The Syntax of qulk-clauses in Yemeni Ibbi Arabic: A Minimalist Approach

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the syntax of qulk-clauses in Yemeni Ibbi Arabic using the Minimalist Program, proposing a layered biclausal structure and demonstrating how standard minimalist operations derive their syntax.

Contribution

It introduces a novel minimalist syntactic analysis of qulk-clauses as biclausal structures with specific features, extending generative syntax theories to Yemeni dialects.

Findings

Quilk-clauses are biclausal structures with embedded CP complements.

The analysis accounts for dialect-specific features like negation and cliticization.

The study demonstrates the applicability of minimalist operations to Yemeni Arabic syntax.

Abstract

This study investigates the syntax of qulk-clauses in Yemeni Ibbi Arabic (YIA) within the Minimalist Program. The construction qulk-clause, a morphologically fused form meaning 'I said,' introduces embedded declarative interrogative, and imperative clauses, often eithout complementizer. The central proposal of this paper is that qulk-clauses are biclausal structures in which qulk functions a clause-embedding predicate sec;ecting a dull CP complement. By applying core minimalist operations, viz., Merge, Move, Agree, and Spell-out, the study provides a layered syntactic analysis of qulk-clauses, for illustrating how their derivation proceeds through standard computational steps and post-syntactic processes such as Morphological Merger. The proposal also accounts for dialect-specific features like bipartite negation, cliticization, and CP embedding. The findings offer theoretical contributions to generative syntax, specifically minimalism. The study concludes raising theoretical questions concerning extending the analysis to the addressee-clause kil-k 'you said'. It also provides insights into the possibility of the universality of minimalism.