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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. 91–120

Splitting Neg:

The morphosyntax of sentential negation in Cairene Egyptian Arabic revisited

 | Middlebury College
The goal of this paper is to revisit sentential negation patterns in Cairene Egyptian Arabic and propose a novel analysis for their morphosyntactic properties in this Arabic dialect. In particular, it is argued that the distribution of negation patterns takes place in the mapping from the syntax to the morphology, that the head hosting negation is higher than T on the clausal hierarchy, and that the Neg-domain in this dialect is split into two separate heads, one encoding semantic negation, and another expressing formal negativity. Implications of the proposed analysis are discussed with regard to the interaction between negation and polarity items, variation in negation across different Arabic dialects, and negation patterns in negative disjunction and negative concord structures.
Published online: 30 October 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.2.07sol
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