This investigation reveals distinct syntactic structures for pronominal possessors in Najdi Arabic, suggesting implications for Semitic possessive structures.
This paper mainly investigates the syntactic structure of possessive pronominal noun phrases in Najdi Arabic (henceforth, NA) formed through the use of pronominal possessors. Unlike the traditional viewpoint in Semitic syntax, where pronominal possessors are treated as heads instantiating their own maximal projections (Shlonsky, 1997; Alrasheedi, 2019), the paper argues that pronominal possessors are DPs in the complement position of the NP. In light of Shlonsky’s (2004, 2012, 2017, 2020) phrasal movement analysis of Semitic noun phrases, the paper proposes that pronominal possessors in NA occupy the same structural position as lexical possessors in construct state nominal phrases. The paper assumes that the postnominal modifier(s) ordering exhibited in this variety of Arabic is a reflex of the phrasal snowballing movement of the NP via the Spec of dedicated Functional Projections (FPs) to the Spec of Determiner Phrase (DP) in a similar fashion to Shlonsky’s proposal. The surface linear order (NP>AP1>AP2) is derived via raising NP (the noun + the pronominal possessor) from its base-generation position upwards, pied-piping any c-commanding categories en route to Spec DP.
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Eisa Sneitan Alrasheedi (2025) studied this question.
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