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Event Phrase and the Syntax of Tma Verbs in Kuwaiti Arabic

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Event Phrase and the Syntax of Tma Verbs in Kuwaiti Arabic EVENT PHRASE AND THE SYNTAX OF TMA VERBS IN KUWAITI ARABIC Bashayer Abdullah Alotaibi Thesis submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics At the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics Newcastle University February 2019 ii ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the syntax of various verbs in Kuwaiti Arabic which realise functional heads encoding Tense, Aspect and Modality, in addition to being used as lexical verbs. It investigates some fundamental issues such as the markedness of the perfective and imperfective verbal forms with respect to Tense and Aspect, and, the aspectual and temporal properties of the active participle form, which is generally considered a nominal category. This study incorporates the Event Phrase hypothesis building on Cowper (1999), Borer (2005), Ramchand (2008) and Travis (2010) and inspired from event-semantics (e.g. Davidson 1967, Higginbotham 1985 and Parsons 1990). EventP is a functional projection in the syntax of the clause that relates to the eventive argument (the Davidsonian argument). However, the details of how this phrase functions syntactically have not been precisely described, especially for Arabic. This research aims to clarify the functions of EventP based on data from KA. I argue that the EventP is a key ingredient in the syntactic representation of the clause structure. It relates to the distinction between eventive and non-eventive predicates, or the Individual-level and Stage-level predicates. Furthermore, I argue that analysing sentences in Arabic as eventive or non-eventive can account for a number of puzzling phenomena in the behaviour of verbal and non-verbal predicates. Some of these phenomena include: the null present tense copula; the mixed nominal and verbal behaviours of the active participle; the derivational gap with verbs such as yiʃbah ‘resemble’ and yigrab ‘relate to’; the varying temporal and aspectual readings of the imperfective depending on the verb class. An example of this is that the Achievement verbs resist the present tense and the progressive reading. I present an analysis of EventP that can account for these phenomena. Furthermore, I argue that analysing the predicates as eventive or non-eventive (following Adger and Ramchand 2003) allows for a more consistent generalisation of the functions of the TMA verbs discussed in this thesis, namely the auxiliary verb kaan ‘be.PAST’, the inceptive verb gaam ‘get up.INITIATE ’ and the durative verb gaʕad ‘sit.CONTINUE’. I show that it is possible to generalise over the functions of TMA verbs in relation to eventive sentences regardless of whether they have verbal or non-verbal predicates. iii iv DEDICATION “And of his signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colours. Indeed in that are signs for those of knowledge.” (Sahih International: 30:22) To my mother, who taught me to look for the signs in everything! And to my father, who led me by example. v vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I thank Allah the most merciful the most kind for his countless blessings. Second, gratitude is owed to Kuwait University for granting me the scholarship and investing in me as an academic. I thank my Department of Arabic language and linguistics at Kuwait University for selecting me to study ‘modern’ syntactic theories in the UK, a challenge I gladly accepted. A challenge I might not have been able to succeed in and enjoy if not for the Integrated PhD program at Newcastle University. It helped me take my first and steady steps into generative linguistics, under the watchful eye of the program leader and the teachers of the modules, to whom I owe a lot. Getting through the research phase of the program and producing this thesis would not have been possible without the care and guidance of my supervisors, Prof Maggie Tallerman and Dr Joel Wallenberg. I benefited from the combination of Maggie’s depth of knowledge, experience and compassion and Joel’s intelligent questions that continuously fuelled my research and crystalized my ideas. I am thankful to both of you for every stroke of the pen on my drafts, every piece of feedback, and every discussion we had. Furthermore, I owe my examiners, Prof. Anders Holmberg and Dr. George Tsoulas gratitude for the comments I received and the great discussion we had on the viva. These insightful comments helped me sharpen the main arguments of my thesis and opened my mind to deeper linguistic questions. Additional thanks go to the syntax reading group lead by Anders Holmberg which I attended for the past four years. I always felt welcome to voice my opinion and challenge some ideas even when I did not have the necessary background. The group helped me grow into the researcher that I am today. I, therefore, like to thank Prof Anders Holmberg for nurturing us novice syntacticians in the syntax reading group. I also thank some members with whom I had fruitful discussions, especially on the early stages on my research: Dr Gary Thoms and my colleagues: Ekhlas Mohsin, Dr Marwan Jarrah, Dr Abdulrahman Attakhaineh, Dr Murdhy Alshammary, Dr Aseel Zibin, Dr Hadi Alsamdani and countless others. Furthermore, I owe a great deal of pleasant and happy memories to my dearest friends and comrades, a strong-willed group of independent students/mothers who welcomed me and my children into their homes and lives: Sarah Alajmi, Dr Enas Filimban, Dr Rezan Alharbi, Noreyah Alazemi, Ender Taher, Ghada Almuarik, Alyaa Olwi, Dr Rebecca Musa and Khansaa Martakush. Thank you for being my family away from home. vii Finally, this journey would not have been possible without the blessings and support of my husband Dr Esam Alhezami who believed that I was destined to do this. Thank you for understanding how difficult this experience was for me and making sure that I had enjoyable breaks whenever you were around; without your love for life and outgoing spirit I would have had a dull experience living abroad. Special thanks go to my mother-in-law Iqbal Alafaliq who believed in me and kept me going with her love and prayers. I am also blessed with the support of my parents Dr Abdullah and Sharifa Alotaibi (to whom I dedicate this work) and my sisters and brothers May e, Khaled, Afnan, Rawan, Rezan, Qutaibah and Leen. Your prayers and constant messages kept me going through the highs and lows head held high. Last but not least, I owe a great deal of love and appreciation for my children: Talal, Azzam and Hind who shared with me this journey abroad, and experienced life’s burdens and responsibilities at a young age. You were amazing my young ones. viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations AP Active Participle AspP Aspect Phrase CP Complementizer Phrase DA Deverbal Agentive DP Determiner Phrase EA Egyptian Arabic ET Event time EventP Event Phrase HA Hijazi Arabic IL Individual-Level INFL Inflection InitP Initiation Phrase IP Inflection Phrase LF Logical Form ModP Modal Phrase MoodP Mood Phrase NegP Negation Phrase NP Noun Phrase PA Palestinian Arabic PF Phonological Form PP Prepositional Phrase ProcP Process Phrase ResP Result Phrase RT Reference time SA Standard Arabic SL Stage-Level SVC Serial verb construction TMA Tense, Mood and Aspect TP Tense Phrase UT Utterance time νP/VP Verb Phrase ix Glossing 1,2 and 3 Person ACC Accusative AP Active Participle AST Assertion AUX Auxiliary CF Counter Factual CN Consecutive COMP Complementizer COND Conditional CONJ Conjunction D Dual DUR Durative aspect DEF Definite F Feminine FUT Future GEN Genitive IMPR Imperative INC Inceptive aspect M Masculine MP Imperfective NEG Negation NOM Nominative NPI Negative Polarity Item NUN Nunation P Plural PF Perfective PRG Progressive PST Past REF reflexive S Singular SJN Subjunctive x TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Overview: .................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Data: Kuwaiti Arabic. ................................................................................................................................ 3 1.3 Thesis Outline: ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 2. TMA in the Structure of Arabic Clause ................................................................. 7 2.1 Tense in Arabic Clause: ............................................................................................................................. 8 2.1.1 Tense in Verbal and Non-verbal Clauses in Arabic ......................................................................... 11 2.1.2 Complex Tense Constructions in Arabic ......................................................................................... 18 2.2 Aspect and Aspectual Notions: ................................................................................................................ 22 2.2.1 Viewpoint Aspect ............................................................................................................................. 24 2.2.2 Aktionsart (Lexical Aspect) ............................................................................................................. 26 2.2.3 A Case in between...........................................................................................................................
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