Arabic Dislocation

Abstract

This thesis considers three intertwined research questions that are relevant to the phenomenology of dislocation in Modern Standard Arabic, henceforth MSA. The first of these research questions concerns the possible types of dislocation constructions. The second question concerns the interpretation of dislocation constructions. The last question takes on the syntactic make-up of dislocation constructions.

As far as the first question is concerned, I argue that left-peripheral elements in MSA are not uniform and thus they are best analyzed as comprising two different types: Clitic Left Dislocation I and Clitic Left Dislocation II. I further argue that the same constructions which appear in the left periphery have a presence in the right periphery, namely Clitic Right Dislocation I and Clitic Right Dislocation II. I further show that the determining factor underlying the partitioning of clitic resumption in MSA is morphological case (mis)-matching. Concerning the second question, I maintain that the interpretation of dislocation constructions in MSA is rooted in contrastiveness: the idea that the dislocated elements are drawn from a contrast set in the discourse.

As an answer to the third question, which constitutes the backbone of this thesis, I argue that the previous literature, which advances the idea that the dislocated element and its associated clitic in Clitic Left Dislocation I & Clitic Right Dislocation I coappear in the same clause, is empirically and conceptually problematic. As a solution to this impasse, I argue for the bisentential analysis: the idea that the dislocated element originates in a different clause from the clitic. Crucially, this thesis contributes to the ’biclausal’ debate by furnishing an argument for an ellipsis-based analysis of Clitic Left Dislocation I & Clitic Right Dislocation I based on data from MSA.