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Verbal Agreement in Mehri Word Order: A Feature-based- Inheritance Model

Saeed Al-Qumairi and Munir Shuib

Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science, Volume 26, Issue T, December 2018

Keywords: CP phase, edge feature, feature inheritance, full agreement, Mehri

Published on: 24 Dec 2018

This paper discusses agreement in syntactic order of Mehri. It investigates how VSO and SVO are derived and proposes an alternative analysis based on Chomsky's (2008) feature-based-inheritance approach which seeks to provide a unified account on the subject. It shows that regardless of whether the DP is located in [Spec-v*P] in VSO order or in [Spec, TP] and [Spec-TopP] (Topic Phrase) in SVO order, the Agreement can be applied and unvalued uninterpretable features are valued and deleted by matching them with their valued interpretable counterparts. We argue that since the edge feature of the head C of the CP phase is inherited by the Top head or T head, the (in)definite DPs in Mehri are raised from [Spec, v*P] to [Spec-TopP] and [Spec, TP] in SVO order, which can be dominated by CP projection, as assumed in Chomsky (2008). Besides, we contend that T in VSO order lacks an edge feature inherited from C. Therefore, the genuine DP must stay in-situ in [Spec, v*P], while the lexical verb moves higher to T in TP layer, not to Foc in FocP (Focus Phrase) as argued by Musabhien (2009), and show full agreement with the post-verbal DP. We also assume that in SVO order the definite DP is a Topic, whereas the indefinite DP is a Pre-verbal subject. In VSO order, the post-verbal DP is a subject. Given these, Top and T heads inherit probe features from C and immediately agree with DP via either short-distance agreement in SVO order or long-distance agreement in VSO order.

ISSN 1511-3701

e-ISSN 2231-8542

Article ID

JSSH-2200-2017

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