On Adjectival Agreement in Standard Arabic

Authors

  • Bader Yousef Alharbi

    Department of English Language and Literature, College of Languages and Humanities, Qassim University, Buraidah City, Saudi Arabia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i2.8100
Received: 12 December 2024 | Revised: 1 January 2025 | Accepted: 3 January 2025 | Published Online: 20 January 2025

Abstract

In the language of Standard Arabic, the attributive adjective, which typically occurs postnominally, must fully agree with its modified noun in four morphological features: gender, number, case, and (in)definiteness features. Several diverse attempts have been provided in the literature to account for this type of agreement in Standard Arabic, most of which are either inadequate or more complicated. Therefore, the main aim of this theoretical study is to provide an alternative simple analysis for this type of full agreement in Standard Arabic. By using a single mechanism, specifically the Feature Assignment Rule which indicates that once a category X merges with a category Y, the grammatical features of the category X are immediately copied onto the category Y and are then morphologically realized on all lexical items within the category Y, the full agreement between the Standard Arabic attributive adjective and its modified noun in the four morphological features can be straightforwardly accounted for. More specifically, when the noun phrase (NP) merges with its modifying adjective (AP), the grammatical features of the NP are immediately copied onto the AP and then realized on the adjective head located within the AP. Unlike the previous analyses, the proposed analysis in the current study has the merit of being both simpler and more economical.

Keywords:

Adjectives; Modifiers; Agreement; Standard Arabic; Theoretical Study

References

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How to Cite

Alharbi, B. Y. (2025). On Adjectival Agreement in Standard Arabic. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(2), 149–159. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i2.8100

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Vol. 7 , Iss. 2 (February 2025): In Progress

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