The minimalist program

Arabic PPs in a Rooted Lexicon

“…Because these prepositions and adverbials have a dual functional and lexical nature (or "mixed signs", as described by Weinreich 1963, p. 150), their categorical status has been a matter of debate. They are tentatively analyzed as (a) lexical, like other lexical categories (nouns, verbs, and adjectives; Chomsky 1970Chomsky , 1995Jackendoff 1977); (b) functional, like other functional categories (determiners, auxiliaries, modals, and comple-mentizers;Baker 2003;Grimshaw 1991); (c) both lexical and functional (Svenonius 2010;Wood and Marantz 2017); or (d) semi-functional (Ryding 2005;Saeed 2014;.…”

“…Because these prepositions and adverbials have a dual functional and lexical nature (or "mixed signs", as described by Weinreich 1963, p. 150), their categorical status has been a matter of debate. They are tentatively analyzed as (a) lexical, like other lexical categories (nouns, verbs, and adjectives; Chomsky 1970Chomsky , 1995Jackendoff 1977) This article argues for a specific treatment of prepositions and PPs. Prepositions are cartographically projected as in Svenonius' (2010Svenonius' ( , 2012 work, but more specifically generated as distributed words, in 'rooted' PPs, as in Wood and Marantz's (2017) DM analysis of English; see also Deacon (2011); for Arabic, see Fassi Fehri and Aamiri (2021).…”

“…Because these prepositions and adverbials have a dual functional and lexical nature (or "mixed signs", as described by Weinreich 1963, p. 150), their categorical status has been a matter of debate. They are tentatively analyzed as (a) lexical, like other lexical categories (nouns, verbs, and adjectives; Chomsky 1970Chomsky , 1995Jackendoff 1977) ilaa 'to' and min 'from' are (ambiguously) heading a PlaceP or PathP. Prepositions can also remain optionally null (or silent), as in (13a) and (13b), but their interpretation is recovered:…”

“…Because these prepositions and adverbials have a dual functional and lexical nature (or "mixed signs", as described by Weinreich 1963, p. 150), their categorical status has been a matter of debate. They are tentatively analyzed as (a) lexical, like other lexical categories (nouns, verbs, and adjectives; Chomsky 1970Chomsky , 1995Jackendoff 1977) The motional n forms a distinct category that usually collocates with motion verbs, as exemplified in (18). Without such verbs, the nominal sentence is ungrammatical:…”

“…Because these prepositions and adverbials have a dual functional and lexical nature (or "mixed signs", as described by Weinreich 1963, p. 150), their categorical status has been a matter of debate. They are tentatively analyzed as (a) lexical, like other lexical categories (nouns, verbs, and adjectives; Chomsky 1970Chomsky , 1995Jackendoff 1977) As seen in ( 35), (36), and (37), these words seem to share the same root with fawq-a 'above', xalf-a 'back', xaarij-a 'outside', daaxil-a 'inside', and ʕabr-a 'through'. Their structures can be simply represented as in ( 38):…”