ABSTRACT

Pronominal forms may be introduced in Arabic in deep structure by allowing NP to have the feature [+Pro). This process seems necessary for generating pronouns with no coreferential NPs; that is to say, pronouns that cannot replace other lexical NPs. Consider the following:

I-na~nu tulia: bun fi lja:micah we students in the university (We are university students)

It seems to be the case that the first person pronouns ?ana:, nalJnu (I, we) respectively, are all base-generated, since the speaker does not refer to himself by the name or title, but by using the relevant pronoun whether singular or plural (1). The same argument applies to the second person which should also be base-generated rather than the result of transformations. On the other hand, transformational rules are needed to introduce pronouns that do refer to second occurrences of full NPs so as to avoid repetition and tautology. This can be achieved by adopting a pronominalization rule that assigns the feature [+Pro] to the second occurrence of an NP. The rule in question may be formulated as follows (1):

2-SD X - NPi - Y - NPii - z => 1 2 3 4 5

SC 1 2 3 [+Pro] 5 Conditions: i-NPi =NPii ii-The rule is obligatory (3)

Note that the structural description for the rule as it stands will be met even if the second NP is in another sentence; in other words, the rule is allowed to work across sentence boundaries, as the element Y in SD may include boundaries. It is possible therefore to pronominalize a full NP that refers to another in a preceding sentence regardless of the hierarchy of the sentence in question. Consider for instance:

the judge wise and the judge fair (The judge is wise and the judge is fair)

6-S

qa: la l?usta: du littulla: bi S said the teacher to thestu:;~##

The reason for the ungrammaticality of 11 is that, like 7-9 above, it violates the principle of unidirectionality. By contrast, 12 is grammatical since the second coreferential NP has been pronominalized rather than the first, as in 12 a(6)

12a-S

hubbu sadi:qi: likurat lqadam jacala S iove fri~nd my for football madeA

NPi VERB

[lpro] I ~adi: qi: yarsub friend my fail

In the above configuration tbe second NPi ~adi:qi: (my friend) has been pronominalized, and the resultant clitic pronoun -hu is attached to the verb jacala (made) to generatejacalahu (made him). Furthermore, it should be noted that where pronominal forms are introduced transformationally, say, when they replace full NPs, morphophonemic rules determine the actual realization of the surface pronoun. This entails, of course, choosing between two major sets of pronouns, namely the free (strong) set, and the bound (clitic) set. Free pronouns may occur independently as exemplified in 1 and 4 above, whereas bound pronouns may not; the latter can only be found attached to other lexical items, be they verbs, prepositions or nouns (7). Tables 13 and 14 exhibit the two sets of Arabic pronouns:

Person First Second Third

Number Gender M F M F M F

Singular ?ana: ?anta ?anti huwa hiya

Dual na~nu ?antuma: ?antuma: buma: burna:

Plural nahnu ?antum ?antunna hum hunna

(Table 13 free pronouns)

Person First Second Third

Number Gender M F M F M F

Singular -i: -ka -ki -hu -ha:

Dual -na -kuma: -burna: -hurna: -hurna:

Plural -na -kum -kunna -hum -hunna

(Table 14 clitic pronouns)

The clitic pronoun, when introduced by transformations, i.e. as a result of pronominalization, hops to the nearest preposition or verb available on the left-hand side. Thus the clitic and the item it is attached to form one phonological unit which may look as follows (8):

15-# {y} + [+pro ] # P + Clitic

This is probably achieved by an obligatory rule that can be formulated as 16 below (9).