abstract: A question that has driven much of the current research in formal syntax is whether it is the lexicon or the syntax that determines the argument structure of a verb. This dissertation attempts to answer this question with a focus on Arabic, a language that has received little attention in the literature of argument structure. In this dissertation, argument structure realization is examined in relation to three different components, namely the root, the CV-skeleton and the structure around the verb. I argue that argument structure is not determined on a root level in Arabic. I also show that only few CV-skeletons (verb patterns) are associated with certain argument structures. Instead, the burden of determining argument structure lies on elements around the structure of VP. The determinants of inner aspect in Arabic and the relation between eventuality types and argument structure are also examined. A cartographic model is provided to show how elements around the VP play a role in determining the inner aspect. This model also represents a relationship between argument structure and eventuality types. The question of what determines argument structure is further addressed through the investigation of the causative/inchoative alternation in Arabic in light of recent semantic and syntactic accounts. I argue that most Arabic verbs that undergo the alternation are non-agentive change-of-state verbs. Although certain lexical characteristics may account for which verbs alternate and which do not, exceptions within a language and/or across languages do exist. I point to a range of phenomena that can be only explained from syntactic points of view. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2012

<p>This dissertation sheds light on the semantic domain of causation in Arabic. The aim is to examine two Arabic causative verb forms, Form I and Form II, and their associations with (in)directness of causation. The central working hypothesis throughout this work is the verb-semantics hypothesis by Shibatani and Pardeshi (2002), which posits that autonomy of the causee, degree of directed causation, requirement for an external causer, and merger of two subevents into one conceptual event are factors that predict the morpho-syntactic complexity of a causative construction. Following the lead of Ambridge et al. (2020) on their operationalization of the verb-semantics hypothesis by Shibatani and Pardeshi (2002), two experiments were conducted. In both experiments, 60 animations for 60 verbs were used to depict various causative scenarios. The first experiment explored how Arabic speakers mentally perceived 60 events that depicted various degrees of causativity. This was achieved through collecting ratings from 20 Arabic speakers on four semantic variables: autonomy of the causee, degree of directed causation, degree of event-merge, and the requirement for an external causer. The second experiment obtained judgments of the relative acceptability of the less- and more-transparent causative forms of the same 60 verbs from 24 native-speaking Arabic adults. </p> <p>Three analyses were conducted on the results to better understand how causatives manifest in language use cross-linguistically, with a dedicated focus on the Arabic language.The first analysis addressed whether the four semantic variables of the verb-semantics hypothesis of Shibatani and Pardeshi (2002) account for the restrictions on the use of Arabic verb Form I and Form II. It was found that the variables autonomy of the causee, degree of directed causation, and the requirement for an external causer each showed strong positive correlations with Form I. The variable degree of event-merge showed a weak positive correlation with Form I. No correlations were noticed between any of the four variables and Form II. The second analysis addressed whether Arabic speakers perceive events in a similar way to speakers of other languages. Because this study followed the methodology Ambridge et al. (2020) used to examine causatives in English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese and Kʼicheʼs, the results could be directly compared. It was discovered that yes, Arabic speakers conceptualize the events tested similarly to speakers of the five other comparison languages. Twenty-three verbs (>38.3%) were rated the same by all speakers (120 speakers, 20 from each language) on all four semantic variables. From the remaining thirty-seven verbs, twenty-three verbs received the same ratings in three of the semantic variables, but not in event-merge. The remaining fourteen verbs were associated with numerous disagreements among the participants. The third and final analysis addressed the claim that all human languages use morphosyntax to mark the difference between direct versus indirect causative events by testing whether this holds true for Arabic. Across-linguistic computational model developed by Aryawibawa et al. (2021) was used to answer this question on the reasoning that if the principle is truly cross-linguistic, then the universal model should be able to utilize speaker semantic judgements to make accurate predictions about the grammatical acceptability of the different morphosyntactic forms. The model accurately predicted Arabic speaker judgments by a moderate correlation of 0.05, suggesting that Arabic conceptualizes directness of causation in a similar way to other languages, which supports the view that the underlying semantic distinction of more versus less direct causation maps onto and manifests as a morphosyntactic distinction. </p>

The research presented in this dissertation adopts an empirical Saussurean structuralist approach to elucidating the true meaning of the verb patterns characterised formally by vowel lengthening in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The verbal system as a whole is examined in order to place the patterns of interest (III and VI) in context, the complexities of Arabic verbal morphology are explored and the challenges revealed by previous attempts to draw links between form and meaning are presented. An exhaustive dictionary survey is employed to provide quantifiable data to empirically test the largely accepted view that the vowel lengthening patterns have mutual/reciprocal meaning. Finding the traditional explanation inadequate and prone to too many exceptions, alternative commonalities of meaning are similarly investigated. Whilst confirming the detransitivising function of the ta- prefix which derives pattern VI from pattern III, analysis of valency data also precludes transitivity as a viable explanation for pattern III meaning compared with the base form. Examination of formally similar morphology in certain nouns leads to the intuitive possibility that vowel lengthening has aspectual meaning. A model of linguistic aspect is investigated for its applicability to MSA and used to isolate the aspectual feature common to the majority of pattern III and pattern VI verbs, which is determined to be atelicity. A set of verbs which appear to be exceptional in that they are not attributable to atelic aspectual categories is found to be characterised by inceptive meaning and a three-phase model of event time structure is developed to include an inceptive verbal category, demonstrating that these verbs too are atelic. Thus the form-meaning relationship which is discovered is that the vowel lengthening verbal patterns in Modern Standard Arabic have atelic aspectual meaning.