In:Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVII: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Bloomington, Indiana, 2013
Edited by Stuart Davis and Usama Soltan
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 3] 2016
► pp. 3–33
Locative prepositional phrases and inalienable PLACE in Lebanese Arabic*
Published online: 26 July 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.3.01cho
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.3.01cho
In this paper, I investigate locative PPs in their locative meaning. Based on new empirical evidence from Lebanese Arabic, I propose that a rich constituent structure, which involves an inalienable PLACE noun in a part-whole relation with the ground DP, underlies the syntax of locative prepositions. The locative meaning of prepositions derives from the presence of this PLACE noun, which mostly remains phonologically null. I argue that Lebanese Arabic makes a formal distinction between functional and lexical prepositions, and that the observed differences between them can be attributed to the position they occupy in the rich structure of locatives. The proposed analysis is also discussed in light of recent literature on the architecture of PPs.
References (19)
Asbury, A., Dotlačil, J., Gehrke, B., & Nouwen, R. (Eds.). (2008). Syntax and semantics of spatial P. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Benmamoun, E. (2000). The feature structure of functional categories: A comparative study of Arabic dialects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Botwinik-Rotem, I. (2008). A closer look at the Hebrew construct state and free locative PPs: The analysis of mi-locatives. In D. Kurzon, & S. Adler (Eds.), Adpositions: Pragmatic, semantic, and syntactic perspective (pp. 85-114). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Botwinik-Rotem, I., & Terzi, A. (2008). The structure of Greek and Hebrew prepositional phrases: A unified case driven account. Lingua, 118, 399-424.
Choueiri, L. (2009). Indefiniteness spread in construct state nominals and the case of the missing determiner. Ms., American University of Beirut.
Cinque, G., & Rizzi, L. (Eds.). (2010). Mapping spatial PPs: The cartography of syntactic structures, Volume 6. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cowell, M.W. (1964). A reference grammar of Syrian Arabic. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Fàbregas, A. (2007). (Axial) parts and wholes. Nordlyd: Tromsø working papers on language and linguistics, 34(2), 1-32.
Gehrke, M. (2007). On directional readings of locative prepositions. In S. Blaho, L. Vicente, & E. Schoorlemmer (Eds.), Proceedings of ConSOLE XIV (pp. 99-120). Leiden University.
Noonan, M. (2010). À to Zu. In G. Cinque, & L. Rizzi (Eds.), Mapping spatial PPs: The cartography of syntactic structures, Volume 6 (pp. 161-195). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ouhalla, J. (2009). Variation and change in possessive noun phrases: The evolution of the analytic type and loss of the synthetic type. Brill’s annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics, 1, 311-337.
. (2011). Preposition-possessum agreement and predication in possessive noun phrases. Brill’s annual of Afroasiatic languages and linguistics, 3, 111-139.
Roberts, I., & Roussou, A. (2003). Syntactic Change: A Minimalist Approach to Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roy, I. (2006). Body part nouns in expressions of location in French. Nordlyd: Tromsø working papers in language and linguistics, 33(1), 98-119.
Siloni, T. (2001). Construct states at the PF interface. Linguistic Variation Yearbook, 1, 229-266.
Terzi, A. (2005). Locative prepositions as possessums. In M. Mattheoudakis, & A. Psaltou-Joycey (Eds.), Selected papers from the 16th international symposium on theoretical and applied linguistics (pp. 133-144). University of Thessaloniki.
. (2008). Locative prepositions as modifiers of an unpronounced noun. In C.B. Chang, & H.J. Haynie (Eds.),
Proceedings of the 26
th
West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics
(pp. 471-479). Somerville, MA: Cascadille Proceedings Project.