Record your Agree: A case study of the Arabic complementizer ʔinn

Abstract

This research investigates the morpho-syntactic behaviour of the Arabic complementizer ʔinn in a range of Arabic varieties (Modern Standard Arabic, Jordanian Arabic, and Lebanese Arabic). It essentially argues that this complementizer shares (not donates or keeps , pace Ouali 2008, 2011) its unvalued $\\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$\n -features with its complement $\\text{T}^{0}$\n , something that makes ʔinn and $\\text{T}^{0}$\n separate agreeing heads. An inflectional suffix attached to ʔinn is treated as a PF reflex (i.e. an overt morphological realization) of valuation of ʔinn ’s unvalued $\\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$\n -features or lack thereof. This research also argues that the occurrence of such an inflectional suffix is ruled by the postulated Agree Chain Record , an interface condition that demands an Agree relation to have a PF reflex, called a Record (i.e. an overt Case marking on the goal or, if not, a $\\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$\n -affix on the probe). This way, we account for the complementary distribution of overt Case and $\\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$\n -Agree in Arabic. We also show how a host of other phenomena, including word order agreement asymmetries in Modern Standard Arabic and lack of such asymmetries in Arabic vernaculars, fares well with this view.