Obligatory Subject-Verb Inversion: Restrictive Relatives and Other Cases from MSA

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1 Obligatory Subject-Verb Inversion: Restrictive Relatives and Other Cases from MSA Khalil Nagi Yeshwant Mahavidyalaya SRTM University Nanded, India Dr. L.V. Padmarani Rao P.G. Department of English Yeshwant Mahavidyalaya Nanded, India Abstract: Subject-verb inversion is a common structural phenomenon in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). A subject in an MSA ordinary structure can either occur is preverbal or a post-verbal position. That is to say, a subject can optionally undergoes inversion and follow the verb in an MSA ordinary structure. However, there are cases in MSA where the subject obligatory occurs in a post-verbal position. This paper explores some of those cases in which the subject obligatorily follows the verb and examines what such cases have in common and what triggers the mentioned inversion. The paper also provides an account of subject-verb inversion in the case of restrictive relative clauses in MSA. Keywords:VSO, subject, verb, inversion, structure, word order. 1 INTRODUCTION MSA is considered to be the most prestigious variety of Arabic. It is used all over the Arabic speaking world in contemporary literary works, as well as in the media viz. magazines, newspapers, radio and television broadcasts. It is also used business and personal letters, religious sermons, and in some songs. MSA is a language that exhibits a great deal of freedom in regard to word order. In MSA, the verbal clause allows both SVO and VSO word order patterns. The latter, however, is more preferred. In fact, many linguists have claimed that VSO is the basic word order in MSA. Examples (1) and (2) presents the SVO and VSO word order patterns respectively. Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 326

2 (1) aħmadun fataħa al-baaba Ahmed.nom opened.3sg.m the-door.acc Ahmed opened the door. (2) fataħa aħmadun al-baaba opened.3sg.m Ahmed.nom the-door.acc Ahmed opened the door. It is clear from the examples above that the subject aħmadun can freely precede or follow the verb fataħa. This paper introduces constructions of MSA in which the subject obligatorily occurs in a post-verbal position. However, before presenting such constructions, the work discusses the agreement pattern between the subject and the verb and how it is being affected by the change of the subject position 2 SUBJECT VERB INVERSION AND AGREEMENT The subject-verb agreement in MSA verbal clauses is correlated to their word order. Different word order patterns show different verb-subject agreement patterns as indicated in the following examples. (3) al-muʕalimuuna qaraʔuu al-darsa the-teachers.m.nom read.3p.m the-lesson.acc The teachers read the book. (4) al-muʕalimaatu qaraʔna al-darsa the-teachers.f.nom read.3p.f the-lesson.acc The teachers read the book. (5) qaraʔa al-muʕalimuuna al-darsa read.3sg.m the-teachers.m.nom the-lesson.acc The teachers read the book. Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 327

3 (6) qaraʔat al-muʕalimaatu al-darsa read.3sg.f the-teachers.f.nom the-lesson.acc The teachers read the book. As it is clearly noticed, both subject and verb show full agreement in (3) and (4), but partial agreement in (5) and (6). The subject and the verb fully agree in number, person and gender when the verbal clause follows the SVO word order. However, they do not agree in number when the concerned clause shows a VSO word order pattern. The subject-verb agreement in that case is confined to person and gender. It is important to note here that when the subject is singular, such dichotomy in agreement pattern is not noticed. The reason is that the verb in VSO order always takes the singular form as the default form. 3 OBLIGATORY INVERSION IN MSA As it is already pointed out that MSA is a language that allows both SVO and VSO word order, there are, however, certain structures where VSO is the only allowed word order. Subject-verb inversion in such cases is obligatory and the occurrence of the subject in a preverbal position results in an ungrammatical structure. This paper presents three constructions in which subject-verb inversion is obligatory. These constructions are focus fronting, wh-interrogatives and restrictive relatives. 3.1 Inversion in Focus Fronting Focus fronting is a syntactic operation which places the most prominent element to the edge of the clause. Bianchi (2015) has defined focus fronting as a structure in which the constituent bearing the most prominent pitch accent appears in a left-peripheral position (pp. 61).Ouhalla (1994) has identified that focus fronting in MSA obligatorily triggers subject verb inversion in MSA. (7) a. sayaratan ishtaraahmadun car.acc bought.3sg.m ahmed.nom It is a car that Ahmed bought. Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 328

4 b. * sayaratan ahmadun ishtara car.accahmed.nom bought.3sg.m The examples above exhibit a case of focus fronting in which the direct object DP (the focused element) is moved to the left edge of the clause. The examples also indicate that, in such cases, the subject should occur in a post-verbal position. In the case of focus fronting, Shlonsky (2000) has proposed that the verb requires to be adjacent to the focus element. The construction, therefore, involves verb raising to F along with the movement of the focused element to [Spec,FP] position and that is what obliges the subject-verb inversion in front focusing construction (F is the head of FP, the proposed projection to which the focused phrase moves). 3.2 Inversion in Wh-interrogatives Wh-interrogatives are another syntactic construction in MSA that exhibits obligatory subject-verb inversion. In an MSA wh-interrogative structure, the wh-element raises to the clause initial position. The examples below indicate that subjects in a wh-interrogative structure are not allowed to occur in a preverbal position. (8) a. maaða qaala ahmadun what said.3sg.m ahmed.nom What did Ahmed say? b. * maaða ahmadun qaala what ahmed.nom said.3sg.m (9) a. ayna ðahabat manaru where went.3sg.f manar.nom Where did Manar went? b. *ayna manaru ðahabat where manar.nom went.3sg.f Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 329

5 Aoun et al (2010) have argued that Shlonsky s analysis of subject-verb inversion in focus fronting can be extended to the inversion in wh-interrogatives and that inversion is also a requirement of adjacency in MSA wh-interrogative constructions. 3.3 Inversion in Restrictive Relatives A restrictive relative clause is that type of relatives that restricts the reference of the nominal it modifies. In MSA, restrictive relatives are classified according to the nature of the relative head into two types: definite and indefinite. A definite restrictive relative always contains an overt complementizer (equivalent to that in English) which shows agreement in number and gender with the relative head. An indefinite restrictive relative, on the other hand, contains a covert complementizer and not an overt one. Both types of restrictive relatives show obligatory subject-verb inversion. The subject occurs in postverbal positions when it is not relativized. That is to say that in such cases VS word order is the only viable grammatical order as it can be observed from the examples of restrictive relative clauses presented in (10-13) below. (10) a. akhaðtu al-kitaba allaði qaraʔa ahmadun took.1sg the-book.m.acc that.sg.m read.sg.m Ahmed.nom I took the book that Ahmed read. b. * akhaðtu al-kitaba allaði ahmadun qaraʔa took.1sg the-book.m.acc that.sg.mahmed.nomread.sg.m (11) a. akhaðtu al-kitaba allaði qaraʔa l-muʕalimuna took.1sgthe-book.m.accthat.sg.m read.sg.mteatchers.m.nom I took the book that the teachers read. b. * akhaðtu al-kitaba allaði l-muʕalimuna qaraʔa took.1sgthe-book.m.accthat.sg.mthe.teachers.m.nomread.sg.m (12) a. akhaðtu kitaban qaraʔa ahmadun took.1sg book.m.acc read.sg.m Ahmed.nom I took a book that Ahmed read. Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 330

6 b. * akhaðtu kitaban ahmadun qaraʔa took.1sg book.m.acc Ahmed.nomread.sg.m (13) a. akhaðtu kitaban qaraʔa l-muʕalimuna took.1sg book.m.acc read.sg.m teatchers.m.nom I took a book that the teachers read. b. * akhaðtu kitaban l-muʕalimuna qaraʔa took.1sg book.m.acc the.teachers.m.nomread.sg.m The examples above show that the verb should precede the subject in MSA restrictive relatives when the subject is not relativized regardless of the type of the restrictive relative whether it is definite (as in examples (10) and (11)) or indefinite (as in examples (12) and (13)). 4 DISCUSSION The presented cases of subject-verb inversion all share the same pattern of agreement. In all the cases, the subject agrees partially with the preceding verb. The agreement pattern in these structures is consistent with the agreement pattern of the corresponding VSO ordinary structures, i.e., structures that do not involve an Aꞌ-movement and in which the verb precedes the subject. All the structures above involve an Aꞌ-movement in which a DP (other than subject) moves to [Spec, CP] position that is accompanied by the obligatory subject-verb inversion this work is concerned about. The proposal that the subject-verb inversion comes as a requirement of adjacency, which seems to work in the cases of focus fronting and wh-interrogatives, does not hold in the case of restrictive relative clauses. In a restrictive relative clause, the complementizer occurs in an intermediate position between the raised DP and the verb as it can be clearly noticed from examples (10-13) presented above. For the sake of clarity, example (10 a.) is repeated here as (14). Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 331

7 (14) akhaðtu al-kitaba allaði qaraʔa ahmadun took.1sg the-book.m.acc that.sg.m read.sg.m Ahmed.nom I took the book that Ahmed read. In the example above the complementizer allaði separates the relative head al-kitabu from the verb akhaðtu which makes the account of adjacency requirement impracticable. What the restrictive relative construction shows here is that the subject-verb inversion in MSA is not a mere requirement of adjacency; at least not in the case of restrictive relative clauses. The researchers here present a proposal, based on Pesetsky and Torrego (2001), that such inversion is an instance of T-to-C movement. They has proposed that C has an uninterpretable T feature that attracts T movement to C. However, before discussing the inversion phenomenon in MSA, it is important to refer to T-to-C movement in English in whinterrogative construction. A T-to-C movement in English wh-interrogative is obligatory when the subject is not the moved wh-phrase as shown in the following examples. (15) a. What have you made? b. *What you have made? (16) a. *Who did break the window? (* if did is not focused) b. Who broke the window? According to Pesetsky and Torrego, C in the examples above is endowed with an uninterpretable wh-feature [uwh] which attract the wh-phrase what to move to [Spec,CP] and an uninterpretable T feature [ut] which attracts T (have) to move to C and that is what happened in (15). T movement to C is not applicable in (16) because the [ut] of C is deleted by the nominative case of the moved wh-phrase since it moved from the subject position. The relative complementizer also has an uninterpretable T feature [ut] and as assumed by Gallego (2006) has a [urel] feature similar to the [uwh] feature in the whinterrogative constructions. With that in mind, let us examine how that works with inversion phenomenon in MSA restrictive relative clauses. In MSA ordinary clause, the verb is placed in T as proposed by Fassi Fehri (1993, 2012). Then what happens in MSA restrictive relative clause if a non-subject element is Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 332

8 relativized is as follows. T is attracted to C to delete its [ut] feature. The extracted DP is also attracted to [Spec,CP] to delete the [urel] of C. Therefore, the deletion of C uninterpretable features when the subject is not relativized requires the raising of two syntactic elements: T and the relativized DP. Note that this paper is not concerned with restrictive relative in which the subject is not relativized since the subject will occur in a position higher than that of the verb. The resulting structure of the MSA restrictive relative clause in (17) is as represented in (19) below. The diagram in (18) represents the structure after the first movement (the T-to- C movement) and the diagram in (19) represents the structure after the movement of the relativized DP to [Spec,CP]. It should be noted that the representations below ignore some details that are not related to the inversion phenomenon. (17) al-kitabu allaði qaraʔa aħmadun the-book that.3.sg read ahmed.nom the book that Ahmed read (18) Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 333

9 (19) As shown in the representations above, the MSA restrictive relative example undergoes two movement. In the first movement, the verb qaraʔaraised to C and deleted the uninterpretable T [ut] feature of C. The other movement involves the movement of the object DP from the relativization position to the [Spec,CP] position. This movement deletes the uninterpretable Rel [urel] of C. 5 CONCLUSION This paper presents some case of obligatory subject-verb inversion. The represented cases are focus fronting, wh-interrogatives, and restrictive relative clauses. In the literature, accounts of such obligatory inversion in MSA are represented in the case of focus fronting and wh-interrogatives based on the adjacency requirement which do not apply in the case of restrictive relative as shown earlier in this work. The paper then represents an account of the obligatory subject-verb inversion in restrictive relative clauses based on Pesetsky and Torrego s (2001) T-to-C movement proposal. Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 334

10 REFERENCES Aoun, J., E. Benmamoun & L. Choueiri. (2010). The Syntax of Arabic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bianchi, V. (2015). Focus Fronting and the Syntax-Semantics Interface. In U Shlonsky (Eds.) Beyond Functional Sequence: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Volume 10. (pp ). New York: Oxford University Press. Fassi Fehri, A. (1993). Issues in the Structure of Arabic Clauses and Words. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Fassi Fehri, A. (2012). Key features and parameters in Arabic grammar. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Gallego, A.J., (2006). T-to-C Movement in Relative Clauses. In J. Doetjes and P. Gonzalez (Eds.), Romance Language and Linguistic Theory. Selected Papers from "Going Romance" (pp ). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ouhalla, J. (1994). Focus in Standard Arabic. In Linguistics in Potsdam 1, (pp ). Pesetsky, D. & Torrego, E. (2001). T-to-C movement: Causes and consequences. In M. Kenstowicz (Eds.), Ken Hale: A Life in Language. (pp ). Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Shlonsky, U. (2000). Remarks on the Complementizer Layer of Standard Arabic. In J. Lecarme, J. Lowenstamm, and U. Shlonsky (Eds.), Research in Afroasiatic Grammar. (pp ). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal 335