean: Gender, number, numeral, and quantifier extensions in Arabic
- Bodo Winter, Sensory linguistics: Language, perception and metaphor
- Hussein Abdul-Raof, Text linguistics of Qur’anic discourse: An analysis,