Lower and Higher Copies in Arabic

Abstract

This paper examines the phenomenon of copying in Standard Arabic (SA) within the copy theory. Following Boskovic and Nunes (2007), the researcher contends that Arabic utilizes two ways for the pronunciation of heads and copies governed by syntactic and phonological constraints. The highest link can be phonetically realized, or copies are pronounced instead of their heads by PLC without causing the derivation to crash. The paper shows how the copy theory accounts for the differences between perfective and imperative forms on one hand and the imperfective form on the other hand. The copy theory helps account for V-to-T0 movement in imperatives and perfectives in comparison with remaining in lower projections in imperfectives. Further, the research reveals that certain fixed word orders in Arabic can be accounted for in terms of the copy theory. The type of the object DP plays a role in which copy is realized, and hence affects word order. The higher copy of the object DP is pronounced when it is an enclitic object pronoun, while the lower copy is pronounced when the object is an R-expression DP. Addressing the topic of copying from a semantics-syntax interface perspective, the paper explains the bearings of copy operations on syntax..