Search

This thesis investigates the structure of DPs in Jordanian Arabic (JA) focusing on Nominal Ellipsis (NE). Cross-linguistically, research on NE has produced a number of perspectives on the mechanisms involved in the licensing of NE. I argue that most of the mainstream approaches to NE cannot capture the full set of the ellipsis facts in JA, and that the ellipsis data in JA can be best captured under the ellipsis and stranding approach of Saab and Lipt ak (2016). I show that ellipsis takes place at two levels inside the DP, and that pronominalization arises as a by-product of a stranded affix scenario due to the application of ellipsis at the lower NP level. The investigation of NE in JA has implications for the structure of DPs containing numerals and for possessive DPs. It will be shown that that two classes of numerals in JA occupy different structural positions in the extended nominal projection giving rise to different agreement patterns and affecting the possibilities of ellipsis. As concerns possessive DPs, I investigate the behaviour of the Construct State and Free State constructions under ellipsis. I argue that the two constructions behave differently under ellipsis, and that the possessor DP merges in different positions. Overall, this thesis contributes signi cantly to the debate on the necessary conditions(s) for ellipsis licensing in the DP. It also has implications for the structure of the DP in Arabic.