Word Order and the Clause Structure in Jordanian Arabic: A Minimalist-Cartographic Approach

Authors

  • Meera B. Sahawneh

    Department of English Language and Linguistics, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, Jordan
  • Zeyad Al-Daher

    Department of English Language and Literature, Yarmouk University, Irbid 21163, Jordan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i4.8967
Received: 5 March 2025 | Revised: 5 April 2025 | Accepted: 10 April 2025 | Published Online: 16 April 2025

Abstract

Besides the basic SVO word permutation in Jordanian Arabic (JA), other marked word orders exist: VSO and VOS. This paper examines the derivation of these different word permutations in terms of the nature, distributional properties, and position(s) the subject surfaces in. Two theoretical frameworks are advocated for this end: Chomsky’s minimalist framework and Rizzi’s rich discourse layer of the left zone of clause. Although it was established that the discourse-free and/or unmarked word permutation in the language is SVO, the subject of SVO clauses is ambiguous between two interpretations: (i) a neutral subject located in Spec-TP or (ii) a topic externally merged in Spec-TopP. These two interpretations are subject to definiteness and/or specificity condition. This indicates that even if SVO is the unmarked word permutation in a given language, it is liable to interpretative variation. As for VSO and VOS, we argue that these marked word orders are derived from the marked topical version of SVO in the sense that the postverbal subject in VSO and VOS is a left-peripheral topic. The head verb in VSO is further moved to the head Foc, and the whole VP in VOS is moved to Spec-FocP for focus considerations. Our analysis adds credence to the proposal that information structure does manifest in syntactic derivation.

Keywords:

Agree-Based; Derivation; Jordanian Arabic; Word Order

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How to Cite

Sahawneh, M. B., & Al-Daher, Z. (2025). Word Order and the Clause Structure in Jordanian Arabic: A Minimalist-Cartographic Approach. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(4), 918–934. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i4.8967

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 4 (April 2025)

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Article

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Copyright © 2025 Meera B. Sahawneh, Zeyad Al-Daher

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.