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Subject extraction from embedded clauses in standard Arabic

University of British Columbia

Standard Arabic exhibits 'that trace' effect in one instance in the extraction of the subject from an 'anna' clause while the extraction of the object and the subject of an 'an' clause may be extracted freely in the formation of WH-question. The extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause may not be extracted unless the extracted position is marked by a clitic on the complementizer 'anna'. If the clitic appears in place of the moved NP in an 'an' clause it renders the sentence ungrammatical. The adoption of the Government and Binding Framework, Chomsky (1981), (1982) and in particular Case Theory, Government theory and the Empty Category Principle (ECP) enable us to explain this distinct behaviour in the extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause and show that the appearance of the clitic is predicted by the proposed analysis. It is argued that the clitic appears in the extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause in order to properly govern the trace left by the extracted subject, and so as not to violate ECP. Since verbs are proper governors in SA, extraction of the subject of an 'an' clause must apply from a governed position. In fact this is exactly what our analysis predicts. Since 'an' is not a case assigner and since we are assuming that government and case are assigned only to the right, AGR and verb preposing are obligatory in an 'an' clause to assign case to the subject NP. Therefore extraction of the subject leaves a trace properly governed by the verb. In the extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause on the other hand, since 'anna' is a case assigner and assigns a cusative case to its subject, AGR and verb preposing may not apply. Thus, the extraction of the subject leaves a trace which is not properly governed in violation of ECP, and the clitic must appear in order to properly govern the trace left by movement.

Text

2010-06-02

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/25385

Linguistics

University of British Columbia

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