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On the relation between negation and phases

  • Imran Alrashdan ORCID logo EMAIL logo , Marwan Jarrah ORCID logo and Mohd Nour Al Salem ORCID logo
Published/Copyright: November 22, 2024

Abstract

This research article provides evidence from Jordanian Arabic (JA) that negation is syntactically bound to the projection of a phasal head, wherein NegP is structurally licensed to project exclusively within phase-bound configurations. Therefore, NegP can project separately in CP and v*P, offering support to the multi-locus view (Alqassas 2012. The morpho-syntax and pragmatics of Levantine Arabic negation: A synchronic and diachronic analysis. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University) that NegP in Arabic is not restricted to one structural position in the clause structure. NegP can rather project separately above TP or below TP. However, as we argue for in this article the projection of NegP is correlated with the presence of a phasal head (Chomsky 2007. Approaching UG from below. In Uli Sauerland & Hans-Martin Gärtner (eds.), Interfaces+recursion=language? Chomsky’s minimalism and the view from syntax-semantics, 1–30. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter). Our evidence comes from two interrelated phenomena in JA: (1) the possibility of negating the past tense copula ka:n independently from the negation of the main verb in transitive and passive sentences and (2) the impossibility of independently negating the verb and the past-tense copula ka:n in unaccusative clauses. Following Jarrah’s (2023. Passive vs. unaccusative predicates: A phase-based account. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 41. 1397–1424) assumption that unaccusative predicates, unlike passive or transitive verbs, do not project phases in JA grammar, we propose that the use of two NegPs in the same clause with unaccusative clauses is prohibited as these unaccusative predicates do not project phases. This assumption is significant as phases, local domains, are not only found to be independent in terms of their Φ-content (their head bears an independent set of unvalued Φ-features) but also in terms of negation.


Corresponding author: Imran Alrashdan, Department of English Language and Literature, School of Foreign Languages, The University of Jordan, Amman, 11942, Jordan, E-mail:

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Received: 2023-12-27
Accepted: 2024-10-11
Published Online: 2024-11-22
Published in Print: 2024-11-26

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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