Department of English, College of Languages and Translation, Najran University, Najran, Saudi Arabia.
PLoS One. 2024 May 24;19(5):e0299710. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299710. eCollection 2024.
Unlike wh-question questions in Standard Arabic (SA), which received much attention in the past decades in different approaches within generative grammar, question particles (yes-no questions) in SA have not yet been studied thoroughly in minimalist syntax, and less attention has been paid to them. There is a need to analyze SA question articles and explore their syntactic behavior within minimalism. The reason why this topic has been selected for study is that SA question particles have not been investigated in detail yet in Chomsky's Phase Theory; it has not been analyzed how question particles are derived and represented morpho-syntactically in a clause structure. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the morpho-syntax of SA question particles and provide satisfactory answers to the following questions: (i) Do question particles in SA undergo any syntactic movement to [Spec-CP] in the derivation of yes-no questions? If not, why?, (ii) Are question particles based-generated in [Spec-CP]?, and (iii) How can question particles be accounted for neatly in Chomsky's Phase-based Theory? The paper adopts Chomsky's Phase Theory to examine the interaction between the assumptions of this theory and the SA data on question particles. The study findings reveal that, unlike English, question particles in SA do not undergo any syntactic movement while deriving yes-no questions and are assumed to be base-generated in [Spec-CP]. Such question particles are not part of the verb morphology and are merely morphological affixes used as devices to mark interrogativity in the syntax; they do not carry any agreement and tense features that trigger syntactic movement to the clause-initial position.
与过去几十年在生成语法的不同方法中受到广泛关注的标准阿拉伯语（SA）中的 wh-疑问句不同，SA 中的疑问词（yes-no 疑问句）在最简语法中尚未得到彻底研究，因此受到的关注较少。有必要分析 SA 的疑问词并探索它们在最简语法中的句法行为。选择这个主题进行研究的原因是，SA 的疑问词在乔姆斯基的相位理论中还没有被详细研究；还没有分析疑问词是如何在从句结构中通过形态句法衍生和表示的。因此，本研究旨在调查 SA 疑问词的形态句法，并对以下问题提供满意的答案：（i）SA 中的疑问词在 yes-no 疑问句的推导中是否经历任何句法移动到[Spec-CP]？如果没有，为什么？（ii）疑问词是否在[Spec-CP]中生成？（iii）如何在乔姆斯基的基于相位的理论中整齐地解释疑问词？本文采用乔姆斯基的相位理论来检验该理论的假设与 SA 疑问词数据之间的相互作用。研究结果表明，与英语不同，SA 中的疑问词在推导 yes-no 疑问句时不会经历任何句法移动，并且假设它们在[Spec-CP]中生成。这些疑问词不是动词形态的一部分，只是用作在句法中标记疑问的形态附加语；它们不携带任何触发向句首位置的句法移动的一致性和时态特征。
