Categorial Features and the Feature Structure of the Present Tense: Perspectives from Variation and Change

Abstract

This paper investigates the syntax of verbless sentences in Arabic in the present tense, contending that the key to understanding the syntax of finite verbless sentences resides in an analysis of the nature of the present tense in Arabic varieties and particularly its feature specifications along the lines of Chomsky (1995) and Benmamoun (2000). Many Arabic varieties lack a copula in present tense sentences with non-verbal predicates, while past tense and future sentences require one. According to Benmamoun (2000), this property and a number of other morphosyntactic asymmetries between the present tense and other tenses in Arabic varieties can be explained under a view that they differ in their categorial feature specifications: while the past tense, for example, is specified as both [+V] and [+D], the present tense is only specified for the [+D] feature, making crucial use of the categorial features of Chomsky (1995). Unlike the majority of Arabic varieties, Sason Arabic has an obligatory copula in the present tense as well. We argue that the variation and change in the copular clauses is not an isolated phenomenon, but reflects a deeper change in the overall feature structure of the present tense. The present tense in Sason Arabic is specified as [+V,+D], and the development of an overt copula and other facts naturally follow from this shift, i.e., the emergence of the [+V] feature. In general, this proposal takes seriously the view that the functional domain of the clause and its categorial features drive syntactic dependencies, and also syntactic variation and change (e.g., Borer 1984).