Edited by Mahmoud Azaz
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 12] 2023
► pp. 125–152
This study examines morphological Case marking in Standard Arabic. Hypotheses of Case distribution inside the determiner phrase are contrasted with the hypothesis that Case is a property of lexical elements only. I will show that Case is realized on nominal elements as a result of a head-to-head relation between the Case-assigner and assignee rather than a relation between a head and the whole phrase. This argument is supported by empirical evidence from Arabic as well as from other languages. I will also show that Arabic differs from other languages in that a nominal element can receive Case from a non-local head, and that Case marking does not always result from phi-agreement relations, as seems to be standardly assumed in the syntactic literature.