Copular Sentences in Arabic and English: An Agree-Based Approach

Abstract

#The current paper offers an agree-based account for the derivation and Case feature valuing in the so-called copular sentences in Arabic and English. The paper shows through syntactic arguments that an agree-based approach to these sentences offers a principled and straightforward account for their Case and structural facts. The source of the predicative Case in English copular sentences such as It is me, as Sigur?sson (2006) rightly remarks "has not generally been taken seriously as a linguistic fact, at least not within generative Case theory." They have at best been characterized as "largely unsystematic, and best treated as the product of local rules, grammatical viruses, and hypercorrection" Quin (2005: 1). An Accusative Case, under the earlier versions of Chomskyan syntax (Chomsky 1981, 1993), was assigned by a transitive verb or a functional head associated with a transitive verb. In English copular sentences, the verb be is not transitive, yet there is an Accusative Case on the subject complement in these sentences. "Under such an approach the predicative case makes no sense; it is just unexpected and mysterious." Sigurdsson (2006: 15) The problem with Arabic verbless copular sentences has been about the source of the NOM Case that appears on both the subject and its complement, given the fact that these sentences lack a verb altogether in their present tense form (see for example, Fassi Fehri 1993, Benmamoun 2000, Homeidi 2003, among many others). When a copular sentence is used in the past or future tense, the copular verb kaan 'was' is obligatorily used. In this case, the predicate DP must bear the Accusative Case, exactly as in the English structure It was me. The central analytical claim of this paper is that Arabic NOM-NOM clauses have a syntactic structure that differs radically from that of NOM-x- ACC/x-NOM-ACC clauses, henceforth ACC clauses, for short. More specifically, I argue that all ACC clauses have a vP headed by a little v that is 'responsible' for ACC, much as v* in Chomsky's approach (2000, 2001). I also claim that T and v value the case of a DP under Agree (as Chomsky suggests for v and T). 'An analysis of the English copular sentences is also offered along similar lines.