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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. 135–160

Cyclic AGREE derives restrictions 
on cliticization in classical Arabic

| Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Person based restrictions on clitic combinations serve as testing grounds for theories of syntactic locality and the means of avoiding them as windows into last resort mechanisms. Clitic restrictions in the verbal domain in Classical Arabic can be derived by Cyclic AGREE, rather than (defective) intervention. This offers a unified, syntactic analysis of the ultrastrong Person Case Constraint and restrictions on combinations of third person clitics. The alternative structures used when cliticization is blocked are the PF realization of independently established syntactic relations, not a last resort mechanism. Several properties of person restrictions are shown to follow from the causative structure of double object verbs in Classical Arabic.

Published online: 30 October 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.2.09wal
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