A feature-based analysis of the syntax of the clause-initial particle ?Ed? In North Hail Arabic

Abstract

This paper provides a minimalist account of the syntax of the discourse particle ?ed? in North Hail Arabic, a variety spoken in Saudi Arabia. It adopts standard minimalist approaches, Chomsky's (2000, 2001) Agree, Rizzi's (1997) Split CP hypothesis and Richards's (2001) Tuck-in to address the syntactic behaviour of this particle. It is argued that, endowed with an interpretable/unvalued [TOP] feature and uninterpretable/unvalued f- features in the sense of Pesetsky and Torrego (2007) and Boškovic (2011), ?ed? is merged in the left periphery, spelling out the head feature of the Familiar Topic Phrase in the sense of Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl (2007), whence it probes the constituent with the matching features in situ. Hence, the argument that discourse particles link syntax to discourse and contribute to the interpretation of the associated sentence (Biberauer et al. 2014). The desirable outcome is that movement is only forced in cases of multi familiar topics. This provides a plausible explanation that movement is conceptually conceived of as a functional relation established between the probe and the goal as a record for the semantic/information-structure interpretation at the interface system. Facts drawn from cliticization, phases, and multiple familiar topics are taken as convergent evidence bearing out these assumptions.