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Why verbless sentences in Standard Arabic are verbless

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Rashid Al-Balushi
Rashid Al-Balushi*
Affiliation:
Sultan Qaboos University
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Abstract

This article aims to account for why verbless sentences in Standard Arabic lack a copular verb. In contrast to previous accounts which attribute the absence of the copula to some defect of present tense, I claim that a verbless sentence does not take a copula because its nominais do not need structural Case. The proposed analysis argues that structural Case is licensed by a “Verbal Case” feature on the relevant Case-checking heads, and assumes the Visibility Condition. The present analysis is based on a unique interaction between tense and word order, and on the observation that verbless sentences are finite clauses composed of a topic and a predicate, as well as on the observation that they do not involve licensing of structural Case.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article vise à expliquer pourquoi les phrases sans verbe en arabe standard n’ont pas de copule. Contrairement à certaines analyses précédentes qui attribuaient l’absence de copule à un quelconque défaut du temps présent, je soutiens que la phrase sans verbe ne requiert pas de copule parce ses substantifs n’ont pas besoin de cas structural. Il est proposé que le cas structural est permis par un trait de «Cas Verbal» porté par les têtes pertinentes pour la vérification de cas, en assumant la Condition de Visibilité. La présente analyse est fondée sur une interaction unique entre le temps et l’ordre des mots, et sur la constatation que les phrases sans verbe sont des propositions finies, composées d’un topique et d’un prédicat, et que celles-ci n’impliquent pas de cas structural.

Keywords

verbless sentencesverbal Casestructural Caseword orderStandard Arabicphrases sans verbeCas verbalCas structuralordre des motsarabe standard
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 1 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2012 

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