A-bar distinction and the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs: A reply to Alahdal

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On dissolving the A/A-bar distinction and the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs: A reply to Alahdal Marwan Jarrah The University of Jordan, Jordan Received 20 April 2019; received in revised form 29 October 2019; accepted 31 October 2019

Abstract In this paper, we first argue against Alahdal's (2018) account of feature inheritance of the Edge Feature (EF) from C0 to T0 in null subject languages (NSLs), including (Modern Standard) Arabic. Alahdal proposes that Spec,TP becomes a position that exhibits A/A-bar properties in Arabic when T0 inherits EF from C0. We explore the defects of this argument, highlighting its conceptual and empirical inconsistencies. We also show that this argument suffers from internal problems which speak against its theoretical validity. Second, we present an alternative approach to the relevant data. We propose that a preverbal element in Modern Standard Arabic (and other NSLs with a prominent VSO word order) is either a topic or a focus, depending on its informational content. The preverbal element is located in a dedicated A-bar position in the CP domain of the clause. All A-properties of preverbal elements are assumed to be indirect effects of their clause-initial position. © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: NSLs; Feature inheritance; A/A-bar distinction; Cartographic approach

1. Introduction The feature inheritance approach (Chomsky, 2007a,b, 2008) has prominently figured in many theoretical analyses that have investigated syntactic dependencies among functional heads (see Grewendorf and Kremers, 2009; Obata, 2012; Richards, 2012; Jiménez-Fernández and Spyropoulos, 2013; Jiménez-Fernández and Miyagawa, 2014; Gallego, 2014; Jarrah, 2019c, among many others).1 One main consequence of this model of feature dependencies is that some functional heads become (totally or partially) parasitic on other (c-commanding) functional heads with respect to their uninterpretable content. For instance, T0 is argued to be free of any functional (uninterpretable) features (e.g., EPP, ɸ, etc.) which it (i.e. T0) can acquire from the c-commanding C0 upon the latter's merger. Additionally, feature inheritance is strongly tied to the availability of phasal heads which are assumed to be the locus of uninterpretable features. Phasal heads are proposed to pass down their features bundle (or a subset of them) to their complements (non-edges).2

E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]. 1 We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for his/her insightful comments, constructive criticism, and thorough remarks which largely enhanced the quality of the paper. I use the following abbreviations: ɸ = Agreement features (Person, Number, and Gender); 1, 2, 3 = first, second, third person; ACC = accusative; AS.PRT = assertion particle; COMP = complementizer; EPP = Extended Projection Principle; DEF = definite; F = feminine; GEN = genitive; IND = indicative; M = masculine; NOM = nominative; PL = plural; PRT = particle; SG = singular. 2 Chomsky (2000, 2001) proposes that a sentence derivation is implemented through phases which are propositional local domains, i.e. CP and vP (especially vP with an external argument). For Chomsky, phases help to reduce the computational complexity of the sentence processing, among others (see Gallego, 2010 for clarification). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102778 0024-3841/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Jarrah, M., On dissolving the A/A-bar distinction and the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs: A reply to Alahdal. Lingua (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102778

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According to Richards (2007), feature inheritance is an inevitable consequence of a perfect system of Language as it ‘‘ensures that C's uF [uninterpretable feature] can indeed be valued at the same time that it is transferred’’ (p. 569). On the other hand, feature inheritance and its proposed advantages to the ‘‘perfect system’’ of Language have been challenged by many researchers, especially when it comes to languages of which the functional dependency between C0 and T0 is not clearly manifested or even deemed doubtful. The counter evidence coming from such languages has clearly pointed to the requirement of modifying the feature-inheritance proposal so as to accommodate the cross-linguistic challenging data. For instance, Diercks (2011) argues that Lubukusu (a Bantu language from Kenya) exhibits agreeing complementizers whose presence is barely expected under the featureinheritance approach. That is because that C0 would pass down all of its uninterpretable features to T0, so C0 has no longer uninterpretable content through which it can act as an active probe. Likewise, Haegeman and Van Koppen (2012) supply evidence from the West Flemish external possessor agreement that C0 and T0 may agree with different elements (i.e. goals), proposing that C0 may not pass down its ɸ-features to T0 (see also Jarrah, 2019c, along these lines). Alahdal (2018) adopts the feature inheritance approach (and its latter modification as proposed in Ouali, 2008)) to explore the seemingly peculiar properties of preverbal DPs in Null Subject Languages (NSLs), with a special focus on data from (Modern Standard) Arabic. Alahdal (2018) explores the observation that preverbal DPs in NSLs manifest A- and A-bar properties, a state of affairs that makes the true nature of the structural positions occupied by such DPs unclear. After reviewing the related literature on the syntactic derivation of preverbal DPs in (Modern Standard) Arabic (a true example of NSLs), Alahdal (2018) argues that a preverbal DP occupies Spec, TP which obtains A-bar properties when C0, a phasal head, passes down its EF to its complement T0. Alahdal (2018) mentions: According to the analysis proposed here, this is captured as follows. TP is an A-position as far as T inherits ɸ- and T-features (traditional view of the functional head T plus feature inheritance). The moment T inherits EF, TP acquires an A-bar status. This approach to preverbal DPs in NSLs is claimed to be superior to earlier analyses. (p. 55) Under Alahdal's proposal, the presence of EF on T0 is the casual factor that makes Spec,TP, which is normally an A-position, an A-bar position in Arabic grammar. On the other hand, when T0 does not inherit EF from C0, Spec, TP remains an A-position with no A-bar properties. In the latter cases, the preverbal DP is interpreted as a true subject that does not necessarily express any discourse or pragmatic effects, e.g., being a topic or a (contrastive/ corrective) focus. Additionally, Alahdal (2018) makes use of the three possibilities of feature inheritance as originally proposed in Ouali (2008) to account for the derivation of different word orders in Arabic varieties (i.e., Yemeni Arabic and Saudi Arabic). He proposes that EF may not pass down to T0 in Arabic grammar (and possibly in all NSLs). C0 may keep EF or share it with its non-edge complement, T0. In each case, a different word order results on the surface. Although Alahdal's (2018) proposal of the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs would at face value account for the data brought in his paper, it actually suffers from conceptual and empirical problems that altogether seriously undermine its validity and generalizability. Alahdal's (2018) proposal also suffers from several internal inconsistencies embedded in its argumentation and implementation. The following section is devoted to discussing these problems and inconsistencies, showing ultimately that Alahdal's (2018) proposal of the derivation of preverbal DPs is untenable and should be rejected as a theoretical justification of the relevant data. In section 3, we provide an alternative approach to the relevant data. This approach is based on the cartographic view of sentence derivation (see Rizzi, 1997, 2004; Cinque, 1999, 2002) where discourse effects are strongly indicative of certain projections whose presence can be traced in many natural languages which are not typologically or genetically related. Our main proposal is that the preverbal subject in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is not situated in Spec,TP, but in the left periphery of the accompanying clause. All A-properties associated with the subject in such cases are indirect effects of its clause-initial position. Spec,TP is filled with a pro, while the preverbal element is shown to occupy an A-bar position. Section 4 discusses and dismisses the potential problems and challenges against our proposal that preverbal elements occupy an A-bar positon. Section 5 is the conclusion.

2. Problems of Alahdal's (2018) proposal of the derivation of preverbal DPs Before showing how Alahdal's (2018) account of the derivation of preverbal DPs is problematic, let's first discuss the main function of EF, which is a fundamental component within Alahdal's (2018) account. Please cite this article in press as: Jarrah, M., On dissolving the A/A-bar distinction and the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs: A reply to Alahdal. Lingua (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102778

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According to Chomsky (2008: 144), phasal heads come with an EF which attracts elements (XPs) to the edge of the relevant phase.3 The EF's central role in the sentence derivation comes primarily from its proposed effect in rendering Merge (as a primitive syntactic operation) unbounded and hence making Language a recursive infinite system. Unbounded Merge is ‘‘associated with what he [Chomsky] calls ‘undeletable edge features’, rather than a totally featurefree lexicon as in the assumptions regarding rhythmic structure’’ (Berwick, 2011: 491). The EF is also important for the minimalist model where there exists no superfluous step in a derivation; every syntactic operation should be motivated, i. e. taking place for reason. (Re-)Merge, a cost-free operation, is thus motivated by EF on (functional) heads. See Fukui (2017) for relevant discussion. A key remark to underscore here concerns Chomsky's (2007) proposal that EF is not deleted once Merge takes place. This is made clear in Fukui (2011[2017]) who mentions that ‘‘EF is a unique feature, distinct from all the other ‘conventional’ lexical features. It plays no direct interpretive role at the interfaces, so it is definitely an ‘uninterpretable’ feature. However, unlike other uninterpretable features, it doesn’t seem to be deleted when satisfied.’’ (p. 12). This property of EF contrasts sharply with other uninterpretable features which are assumed to delete once they are valued. The deletion of EF is conducted as part of the Transfer (Chomsky, 2007a,b). This timing is proposed for EF to delete in order to ensure the application of unbounded Merge (Fukui, 2011 [2017]). Against this background, there should not be a mechanism through which EF is deleted. That is because this mechanism, if any, would render Merge, theoretically speaking, bounded, a state of affairs that deeply conflicts with the Minimalist Program where Merge is viewed as a cost-free operation that is essential for the infinity system of natural languages. Chomsky (2007a,b) makes it clear that EF is distinct from other uninterpretable features, although both share the property of no LF interpretation. Other uninterpretable features, including ɸ-features on heads, should be valued and deleted before the derivation convergence at LF, i.e. before the spell-out point; otherwise the resulting derivation would crash, given the effects of the Principle of the Full Interpretation (FI). For Chomsky (1995), FI requires all uninterpretable features to delete during the course of the syntactic derivation (in the narrow syntax, i.e. CHL)), as these features cannot be interpreted at the interface levels of PF and LF where only interpretable features can be read. Chomsky states: The principle FI is assumed as a matter of course in phonology; if a symbol in a representation has no sensorimotor interpretation, the representation does not qualify as a PF representation. This is what we called the ‘‘interface condition’’. The same condition applied to LF also entails that every element of the representation have a (language independent) interpretation (Chomsky, 1995: 27). It is the effects of FI that make Agree operation irredundant as the latter is what ensures the valuation (and hence deletion) of uninterpretable features. This requirement (i.e. uninterpretable features should be deleted) does not nonetheless apply to EF which is only affiliated with certain heads, mainly phasal heads, to preserve unboundedness of Merge.4 EF is evidently an essential component of the narrow syntax system where derivations are hierarchically built. Any attempt to formalize its deletion within the course of the derivation is thus conceptually problematic, especially in a system where language is viewed as a recursive system that is not bounded. As we have mentioned earlier, Chomsky proposes that the valuation of EF (through the external/internal Merge) does not result in its deletion; EF has the intrinsic ability to survive deletion. With this being the case, the proposal that EF is passed down from C0 to T0 is off the mark. Alahdal does not provide any argument whatsoever for why EF would be inherited from C0 to T0 in the first place.5 Furthermore, EF is immune to such valuation and deletion. This simply ascertains that even if EF is passed down to the non-phase head, it would not be

3 A very important point to note here is that there are two main formulations of EF in the related literature. The first formulation is the EF carried by phasal heads. The second formulation is the EF carried by all lexical items. Our discussion in this paper pertains to the former formulation (i.e. only carried by phasal heads), which is the same formulation discussed in Alahdal. Alahdal mentions (p. 54--55):‘EPP-feature’/‘P-feature’ was the first formulation of EF. Recently, however, Chomsky (2007a,b, 2008) has viewed EF as a feature that makes a lexical item capable of participating in a Merge operation. In this sense, all lexical items, not only phase heads, are endowed with EF, only elements that are complete in themselves, such as interjections, do not have EF. This EF is not relevant here [in the paper]’The main argument in this paper is that the EF carried by phasal heads is not subject to deletion nor duplication, as we show in this section. 4 Chomsky proposes the presence of EF in his later developments of the Minimalist Program (see Chomsky, 2007a,b, 2008) as the relation between the bio-linguistic enterprise and the Minimalist Program becomes concrete. EF is a key factor in preserving unbounded Merge whose presence and effects can be traced through bio-linguistic evidence (see Berwick and Chomsky, 2011). 5 Richards (2012) argues that the condition that ‘‘uF [uninterpretable feature] must descend from edge to nonedge’’ (p. 201) conforms to the socalled Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT) in that ‘‘it ensures FI [Full Interpretation] is met, by enabling Agree-features to be valued and deleted as part of Transfer, at the phase level’’. (p. 201). SMT suggests that language is ‘well designed’ to meet the legibility conditions for its interface with other cognitive systems (Chomsky, 2000; see also Al-Mutairi, 2014, among others, for clarification).

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deleted, a matter that crucially makes the application of EF's feature inheritance from C0 to T0 completely redundant. Such an application is clearly a serious shortcoming within Alahdal's overall account.6 An additional point that bears mentioning here is that Alahdal's connection between the alleged inheritance of EF from C0 to T0 and the result of making Spec,TP an A-bar position is highly stipulative. According to the original proposal of EF, no connection is made between the presence of EF on a phasal head and its effect in making the Specifier position of the given head as an A-bar position. The underlying argument of Alahdal's account, as it appears, is that because the locus of the EF is the phasal head, i.e., C0, whose specifier is an A-bar position in nature, the specifier of TP once T0 inherits the EF from C0 becomes automatically an A-bar position. However, such an implication should be weakened because the source of all uninterpretable features that are passed down to T0 is in fact C0 whose specifier is an A-bar position in Arabic grammar (cf. Jarrah, 2019c). Alahdal also suggests that even the EPP of TP can be inherited from C0 to T0, mentioning that ‘‘C here transfers [ɸ, T-features, (EPP)], but crucially not EF’’ (p. 16). The question that arises here is why the presence of C0's EPP feature (whose valuation is satisfied, among others, once Spec,TP is filled with some element) on T0 is not enough to make Spec,TP an A-bar position. As is widely established in the related literature, Spec,CP is an A-bar position that can be filled with non-arguments and adverbials. Furthermore, if we embrace Alahdal's (2018) account that the presence of EF on a phasal head turns its specifier to an A-bar position, then the specifier position of vP would be an Abar position. However, this should not be pursued because the specifier position of vP is an A-position where the thematic subject is base-generated and assigned structural case.7 An additional theoretical problem that is related to Alahdal's (2018) proposal of the derivation of preverbal DPs concerns the argument that in SVO structures, where the subject is believed to be a true subject (i.e., does not show A-bar properties), C0 is not specified for EF. Alahdal mentions that ‘‘[. . .] is generated when C0 is not specified for an EF. Here we get SVO structures with S as a subject, i.e. without any topic-interpretation. This is the case in English, and the VSO word order in Arabic. Formally, C here transfers [ɸ, T-features, (EPP)], but crucially not EF.’’ The question that arises immediately is why C0, being a phasal head in Arabic grammar (Jarrah, 2017), may not be specified for EF. Alahdal does not discuss this issue, casting doubt on the conceptual validity of this proposal. As we have shown above, EF is important for cost-free Merge, which is argued to be a property of human language (Saito and Fukui, 1998). EF should then be a fundamental component of phasal heads, irrespective of the word order on the surface. Given that EF is deleted when Transfer occurs, there is, by assumption, no harm to its presence on the phasal head even if it is not valued/satisfied. The assumption that Merge is unbounded does not require longer sentences or unfinished thoughts as syntactic structures are subject to grammatically irrelevant conditions (or grammar-extrinsic notions) including memory limitations, processing load, shifts of attention and interest, distractions, and errors (Chomsky, 2007a,b, 2008). Furthermore, Alahdal's proposal that C0's being non-specified for EF makes the subject free of any A-bar properties is also problematic because it implies that EF when it occurs on C0 should be at least satisfied either through feature inheritance to T0 or through some movement or operation that targets the left periphery of the relevant clause like topicalization or focalization. However, this potential requirement of EF's satisfaction runs counter to the main aim of the EF in that it permits but not forces (Re)Merge in the narrow syntax. Recall that EF is supposed to delete when Transfer occurs whether or not its valuation takes place. Additionally, Alahdal does not discuss why C0 may be free of EF; what is special about C0 in such cases? Does it, for example, induce island effects through creating opaque domains (given that its peripheral edge is never projected)? If this would be the case, what is then the conceptual gain of the EPP on C0?! A further problem that arises from Alahdal's (2018) proposal of the derivation of preverbal DPs in NSLs bears on the highly stepulative suggestion that in multiple subject constructions in Arabic (see Doron and Heycock, 1999), C0 is specified with multiple EF. In order to generate structures with multiple subjects C0 donates multiple EF to T0, something that allows the latter to have two subjects. Alahdal mentions: ‘‘Interestingly, the present system of feature inheritance of EF can derive ‘broad 6

An anonymous reviewer hints that Alahdal's reinterpretation of EF as a formal feature is subject to deletion might be viewed as parallel to Rizzi's (2006) reinterpretation of EPP as subject criterion. However, what undermines this is that Rizzi's (2006) reinterpretation of EPP is based on the observation that subjects share an interpretive property on a par with topics. This property is the ‘aboutness’ relation which links subjects with predicates as it links topics with comments (Rizzi and Shlonsky, 2007). For this reason, movement to the subject position is proposed to be criterial and hence subject to the criterial freezing (an element that occupies a criterial position is frozen therein), which requires a very local relation between the element that carries the criterial feature and the criterial head. Additionally, Shlonsky and Rizzi (2018) propose different subject positions within the IP domain, demonstrating that Spec,TP should not be viewed as parallel but distinct to Spec,SubjP, which is a criterial position. Given this, there exists no parallelism between Rizzi's (2006) reinterpretation of EPP as subject criterion and Alahdal's reinterpretation of EF as a formal feature that is subject to deletion (or duplication). Rizzi's (2006) reinterpretation of EPP as subject criterion is based on independent grounds (see Jarrah, 2017 for further detail in this respect). Note also that Chomsky (2007a,b) differentiates between EPP and EF. Alahdal attempted to view EF as an EPP feature; however this treatment is misleading as the two features are distinct and serve different functions in the narrow syntax. 7 This does not imply that all possible specifier positions projected from vP (when needed movement from within the vP phase targets the phase edge) are A-positions. Our main point is that the presence of EF on a phasal head does not necessarily make the specifier position of the given head an A-bar position. As is well known in the related literature, A-bar positions are generally generated as escape hatches or scope positions.

Please cite this article in press as: Jarrah, M., On dissolving the A/A-bar distinction and the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs: A reply to Alahdal. Lingua (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102778

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subject’ constructions in a straightforward manner. Specifically, ‘broad subject’ constructions turn out to be another case of DONATE: C DONATEs multiple EF to T. Thus, T ends up having two subjects in multiple spec positions’’ (p. 15). This suggestion crucially reflects a clear misunderstanding of the role of EF in the narrow syntax. As we have shown above, Chomsky argues that EF does not delete once it is valued as it survives any deletion caused by valuation. This very nature of EF makes any copy of it redundant because what can be achieved by two copies of EF is simply achievable by one copy of EF. Alahdal does not also discuss why this multiple inheritance would only be restricted to two copies as long as recursion of EF would be allowed. Note also that multiple Specifier positions are permitted in the developed system of Chomsky (1995) where EF is not proposed; Chomsky (1995: 262) states ‘‘The improved theory of movement has consequences for multiple-Spec constructions, which are permitted in principle on minimalist assumptions about phrase structure theory, as noted earlier.’’ The availability of multiple Specifier position is a consequence of abandonment of Agr projections (see also Chomsky, 2001 that multiple specifiers are not a stipulation). The main implication of Chomsky's multiple specifiers system is that the possibility of having multiple specifiers is primitive in the sense that it follows from the true application of (external/internal) Merge. Another problem within Alahdal's (2018) proposal of the derivation of preverbal DPs in NSLs is the over-application of SHARING (cf. Ouali, 2008) in embedded contexts. Alahdal's account of EF's inheritance from C0 to T0 appears not to be restricted to root clauses. The application of this account to embedded contexts should be taken for granted because Spec,TP should also display A/A-bar properties in embedded contexts. Consider the following sentence: (1) ʔi?taqad-at ʔal-mu?allimat-u believed-3SG.F DEF-teacher.F-NOM ʔatˤ-tˤalib-a qaraʔ-a DEF-student.M-ACC read.3SG.M-IND ‘‘The teacher believed that the student read

ʔinna COMP ʔal-riwaajat-a DEF-novel-ACC the novel.’’

The subject of the embedded clause ʔatˤtˤaliba ‘the student’ displays A- as well as A-bar properties. For instance, it can bind an anaphor which acts as the direct object of the verb, as evidenced in the following sentence: (2) ʔi?taqad-at ʔal-mu?allimat-u ʔinna believed-3SG.F DEF-teacher.F-NOM COMP ʔatˤ-tˤalib-a ʔaħibb-a nafsa-hu ka?iiran DEF-student.M-ACC loved.3SG.M-IND self-him very much ‘‘The teacher believed that the student loved himself very much.’’ Sentence (2) provides evidence that the subject of eth embedded clause, i.e. ʔatˤtˤaliba ‘the student’, occupies an Aposition as it can bind an anaphor, a characteristic of A-positions (see Gallego, 2010). On the other hand, the same embedded preverbal subject ʔatˤtˤaliba is constrained in that it cannot be a nonspecific and indefinite element (see Aoun et al., 2010). The following example shows this restriction; a preverbal DP should not be a nonspecific and indefinite element. Otherwise the sentence would become ill-formed; unless the indefinite, nonspecific preverbal subject is intended to express corrective/contrastive information.8 (3) *ʔi?taqad-at ʔal-mu?allimat-u ʔinna believed-3SG.F DEF-teacher.F-NOM COMP tˤaliban qaraʔ-a ʔal-riwaayat-a student.M read.3SG.M-IND DEF-novel-ACC Intended: ‘‘The teacher believed that a student read the novel.’’ One way to salvage the grammaticality of sentence (3) (with the presence of a nonspecific and indefinite subject, with no enforced corrective/contrastive reading), is through placing the subject in a post-verbal position:9

8 An anonymous reviewer points out that sentence (3) is absolutely fine with an indefinite, nonspecific preverbal subject. We agree on this as long as the subject here is interpreted as a contrastive or corrective focus, but not a new-information focus. This is mentioned and explained in several studies including Ouhalla (1997) and Moutouakil (1989). Our main point here is that the indefinite, nonspecific preverbal subject should hold some discourse reading, being a contrastive or corrective focus; otherwise the sentence would be ungrammatical. This implies that the indefinite, nonspecific preverbal subject is positioned in an A-bar position that is associated with a specific discourse value, i.e. Spec, Focus Phrase (see Ouhalla, 1992; Rizzi, 1997; Jarrah, 2017). 9 In MSA, when the complementizer is followed by a verb, a bound form (e.g., -hu) should be suffixed to it. Ryding (2005) calls this form ‘a generic buffer pronoun’ that is independent of the subject of the embedded clause.

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(4) ʔi?taqad-at ʔal-mu?allimat-u ʔinna-hu believed-3SG.F DEF-teacher.F-NOM COMP-3SG.M (qad) qaraʔ-a tˤalib-un ʔal-riwaajat-a AS.PRT read.3SG.M-IND student.M-NOM DEF-novel-ACC ‘‘The teacher believed that a student read the novel.’’ The constraint on the form of the preverbal DP in the embedded clause implies that it occupies some A-bar position. The relevant point to discuss here is that the object of the embedded clause can be extracted to the matrix clause, as shown in the following example:10 (5) maða ʔi?taqad-at ʔal-mu?allimat-u what believed-3SG.F DEF-teacher.F-NOM ʔinna ʔatˤ-tˤalib-a qaraʔ-a COMP DEF-student.M-ACC read.3SG.M-IND ‘‘What did the teacher believe that the student read?’’ Because the verb of the embedded clause does not carry a resumptive clitic that refers back to the extracted object, it can be proposed that the wh-word is a true instance of movement from its base-generation position in the embedded clause (where it is assigned its ?-role) to the surface position in the matrix clause (see, e.g., Ouhalla, 1997 and Aoun and Choueiri, 1999). This movement cannot be allowed unless the extracted wh-word moves through Spec,vP, Spec,CP (of the embedded clause) and Spec,vP (of the main clause), given the effects of the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC) that requires any movement from inside a phase to pass through the edge of the given phase. The PIC is stated in (6). (6) The Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC) In Phase a with head H, the domain of H is not accessible to operations outside a, only H and its edge are accessible to such operations (Chomsky, 2001: 14). The terms of the PIC can be diagrammed as follows: (7)

(Gallego and Uriagereka, 2007: 47) The crucial point here is that due to the effects of the PIC, the extracted wh-word maða moves through Spec,CP of the embedded clause to the matrix clause. This movement would not be permitted under Alahdal's account of EF's inheritance from C0 to T0 because the former is free of EF/EPP, so its Spec is not available (or even not projected). One possibility to account for the extractability of elements out of embedded contexts to matrix clauses is that C0 must SHARE but not DONATE its EF with T0, so Spec,CP can be projected. Actually this possibility is made by Alahdal when he accounts for the derivation of OSV structures in Arabic (where the object is topicalized). The possibility of having an extracted object of the embedded clause while a preverbal subject is present in the same domain (i.e., the embedded context) indicates that SHARING is an inevitable consequence in embedded contexts. However, this possibility should be abandoned as it forces CP's to share their EF to their complements in non-root contexts, but may not in root contexts, a highly undesirable outcome in the model of the minimalist syntax where syntactic derivations determine the surface word order, not vice versa. On the other hand, one challenging argument made by an anonymous reviewer is that the existence of a preverbal DP is driven by the lexical property of ʔinna/ʔanna to discharge its case; this is why there should be a preverbal subject in

10 The grammaticality of sentence (5) indicates that standard minimality assumptions followed by Soltan (2007) and Aoun et al. (2010) (that an element in an A-bar position blocks A-bar movement) should not apply across the board. We assume that sentence (5) is not problematic because the preverbal DP in the embedded clause is a topic, whereas the extracted object (of the same embedded clause) is a wh-word which is different in features from the preverbal (topicalized) subject. This approach of relativized minimality that is sensitive to the featureal make-up of elements is adopted by many researchers for many languages (see Starke, 2001; Rizzi, 2004; Haegeman and Urogdi, 2010a,b; Haegeman, 2010, 2012; Jarrah, 2019b).

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embedded contexts or a pronoun attached to ʔinna/ʔanna. However, the assumption that the presence of a preverbal DP is solely driven by the lexical property of ʔinna/ʔanna makes it difficult to account for the presence of two different ways (a preverbal DP or a (buffer) pronoun attached to ʔinna) to discharge ʔinna/ʔanna's Case. Additionally, according to the recent formulations of Agree operation (Chomsky, 2000, 2001), case assignment/discharging is viewed as an instance of Agree which can apply at distance. The DP or the (buffer) pronoun should not be too local to ʔinna/ʔanna for case assignment to apply. On the other hand, one might assume that ʔinna/ʔanna does not assign structural case but lexical case (Al-Balushi, 2011) which is ‘irrelevant for licensing and interpretation’ (p. 160). Al-Balushi (2011) argues that lexical case in Arabic is licensed to non-arguments in the A-bar domain. This implies that lexical Case assignment is not the reason behind movement of the elements to the left periphery. It is just applied when there is a non-argument element; otherwise a buffer pronoun is used to absorb ʔinna/ʔanna's lexical Case.11 In the following section, we present an alternative approach to the relevant data, assuming that a preverbal element in MSA is either a topic or a focus (depending on its informational content). The preverbal element (i.e. the subject) is located in a dedicated A-bar position in the CP domain of the clause. We ultimately show that all A-properties of preverbal elements are assumed to be indirect effects of their clause-initial position.

3. The cartographic proposal of preverbal DPs in NSLs Our main departure from Alahdal's (2018) account of preverbal DPs in NSLs comes from the assumption that the structural status of the preverbal DPs, mainly subjects, in NSLs should not be the same in all NSLs. For example, it has been widely argued in the related literature on Arabic varieties that MSA is different from other Arabic dialects in that the VSO word order in MSA is viewed as the canonical word order, whereas the SVO is the predominate word order in almost other Arabic varieties (see Bakir, 1980; Ayoub, 1981; Farghal, 1986; Mohammad, 1989, 2000; Shlonsky, 1997; Akkal and Gonegai, 2000; Soltan, 2007; Jouini, 2014; Benmamoun, 2017). This obvious difference between MSA and Arabic dialects has given rise to several analytic assumptions that the structural position occupied by the subject in MSA is different from the one that is occupied by the subject in Arabic dialects. The subject in SVO sentences of MSA is a topic (or, in some restricted cases, a contrastive/corrective focus) because the subject is constrained with respect to its informational content, i.e. indefinite, nonspecific subjects are highly disfavored (unless a contrastive/corrective reading is attributed to the subject). This implies that the subject in MSA occupies a position whose head carries a specific discourse value. Let's suppose that this position is Spec,Topic Phrase which is a separate, but unique layer within Rizzi's (1997) split CP hypothesis. Rizzi argues that the traditional CP is split into different projections which are schematically represented in (8). (8) CP ! Force Phrase > Topic Phrase* > Focus Phrase > Topic Phrase* > Fin Phrase The subject in SVO clauses of MSA occupies Spec,Topic Phrase, an assumption that accounts for the restrictions imposed on the informational content and thus the form of the subject. A point that lends support to this line of analysis comes from cases where the preverbal subject in SVO is separated from the verb by PPs which can also be interpreted as topics, as shown in the following example:12

11 See, however, Jarrah (2019b) for a different approach that what appears as a buffer pronoun is treated an inflectional suffix that displays the Agree relation between ʔinna/ʔanna and pro in Spec,TP. 12 An anonymous reviewer mentions that following the cartographic system, if the preverbal DP and the two PPs are ‘topicalized elements’, then reordering them should not affect grammaticality. He/she states that the following sentences are, nonetheless, ungrammatical, a matter that undermines the cartographic system:

(i) a. * fi-l-ħadiiqat-i at-DEF-garden-GEN ɡaraʔ-a read.3SG.M-IND

ʔar-radaul-u ?inda DEF-man-NOM next to ʔar-ruwaajat-a DEF-novel-ACC

ʔal-buħajrat-i DEF-lake-GEN

b. * ?inda ʔal-buħajrat-i ʔar-radaul-u fi-l-ħadiiqat-i next to DEF-lake-GEN DEF-man-NOM at-DEF-garden-GEN ɡaraʔ-a ʔar-ruwaajat-a read.3SG.M-IND DEF-novel-ACC Actually, the two sentences are fine for me (as a native speaker of Arabic). However, the first topicalized PP and the rest of the clause should be separated by a clear intonational break. Additionally, the grammaticality of the two sentences is strengthened when they appear in an appropriate context.

Please cite this article in press as: Jarrah, M., On dissolving the A/A-bar distinction and the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs: A reply to Alahdal. Lingua (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102778

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(9) ʔar-radaul-u fi-l-ħadiiqat-i ?inda ʔal-buħajrat-i DEF-man-NOM at-DEF-garden-GEN next to DEF-lake-GEN qaraʔ-a ʔar-ruwaajat-a read.3SG.M-IND DEF-novel-ACC ‘‘The man in the garden next to the lake read the novel.’’

The subject and each PP in sentence (9) occupies a distinct position in the left periphery of the relevant clause. This is allowed within Rizzi's (1997) split CP system where Topic Phrase is a recursive domain, with no restrictions on which element should occupy the higher Spec. Although the subject ʔarradaulu ‘the man’ in sentence (9) is separated from the verb by two topicalized elements (i.e., fi-l-ħadiiqati ‘in the garden’ and ?inda ʔal-buħajrati ‘next to the lake’), it still exhibits Aproperties. Although it seems that the subject occupies a position in the left periphery domain of the relevant clause, given its position to the left of two topicalized elements, it can still works as an A-element. It can bind an anaphor, a characteristic property of A-elements: fi-l-ħadiiqat-i ?inda ʔal-uħajrat-i (10) ʔar-radaul-u DEF-man-NOM at-DEF-garden-GEN next to DEF-lake-GEN qatal-a nafsa-hu killed.3SG.M-IND self-him ‘‘The man in the garden next to the lake killed himself.’’ However, as we show below, the assumption that the topicalized subject in (10) ʔar-radaulu ‘the man’ still appears to bind the anaphor nafsahu ‘himself’ is misleading as it is only a superficial manifestation of the surface position of the subject to the left of the verb. Anticipating the following the discussion, what binds the anaphor in (10) is always the pro that is located in Spec,TP in such sentences. On the other hand, this assumption (i.e. the anaphor is always bound by pro) does not apply to the subject in Arabic dialects because the subject in SVO clauses is not constrained with respect to its informational content, and thus no restrictions on the definiteness or specificity status of the subject are imposed. An anonymous reviewer points out that our generalization that no restrictions on the definiteness or specificity status of the subject in Arabic dialects are imposed is inaccurate as some related literature (e.g., Aoun et al., 2010: 62) proposes that an indefinite, nonspecific subject is not allowed in Arabic vernaculars. However, we argue that this assumption should be reconsidered. Note first that main literature on Arabic vernaculars propose that the predominate word order in Arabic dialects is SVO, where the preverbal subject is normally positioned in Spec,TP/IP, a position that is not affiliated with any discourse property (Ayoub, 1981; Fassi Fehri, 1988; Mohammad, 1989, 2000; Akkal and Gonegai, 2000; Soltan, 2007; and Jouini, 2014, along these lines, and Benmamoun, 2017 for a general overview). Following this line of analysis, a preverbal subject which is an indefinite, nonspecific element is expected. Furthermore, with the help of 10 research assistants, we made a corpus-based investigation of the occurrence of an indefinite, nonspecific subject in Jordanian Arabic. We made 100,000-word corpus, coming mainly from spontaneous conversations and radio programs. We found many sentences (i.e. 530 tokens) that begin with an indefinite, nonspecific subject. Consider the following example: Fiih (11) A. ʃuu what There ‘What's up (with you)’? B. Marah woman w-badd-ha and-wanted-3SG.F ‘A women came to

?ind-ku with-you

ʔida-at ʔ-amm-i came-3SG.F at-mother-my masˤaari money my mother and wanted money’.

B's answer is a sentence with an indefinite, nonspecific subject. The significance of this answer, being an utterance in an out-of-the-blue context, is that it is associated with the thetic interpretation where ‘‘attention is drawn to the event itself and not the participants of the event’’ Basilico (1998: 546). This implies that the indefinite, nonspecific subject marah is Please cite this article in press as: Jarrah, M., On dissolving the A/A-bar distinction and the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs: A reply to Alahdal. Lingua (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102778

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interpreted as a subject rather than a topic or focus. This falls in line with a general confirmation by Aoun et al. (2010: 199) that ‘‘preverbal subjects [in Arabic dialects] are not CLLDed elements’’.13 This discussion implies that the subject in SVO clauses occupies some position whose head is not affiliated with a certain discourse value. Let's assume that the preverbal subject in Arabic dialects occupies Spec,TP, an assumption which is consistent with the results of many works that investigated the structural position of the preverbal subject in Arabic dialects. On the other hand, the preverbal subject in MSA is located in the left periphery, not Spec,TP (hence what binds the anaphor is the proposed pro in Spec,TP/IP.) The question that should be answered here is how the hybrid nature of the preverbal DPs in MSA and other Arabic dialects is accounted for. Alahdal following Gallego (2010: 210--212), mentions four main A-properties of the preverbal DP in Arabic grammar. The first A-property of a preverbal DP in NSLs is that it can control. Consider the following example from MSA, taken from Alahdal (2018: 46) (we keep the gloss of the original examples intact as cited in Alahdal's paper). (12) Maha turiidu an tazoora Sadiiqa-ha Maha 3SF.want to 3SF.visit friend-her ‘Maha wants to visit her friend.’ In (12), the preverbal subject Maha controls the subject of the embedded clause; i.e., the subject of the embedded clause has to co-refer with Maha, the subject of the matrix clause. However, the possibility of controlling does not strongly indicate that subject occupies an A-position in Arabic. For example, the subject in the following sentence still controls the PRO in the embedded clause, although the subject Maha is clearly located in the left periphery of the relevant clause. (13) Maha ʁadan bisˤaraaħah turiidu an tazoora Sadiiqa-ha Maha tomorrow frankly 3sf.want to 3sf.visit friend-her ‘Maha tomorrow frankly wants to visit her friend.’ There is evidence that the subject Maha in (13) is located in the left periphery, rather than in Spec,TP. This evidence comes primarily from the position of the subject relevant to the position of the mood speech act adverbial bisˤaraaħah ‘frankly’ which occupies a high position in the high IP area (the area between MoodSpeech act and TP) according to Cinque's (1999) universal hierarchy of adverbs and corresponding adverbials.14 Cinque (1999) argues extensively that adverbs occupy dedicated positions within a universal hierarchy that comprise of orderly-layered functional projections. Adverbs are not scattered randomly in the sentence. Rather their position follows from a universally-built-on system that is invariant cross-linguistically. bisˤaraaħah ‘frankly’ occupies a high position in the high IP area of which all elements c-command Spec,TP. Note also that the subject in (13) also precedes the temporal adverbial ʁadan which is better interpreted as a topic in this sentence. Both maha and ʁadan are topics. According to Rizzi (1997) they can be reordered as topic is a recursive domain. This is shown in (14): (14) ʁadan Maha bisˤaraaħah turiidu an tazoora Sadiiqa-ha tomorrow Maha frankly 3sf.want to 3sf.visit friend-her ‘Tomorrow Maha frankly wants to visit her friend.’ On the other hand, if the order between ʁadan ‘tomorrow’ and bisˤaraaħah ‘frankly’ changes, the grammaticality of the resulting sentence degrades, as shown in (15): (15) ?Maha bisˤaraaħah ʁadan turiidu an tazoora Sadiiqa-ha Maha frankly tomorrow 3sf.want to 3sf.visit friend-her Intended: ‘Maha tomorrow frankly wants to visit her friend.’

13 We added the expression in Arabic dialects as most relevant examples cited by Aoun et al. (2010) to attest their confirmation come from Arabic dialects. 14 In this paper, we follow Cinque's (1999) proposal that adverbs are located in Specifier positions of dedicated functional projections which are universally ordered. There is much evidence in favor of this view cross-linguistically. However, this is actually inconsistent with how adverbs (and adverbials) are treated in several works in Arabic literature including Fassi Fehri (1993), Benmamoun (2000), and Soltan (2007), among others. Note that such works did not discuss the distribution of adverbs in Arabic; their assumption that adverbs are adjoined to VP is taken for granted without proper analysis. On the other hand, Cinque's (1999) proposal is cross-linguistically motivated as the attested languages come from different language families. Additionally, under Cinque (1999) approach of the distribution of adverbs, adverbs are true diagnostics of the inner syntactic structure as well as the structural positions of relevant elements (see also Pollock, 1989, along these lines).

Please cite this article in press as: Jarrah, M., On dissolving the A/A-bar distinction and the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs: A reply to Alahdal. Lingua (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102778

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This observation is expected under Rizzi's (1997) Split CP proposal and Cinque's (1999) universal hierarchy of adverbs as bisˤaraaħah ‘frankly’ occupies a position in the high IP area whereas the temporal adverbial ʁadan is a CP element that c-commands all IP materials. Rizzi's (1997) Split CP proposal and Cinque's (1999) universal hierarchy of adverbs combined are represented in the following tree diagram (we only show the peripheral projections of Cinque's universal hierarchy because it is long; the interested reader is invited to consult Cinque's 1999): (16)

The subject maha in (13--15) is a CP element that occupies an A-bar position. (17) [. . .

TP

maha [TP T [vP [proi]

v’

V [VP V [CP C [TP T [vP [PROi] v’ [VP. . .]]]]]]]

The assumption that we advocate here is that what controls PRO in the embedded clause is not the preverbal subject but the non-expletive pro that is located in Spec,vP/Spec,TP (Soltan, 2007). Related literature (mainly Ouhalla, 1997) argues that topics in Arabic are base-generated in the left periphery, implying that their surface position is not a product of movement. Spec,vP is filled with a pro that is referential (and co-indexed with the topicalized subject when the latter is present) (see Soltan, 2007 for a motivation of the presence of a pro in Spec,vP in SVO Arabic clauses; see also Jarrah, 2019a for a relevant argument). Evidence for this (i.e. the preverbal subject is a topic) comes from the fact that Maha can be safely dropped out of the sentence: (18) turiidu An tazoora Sadiiqa-ha 3SF.want To 3SF.visit friend-her ‘She wants to visit her friend.’ The element that controls PRO is definitely not the dropped subject but the referential pro in Spec,vP. Sentence (18) still obtains the interpretation that there is a specific female who wants to visit her friend. The interpretation of the sentence is specific not generic, a point that validates our assumption that there is a referential, not generic, pro which is co-indexed with PRO. (All irrelevant details are skipped). (19) [. . .

CP

C [TP T [vP [proi]

v’

V [VP V [CP C [TP T [vP [PROi] v’ [VP. . .]]]]]]]

Empirical evidence that points to the validity of our presented analysis comes from instances where the preverbal element is introduced by the topic particle ʔamma, while the rest of the clause is introduced by the comment particle fa (see Kinberg, 2001 for discussion of ʔamma . . .fa constructions in Classical Arabic). Consider the following example: (20) ʔamma maha fa-turiidu an tazoora Sadiiqa-ha PRT Maha PRT-3SF.want to 3SF.visit friend-her ‘As for Maha, she wants to visit her friend.’

Please cite this article in press as: Jarrah, M., On dissolving the A/A-bar distinction and the status of preverbal DPs in NSLs: A reply to Alahdal. Lingua (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102778

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The preverbal subject in (20) is a topic that is introduced by the topic particle ʔamma, whereas the rest of the clause is a comment that is demarcated by the particle fa. The importance of sentence (20) comes from the fact that although Maha is a topic, it still prima facie controls PRO, a state of affairs that goes against the mainstream literature in this respect. On the other hand, if what controls the PRO is the referential pro (in Spec,vP) which has no realization on the surface, no theoretical problem arises. The alleged controlling of PRO by the preverbal element is thus an epiphenomenal outcome of first the linear position of the preverbal element to the left of the PRO and second no phonetic realization of the actual controller, i.e., the referential pro.15 The second A-property that preverbal DPs exhibit is that they can bind, as (21) shows. (21) maha tuHibbu nafsa-ha Maha 3SF.like self-her ‘Maha likes herself.’ Under Alahdal's (2018) proposal, the preverbal DP Maha is a subject, located in Spec,TP. It binds the anaphor nafsaha that occurs in the object position. However, this binding is not a robust indication of the structural position of Maha, given the fact that Arabic is a NSL. The same discussion we developed above that a preverbal DP is not the actual controller of PRO applies here. There is nothing a priori that excludes the possibility that what binds the object anaphor is the referential pro in Spec,vP/Spec,TP rather than the preverbal subject Maha which can be safely dropped out of the sentence, as evidenced in the following sentence. (22) tuHibbu nafsa-ha 3SF.like self-her ‘She likes herself.’ If the element that binds the anaphor is always the preverbal DP, then the grammaticality of sentence (22) would be hard to account for (as it induces the violation of Condition A of the Binding Theory; Chomsky, 1981). However, if the binder is the referential pro, the grammaticality of sentence (22) is expected. Maha is a topic that is located in the left periphery. Because of the phonological nullness of the referential pro in Arabic, what appears as the binder on the surface is Maha. One piece of evidence in favor of this argument comes from the instances where Maha is separated from the verb by elements whose presence makes the proposal that Maha occupies Spec,TP untenable and hard to accept. For examples, consider the following sentence where Maha and the verb are separated by two syntactic objects: one topic bilmaddrasah ‘at the school’ and one high IP adverbial bisˤaraaħa ‘frankly’ (an evaluative adverbial). (23) maha bi-l-maddrasah bisˤaraaħa tuHibbu nafsa-ha Maha at-DEF-school frankly 3SF.like self-her ‘Maha at the school frankly likes herself.’ Sentence (23) implies that Maha is not located in Spec,TP; otherwise its position to the left of the topicalized element and the evaluative adverbial is difficult to account for.16 A third A-property of preverbal DPs in NSLs as Alahdal mentions is that they display agreement with the verb. Alahdal (2018) mentions: ‘‘A third A-related property of preverbal DP in NSLs is that it displays agreement with the verb. Not only this, but in languages like Arabic, which manifests agreement asymmetry, preverbal DP exhibits full/strong agreement, as opposed to postverbal subjects which manifest partial agreement at most’’ (p. 46). Although Aoun et al. (2010) argue that agreement asymmetries should not be taken as conclusive evidence for A/A-bar properties of preverbal elements, this point can be taken as evidence that preverbal elements in MSA are not true subjects but topics. That is because there is an asymmetry of agreement displayed by pre- and post-verbal elements, a fact that Alahdal stresses. If the two elements (i.e. pre- and

See Jlassi (2013) and Jarrah (2017) for discussion of the equivalent constructions of ʔamma . . .fa constructions in Arabic dialects. An anonymous reviewer doubts that arguments against preverbal DPs being subjects based on adverb placement cannot, in the best case, be conclusive, particularly when it comes to Arabic. He/she mentions that all examples, namely (9) through (23) can be reproduced with even more flexibility in the different dialects where the preverbal DP is accepted as a subject by the current paper. We submit that the preverbal subject in Arabic dialects may appear to the left of CP/high-IP elements; however this does not necessarily challenge our hypothesis as the left periphery in Arabic is rich (Aoun et al., 2010). When the subject appears to the left of CP elements, it moves to some higher position in the left periphery, resulting in its surface position to the left of these elements. In such cases the subject is interpreted as a topic or a focus. Whether the topicalized subject in Arabic dialects is derivationally driven (so Spec,TP is filled with the subject) or is an directly base-generated in the left periphery (so, Spec,TP is filled with a pro), there is no problem against our proposed analysis as the topicalized subject resides in an A-bar position. 15 16

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post-verbal subjects) belong to the same category (i.e. an A-category), they should not display different agreement patterns. However, such agreement asymmetries between pre- and post-verbal subjects would not be present following Alahdal's analysis that the subject occupying Spec,TP (the position of the preverbal element within Alahdal's proposal) is originated in Spec,vP (the position of post-verbal subject). On the other hand, when the preverbal subject in MSA is treated as a topic, where the verb agrees with the pro which is co-indexed with the preverbal subject, such agreement asymmetries follow. It is known that the verb agrees fully with pronouns, irrespective of the word order (see 24 below) (see Harbert and Bahloul, 2002; Jarrah, 2019a,b). When the verb agrees with a full DP subject, no agreement in Number is obtained (compare 24 with 25). (24) a. maha ðahab-at Maha went-3SG.F ‘‘Maha went away.’’ ðahab-na b. ʔal-fatajaat-u DEF-girls-NOM went-3PL.F ‘‘The girls went away.’’ Maha (25) a. ðahab-at went-3SG.F Maha ‘‘Maha went away.’’ b. ðahab-at ʔal-fatajaat-u went-3SG.F DEF-girls-NOM ‘‘The girls went away.’’ (26) a. hunna ðahab-na went-3PL.F they.F ‘‘Maha went away.’’ hunna b. ðahab-na went.3PL.F they.F ‘‘They went away.’’ The presence of full agreement on verbs in VSO clauses of MSA is indicative that the verb agrees with a pronoun rather than a full DP element. With this being the case, the preverbal element alruasaa ‘‘the president’’ in (27), Alahdal's representative example, is not the element that verb agrees with. (27) alruasaa raHaluu the.presidents left-3pm ‘The presidents stepped down.’ Note in passing that such agreement asymmetries between VSO and SVO word orders disappear in Arabic dialects, where the preverbal subject is widely treated as a true subject rather than a topic (see Mohammad, 2000). The fourth A-property of preverbal DPs is that they do not reconstruct (Boeckx, 2001). Alahdal brought the following two examples as evidence: (28) a. Sadiiqu mahai lam Friend.Nom Maha neg.pst ‘Maha's friend did not find her.’

yuqaabil-hai 3sm.meet-her

yuqabil-hai Sadiiqu mahai b. *lam pst.neg 3sm.find-her friend.Nom maha ‘Maha's friend did not find her.’ Alahdal argues that (28b) is ungrammatical when Maha co-refers with the object pronoun. In his words, ‘‘-ha must have a disjoint reference from maha in the postverbal subject position. This shows that the preverbal DP cannot reconstruct (to

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a postverbal position)’’ (p. 45). However, the lack of reconstruction can be interpreted as the preverbal DP is not basegenerated in Spec,vP from where it moves to Spec,TP, but it is a CP object which is a topic in the left periphery. The preverbal subject does not leave a copy of itself in Spec,vP with which it can form a chain to reconstruct. Spec,vP is instead filled with a referential pro. This is why sentence (28) is grammatical. On the other hand, sentence (28b) is ungrammatical simply because Maha is bound by the object pronoun on the verb, which is a violation of Condition C of the Binding Theory (cf. Chomsky, 1981). This discussion reveals that all A-properties of preverbal subjects in MSA is in fact an indirect effect of their surface order at the beginning of the clause. We provide evidence to the effect that such elements are not located in Spec,TP, but in a higher position within the left periphery of the accompanying clause. This directly implies that there is no EF, which is originated on C0, on T0, i.e. there is no feature inheritance of EF. The distribution of preverbal elements in Arabic grammar is never ruled by or subject to EF. Rather, their distribution is straightforwardly captured when formulization of Rizzi's (1997) Split CP domain as well as Cinque's (1999) adverb hierarchy are considered, a matter which strongly bears out the richness of the left periphery in Arabic grammar. In the following section, we discuss the potential challenges and problems related to our presented proposal that preverbal elements occupy an A-bar position in NSLs. In this section, we dismiss these challenges and problems, following theoretical and empirical evidence, hence adding credence to the analysis presented in this paper for the structural position of preverbal elements. 4. Potential challenges and problems The first challenge faced by the A-bar approach pursued in this paper is that this approach resorts to some form of coindexation to encode the dependency between the preverbal DP and the pro in the subject position (Spec,vP/Spec,TP). This may imply that linking is a primitive of linguistic theory. The question arises as how linking is obtained, especially with indices being eliminated by Inclusiveness Condition that states that only material from the numeration can be used in a derivation (Chomsky, 2001). Following Inclusiveness Condition, any linking resulted from co-indexation should be epiphenomenal, rather than an important ingredient or factor of sentence derivation or processing (as indices are no longer allowed). However, under the presented analysis, it is not necessary that the pro in Spec,vP (or Spec,TP) should be linked or co-indexed with a preverbal A-bar element. For instance, the preverbal element in (29) as a CLLD object element that is clearly not co-indexed with the subject: (29) ʔal-kitab-u, qara-ta-hu bi-diqqah DEF-book-NOM read-3SG.F-it with-precision ‘‘The book, she read (it) carefully.’’ The understood subject, i.e. pro, in sentence (29), is not co-indexed with the preverbal object which is widely argued to be a topic in such situations. The most important point to underscore here is that sentence (29) is indicative of the fact that the pro in the subject position is independently anaphoric, i.e. it does not need to be co-indexed with any preverbal element to be referential. This may suggest that any apparent co-indexation of the pro with the preverbal element when the latter is the subject (as shown in 30) is not required, but mainly arises as the preverbal subject and the pro itself refer back to the same entity in the real world. (30) ʔal-fataat-u, qara-t ʔal-kitaab-a bi-diqqah DEF-gitl-NOM read-3SG.F DEF-book-ACC with-precision ‘‘The girl(, she) read the book carefully.’’ This discussion reveals that pro in Spec,vP (Spec,TP) is referential by its own and does not have to be linked to any element which can specify its ɸ-feature. With this in mind, we propose that this pro is inherently specified with interpretable ɸ-features which following Holmberg (2005: 534) ‘‘is a DP that is deleted under usual conditions of recoverability.’’ Holmberg (2005) argues for several types of syntactically projected null subjects in natural languages, mentioning: [. . .] One commonly occurring type is a null weak pronoun, roughly as characterized in Cardinaletti & Starke 1999: a pronoun specified for w-features [. . .] Another type of null subject is a DP which is deleted under usual conditions of recoverability. A third type is the classical pro, in the sense of a minimally specified nominal category, a bare, w-less noun. This type is found only in languages without unvalued wfeatures in I, that is without Agr.’’ (p. 534)

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There is in fact much evidence that the pro in NSLs, including Arabic, is of the second type which is a DP that is ‘‘deleted under usual conditions of recoverability’’. Firstly, the pro cannot be of the first type because when the pro is phonologically realized, it is a strong pronoun that can stand alone. It is not a weak pronoun that needs a lexical host. Consider (31): (31) hijja qara-t ʔal-kitaab-a bi-diqqah She read-3SG.F DEF-book-ACC with-precision ‘‘She read the book carefully.’’ Additionally, the pro cannot be of the third type because the pro has w-content. For instance, in sentence (29), reproduced below for convenience, the identity of the pro being [3SG.F] is easily revealed, given the morphological form of the verb. (32) ʔal-kitab-u, qara-ta-hu bi-diqqah DEF-book-NOM read-3SG.F-it with-precision ‘‘The book, she read (it) carefully.’’ It cannot be the case the verb specifies the w-content of the pro since the verb (i.e. T0 in such cases) is the element that bears unvalued w-content which is uninterpretable. Moreover, it cannot be the preverbal CLLD element as the latter is a topicalized object not a subject. We are actually left with only one possibility that the phonologically null subject (i.e. pro) is the element that values T0's w-content. This is consistent with Holmberg's (2005) argument that referential null subject pronouns of the second type do not enter an Agree relation in order to value their w-content, simply because such content is lexically specified, and it does not need valuation. They enter Agree relation to value other heads’ unvalued w-content. Another potential problem relating to the presented analysis that a preverbal element in NSLs occupies an A-bar position is that the proposed binding approach incurs a look-ahead problem, particularly in NSLs where the subject might be null. In this regard, Alahdal mentions ‘‘the binding-approach incurs a look-ahead problem: How can CHL [Computation System of Human Language] know that there is a DP to be merged later in the derivation, which will take care of the unvalued features of both T and pro? This look-ahead problem turns out to be particularly crucial in the context of consistent NSLs, such as Arabic, where subjects may be null’ (p. 7). However, this look-ahead problem mainly arises under the proposal that pro in the subject position has unvalued w-content. Alahdal draws on Rizzi's (1986) Identification Condition that ‘‘pro inherits the phi-features of X [i.e., T] (if it has; if not, pro gets a default interpretation’’ (cited in Alahdal, 2018: 7). However, Rizzi's (1986) Identification Condition is seriously challenged by many works, most notably Holmberg (2005) who states that ‘‘the traditional view of the null subject as pro identified by Agr (the w--features of I [T]) cannot be maintained in a theory where Agr is uninterpretable’’ (p. 533). Holmberg proposes that null subjects are lexically specified with interpretable, valued w-content, making them goals that can ‘‘assign values to the uninterpretable features of Agr’’. The sole difference between such pros and normal subjects is that the former are unpronounced. Therefore, there is no look-ahead problem because pros in the subject position can assign morphological values to the unvalued, uninterpretable content of T and work as a potential binder to any anaphor that lies in their c-command domain. The last point that can be taken as a challenge against the proposal that preverbal elements in NSLs occupy an A-bar position is that the A-bar approach makes one empirical prediction: if the preverbal DP is a topic, it can, in principle, cooccur with an overt pronominal subject. However, this prediction is not borne out, because such structures are ruled out for Alahdal who mentions the following ungrammatical sentence as evidence (p. 8): (33) *Ahmed, huawa ataa Ahmed, he.Nom came ‘Ahmed came.’ However, there is good reason to reject this challenge. Firstly, the proposal that sentence (33) is ungrammatical should be questioned. Analogous structures of sentence (33) are deemed grammatical in Modern Standard Arabic (Fassi Fehri, 1993: 117) and Arabic vernaculars (Eid, 1983; Edwards, 2006; Jlassi, 2013): (34) a. l-junuud-u hum the-soldiers-NOM they ‘‘The soldiers are the responsible’’. b. ʔanta You

huwa he

1-masʔuul-uun the-responsible-PL.NOM (MSA; Fassi Fehri, 1993: 117) 1-masʔuul-u the-responsible-NOM

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‘‘You are the responsible.’’

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(MSA; Fassi Fehri, 1993: 117)

c. le-wla:d the-boys ‘‘The boys do like this.’’

HUMA: ya-?ml-u: they IPFV-do-3PM (Tunisian Arabic; Jlassi, 2013: 93)

d. il-mudarris the-teacher ‘‘The teacher is the nice person.’’

huwwa il-lat?i:f they the-nice (Egyptian Arabic; Eid, 1983: 203--204)

hakka ! like this

For Fassi Fehri, the categorical status of such pronouns in MSA is ambiguous. They can be copulas, hence generated under I [or T, with updated terminology) (see also Eid, 1983) or generated in an argument DP position (Spec,vP/spec,TP) when they are interpreted as personal pronouns. Jlassi (2013) argues that the strong pronoun in such cases is located in a higher position within the CP-domain, i.e., the Spec of the head Finite, specified for Focus. Whatever the analysis proposed for the presence of strong pronouns in such constructions, the fact that such sentence are grammatical is beyond doubt. Furthermore, even if sentence (33) is assumed ungrammatical, its ungrammaticality does not indicate that a preverbal element occupies an A-position. As Alahdal himself submits following a remark by an anonymous reviewer of his paper, the ungrammaticality of sentence (33) may relate to a ban on strong pronouns to be A-bar bound. Alahdal mentions in a footnote that ‘‘A reviewer conjectures that the ungrammaticality in (16) [33] may relate to a ban on strong pronouns to be A-bar bound (Shlonsky, 1992; Ouhalla, 2001). This issue must be investigated further.’’ Following this, the alleged assumption that a strong pronoun cannot occur with a co-indexed preverbal element cannot be taken as a serious challenge against the proposal that preverbal elements occupy A-bar positions in NSLs. 5. Conclusion Alahdal (2018) argues that Spec,TP in Arabic (and other NSLs) obtains A-bar properties when C0, a phasal head, passes down its EF to its complement T0. Alahdal (2018) also proposes that several issues in Arabic grammar including variation in word order and the distribution of elements in the left periphery are strongly related to the feature inheritance of EF from C0 to T0. In this research, we provided several arguments against this approach. We have shown that this feature is not in one way or another the driving force for the hybrid nature of preverbal DPs in NSLs, with particular focus on Arabic. We have also supplied evidence that EF has no impact on the formation of word order in Arabic syntax. Additionally, we have argued that all A-properties of preverbal DPs in MSA are in fact indirect and epiphenomenal properties of the surface position of such elements, coupled with the ‘‘phonological nullness’’ nature of referential pro in Spec,vP. Also, we have demonstrated that arguments and assumptions from the cartographic approach have actually explanatory power that helps us choose the right analysis of the relevant data. Conflict of interests There is no conflict of interest. References Akkal, A., Gonegai, A., 2000. On the status of AgrS in some Null Subject Languages. In: Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science. Series 4. , pp. 1--22. Alahdal, A., 2018. Dissolving the A/A-bar distinction: a feature inheritance based account of preverbal DP in NSLs. Lingua 208, 44--60. Al-Mutairi, F.R., 2014. The Minimalist Program: The Nature and Plausibility of Chomsky's Biolinguistics, vol. 143. Cambridge University Press. Aoun, J., Choueiri, L., 1999. Modes of interrogation. In: Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science. Series 4. , pp. 7--26. Aoun, J., Benmamoun, E., Choueiri, L., 2010. Arabic Syntax. Cambridge, Cambridge. Ayoub, G., 1981. Structure de la phrase verbale en Arabe standard. In: Thèse de doctorat de troisième cycle. Université de Paris VII. Bakir, M.J., 1980. Aspects of Clause Structure in Arabic. Indiana U. Linguistics Club. Basilico, D., 1998. Object position and predication forms. Nat. Lang. Linguist. Theory 16, 541--595. Benmamoun, E., 2000.In: The feature structure of functional categories: A comparative study of Arabic dialects. Oxford University Press. Benmamoun, E., 2017. VSO word order, primarily in Arabic languages. In: The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax. second edition, pp. 1--30. Berwick, R.C., 2011. All you need is merge: biology, computation, and language from the bottom up. In: The Biolinguistic Enterprise. , pp. 461-491. Berwick, R.C., Chomsky, N., 2011. The biolinguistic program: the current state of its development. In: The Biolinguistic Enterprise: New Perspectives on the Evolution and Nature of the Human Language Faculty. , pp. 19--41. Boeckx, C., 2001. Scope reconstruction and A-movement. Nat. Lang. Linguist. Theory 19 (3), 503--548. Chomsky, N., 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Foris, Dordrecht.

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