Abstract
Unlike displaced lexical DP objects in Standard Arabic (SA) syntax,
displaced pronominal objects, however, have received less critical
attention especially within Rizzi’s (1997, 2004) left periphery theory
and, therefore, some areas of this constructions remain poorly
understood. The present paper examines pronominal object cliticization
in SA, the status of the clitic, the derivation of the process and the
reasons behind its obligatory movement. The analysis is couched within
Minimalist Syntax (Chomsky 2001, 2005) and Split CP (Rizzi, 1997, 2004)
to explain the motivation for this movement and its landing site. To
achieve the aim of the study, a questionnaire containing samples of the
studied structures were presented to five native speakers of Arabic who
were asked to provide grammaticality judgments. It is suggested that, in
this context, the object clitic can be analyzed as undergoing focus
movement as a separate verbal complement like a full DP with an
additional cliticization process to the head T hosting the lexical verb.