THE SYNTAX OF DITRANSITIVES IN NAJDI ARABIC

Abstract

This dissertation provides the first formal syntactic analysis of ditransitive constructions in Najdi Arabic, a variety spoken in central and northern Saudi Arabia. Despite the extensive literature on ditransitives in other Arabic dialects, Najdi Arabic, a variety whose ditransitive constructions have received no prior formal syntactic analysis. This study addresses two central research questions concerning the structural configurations underlying ditransitive constructions in Najdi Arabic and the syntactic and semantic diagnostics that reveal them. Building on the low applicative framework developed by Marantz (1993), Pylkkänen (2008), and Holmberg et al. (2019), and further extended by Hallman’s (2015, 2018) hybrid applicative–semantic analysis, this dissertation employs a comprehensive set of diagnostics, including binding asymmetries, scope interactions, passivization, animacy restrictions, and purpose-clause control, to investigate the underlying structure of verb classes. The analysis reveals that give-type verbs exhibit a four-way surface alternation, IO–DO, DO–IO, li-IO–DO, and DO–li-IO, all derived from a single underlying double object construction with a low applicative projection. Crucially, the dative marker li- is shown to be a semantically vacuous case marker in double object contexts rather than a true prepositional head. In contrast, Locative put-type verbs are structurally distinct, selecting true PP complements with no applicative projection. Send-type verbs occupy an intermediate position, patterning with locatives on most diagnostics but diverging on purpose clause control, suggesting a hybrid structure. A key finding is that Najdi Arabic lacks a canonical basic DOC order on its own, indicating that applicative licensing is strictly tied to caused-possession semantics. These findings advance our understanding of the syntax-semantics interface in ditransitive constructions, contribute to cross-linguistic applicative typology, and provide new empirical evidence for the structural diversity of argument realization within the Arabic language family.