Cover not available
Part of
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVI: Papers from the annual symposium on Arabic Linguistics. New York, 2012
Edited by Reem Khamis-Dakwar and Karen Froud
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 2] 2014
► pp. 47–74

Prosodic constituency and locality 
in Levantine Arabic

Long-distance negative concord

| University of New England

This paper examines negative concord sentences in Southern Levantine Arabic (Palestinian and Jordanian), providing evidence that locality restrictions on negative concord licensing are in fact restrictions on prosodic rather than syntactic locality. While negative concord is generally a clause-local dependency, a set of exceptions is examined in which the licensing relationship crosses subordinate clause boundaries. These examples involve a set of subordinating verbs with a high frequency in the Maamouri, Buckwalter, Graff, & Jin (2006a,b) corpus. Acoustic analysis of these data shows a strong correlation between the frequency of a subordinating verb in the corpus, its acceptability with non-local negative concord and reduced prosodic prominence in its pronunciation. This suggests that non-local negative concord licensing correlates with a subordinating verb structure being pronounced as a single prosodic constituent.

Published online: 30 October 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.2.05hoy
References
Abdalla, A.G
(1960) An instrumental study of the intonation of Egyptian Arabic. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan.
Aissen, J., & Perlmutter, D
(1983) Clause reduction in Spanish. In D.M. Perlmutter, & C.M. Rosen (Eds.), Studies in relational grammar (pp. 360–403). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Al-Sarayreh, A
(2012). The licensing of negative sensitive items in Jordanian Arabic. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas.
Andrews, A.D. & Manning, C.D
(1999) Complex predicates and information spreading in LFG. Stanford, CT: Center for the Study of Language and Information.Google Scholar
Aoyagi, H., & Ishii, T
(1994) On NPI licensing in Japanese. In N. Akutsuka (Ed.), Japanese/Korean linguistics 4 (pp. 295–311).Stanford, CT: Center for the Study of Language and Information.Google Scholar
Bard, E., Robertson, D., & Sorace, A
(1996) Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability. Language, 72, 32–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bayer, J., & Kornfilt, J
(1989) Restructuring effects in German. In E. Engdahl, M. Reape, M. Mellor, & R. Cooper (Eds.), Parametric variation in Germanic and romance. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Center for Cognitive Science.Google Scholar
Blaszczak, J., & Gärtner, H.-M
(2005) Intonational phrasing, discontinuity, and the scope of negation. Syntax, 8, 1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blau, J
(1960) Syntaxes des palästinensischen Baurndialektes Bir Zeits. Waldorf, Hessen: Verlag für Orientkunde.Google Scholar
Butt, M
(1995) The structure of complex predicates in Urdu. Stanford, CT: Dissertations in Linguistics, Center for the Study of Language and Information.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. & Schiebman, J
(1999) The effect of usage on degree of constituency: The reduction of don’t in American English. Linguistics, 37, 575–596. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chahal, D
(1999) A preliminary analysis of Lebanese Arabic intonation. In Proceedings of the 1999 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society (pp. 1–17).
(2001) Modeling the intonation of Lebanese Arabic using the autosegmental-metrical framework: A comparison with English. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Melbourne.
Chung, S
(2004) Restructuring in Chomorro. Syntax, 7, 199–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cinque, G
(2001) “Restructuring” and functional structure. In L. Bruge (Ed.), Venice working papers in linguistics (Vol. 11, pp. 45–127). Venice: University of Venice.Google Scholar
Cowart, W
(1997) Experimental syntax: Applying objective methods to sentence judgments. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Cowell, M
(1964) A reference grammar of Syrian Arabic. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press (Washington).Google Scholar
Deguchi, M., & Kitagawa, Y
(2002) Prosody and wh-questions. In M. Hirotani (Ed.), Proceedings of the North Eastern linguistics society (pp. 73–92). Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistics Student Association.Google Scholar
Dziwirek, K
(1998) Reduced constructions in universal grammar: Evidence from the Polish object control construction. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 16, 53–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
El-Hassan, S.A
(1990) Intonation in the educated spoken Arabic of Jordan: The patterning of accents. Abhath al-Yarmouk (Yarmouk Studies), 8, 7–31.Google Scholar
Featherston, S
(2005) Magnitude estimation and what it can do for your syntax. Lingua, 115, 1525–1550. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giannakidou, A
(1997) The landscape of polarity items. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Groningen University.
(1998) Polarity sensitivity as (Non)veridical dependency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2000) Negative…concord? Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 18, 457–523. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hasegawa, N
(1994) Economy of derivation and A’-movement in Japanese. In M. Nakamura (Ed.), Current topics in English and Japanese (pp. 1–25). Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Heine, B
(1993) Auxiliaries: Cognitive forces and grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hellmuth, S
(2005) No de-accenting in (or of) phrases: Evidence from Arabic for cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal prosodic variation. In S. Frota, M. Vigario, & M. Freitas (Eds.), Prosodies (pp. 99–112). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
(2006) Intonational pitch accent distribution in Egyptian Arabic. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.Google Scholar
(2011) Acoustic cues to focus and givenness in Egyptian Arabic. In Z. Majeed Hassan, & B. Heselwood (Eds.), Instrumental studies in Arabic Phonetics (pp. 299–324). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hirotani, M
(2005) Prosody and LF interpretation. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar
Hoyt, F
(2006) Long-distance negative concord and restructuring in Palestinian Arabic. In P. Dekker, & H. Zeiljstra (eds.), Concord phenomena and the syntax-semantics interface (pp. 27–32).Malaga: European Summer School of Logic, Language and Information.Google Scholar
Hoyt, F.M
(2010) Negative concord in Levantine Arabic. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.
Ishihara, S
(2002) Invisible but audible wh-scope marking: Wh-constructions and deaccenting in Japanese. In L. Mikkelsen, & C. Potts, (Eds.), Proceedings of West Coast conference on formal linguistics 21 (pp. 180–193). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
(2003) Intonation and interface conditions. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
(2005) Prosody-scope match and mismatch in Tokyo Japanese wh-questions. English Linguistics, 22, 2. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2007) Intonation of sentences with an NPI. In S. Ishihara (Ed.), Interdisciplinary studies on information structure 9: Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Prosody, Syntax, and Information Structure (pp. 77–119). Potsdam: University of Potsdam.Google Scholar
Israel, M
(1996) Polarity sensitivity as lexical semantics. Linguistics and Philosophy, 19, 619–666. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2001) Minimizers, maximizers and the rhetoric of scalar reasoning. Journal of Semantics, 18, 297–331. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Joan, B. & Thompson, S.A
(2000) Three frequency effects in syntax. Berkeley Linguistics Society, 23, 378–388.Google Scholar
Kadmon, N. & Landman, F
(1993) Any. Linguistics and Philosophy, 16, 353–422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kato, Y
(1985) Negative sentences in Japanese. Tokyo University: Sophia Linguistica, 19.Google Scholar
Kayne, S
(1998) Overt vs. covert movement. Syntax, 1, 128–191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keller, F
(2000) Gradience in grammar: Experimental and computational aspects of degrees of grammaticality. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Kitagawa, Y
(2005) Prosody, syntax and pragmatics of wh-questions in Japanese. English Linguistics, 22, 302–346. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kitagawa, Y., & Fodor, J.D
(2003) Default prosody explains neglected syntactic analyses of Japanese. In W. McClure (Ed.), Japanese/Korean linguistics 12 (pp. 267–279).Stanford, CT: Center for the Study of Language and Information.Google Scholar
(2006) Prosodic influence on syntactic judgements. In G. Fanselow, C. Féry, R. Vogel, & M. Schlesewsky (Eds.), Gradience in grammar: Generative perspectives (pp. 336–358). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krifka, M
(1995a) The semantics and pragmatics of negative polarity items. Linguistic Analysis, 25, 209–357.Google Scholar
(1995b) The semantics and pragmatics of polarity items. Linguistic Analysis, 25, 1–49.Google Scholar
Kulk, F., Odé, C., & Woidich, M
(2003) The intonation of colloquial Damascene Arabic: A pilot study. In E.H. Berkman (Ed.), Proceedings of the Institute of Phonetic Sciences of the University of Amsterdam 25 (pp. 15–20). Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Ladd, D.R
(2008) Intonational phonology. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lahiri, U
(1998) Focus and negative polarity in Hindi. Natural Language Semantics, 6, 57–123. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lucas, C
(2009) The development of negation in Arabic and Afro-Asiatic. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Maamouri, M., Buckwalter, T., Graff, D., & Jin, H
(2006a) Levantine Arabic QT training data set 5 (speech). DVD-ROM. LDC Catalog No. LDC2006S29.Google Scholar
(2006b) Levantine Arabic QT training data set 5 (transcripts). DVD-ROM. LDC Catalog No. LDC2006T07.Google Scholar
Matos, G
(1999) Negative concord and the scope of negation. Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics, 7, 175–190.Google Scholar
Mitchell, T.F
(1993) Pronouncing Arabic (Vol. 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Miyagawa, S
(1987) Restructuring in Japanese. In T. Imai, & M. Saito (eds.), Issues in Japanese linguistics (pp. 273–300). Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Monachesi, P
(2005) The verbal complex in Romance: A case study in grammatical interfaces. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Muraki, M
(1978) The Sika-nai construction and predicate restructuring. In J. Hinds, & I. Howard (Eds.), Problems in Japanese syntax and semantics (pp. 155–177). Tokyo: Kaitakusha.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J., & Beckman, M
(1988) Japanese tone structure. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Piñar Lurrubia, P
(1996) Negative polarity licensing and negative concord in the Romance languages. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Poser, W
(1984) The phonetics and phonology of tone and intonation in Japanese. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Progovac, L
(1993) Locality and subjunctive-like complements in Serbo-Croatian. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 1, 116–144.Google Scholar
Przepiórkowski, A., & Kupść, A
(1997a) Negative concord in polish. Technical Report 828, Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L
(1978) A restructuring rule in Italian syntax. In S.J. Keyser (ed.), Recent transformational studies in European languages (pp. 113–158). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rooth, M
(1992) A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 1, 75–116.Google Scholar
Rullmann, H
(1996) Two types of negative polarity items. Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society , 26, 335–350.
Selkirk, E., & Tateishi, K
(1991) Syntax and downstep in Japanese. In C. Georgopoulos, & R. Ishihara (Eds.) Interdisciplinary approaches to language: essays in honor of S.-Y. Kuroda (pp. 519–544). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stejapanović, S
(2004) Clitic-climbing and restructuring with “finite clause” and infinitive complements. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 12, 173–212.Google Scholar
Sugahara, M
(2003) Downtrends and post-FOCUS intonation in Japanese. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar
Suñer, M
(1995) Negative elements, island effects, and resumptive no . The Linguistic Review, 12, 233–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Watanabe, A
(2004) The genesis of negative concord: Syntax and morphology of negative doubling. Linguistic Inquiry, 4, 559–612. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Woidich, M
(1968) Negation und negative Sätze im Ägyptisch-Arabischen. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (München).
Wouden, T. v. d
(1994) Negative contexts. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.Google Scholar
Wurmbrand, S
(2001) Infinitives, restructuring and clause structure. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
(2005) Verb clusters, verb raising, and restructuring. In M. Everaert, & H. von Riemsdijk (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax (pp. 227–341). Blackwell.Google Scholar
Yamashita, H
(2008) Prosody and the syntax of shika-NPIs in Tokyo Japanese and its implications for the theory of grammar. In S. Clarke, M. Hirayama, K. Kim, & E. Suh (Eds.), Toronto working papers in linguistics 28: Proceedings of the International Conference on East Asian Linguistics (pp. 375–394). Toronto: Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Zeijlstra, H
(2004) Sentential negation and negative concord. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Amsterdam University.
Zwarts, F
(1995) Nonveridical contexts. Linguistic Analysis, 25, 286–312.Google Scholar
(1996) Three types of polarity items. In F. Hamm, & E. Hinrichs (eds.), Plural quantification (pp. 177–238). Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Giannakidou, Anastasia & Hedde Zeijlstra
2017. The Landscape of Negative Dependencies: Negative Concord and N‐Words. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hellmuth, Sam
2014. Investigating variation in Arabic intonation. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXIV–XXV [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 1], ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
Hellmuth, Sam
2016. Exploring the syntax-phonology interface in Arabic. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVII [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 3], ► pp. 75 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.