The paper titled "Gapping in Modern Standard Arabic: An Agree-Based Analysis" by Dr. Ahmad Ismail Assiri focuses on the phenomenon of Gapping in coordination structures in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The study employs Chomsky's Feature-Inheritance model of Agree to analyze Gapping in MSA.
The author begins by explaining Gapping as a syntactic process where certain elements are omitted in non-initial conjuncts of coordinated structures, typically leaving behind remnants. The paper contrasts Gapping in MSA with English, highlighting similarities and differences between the two languages.
The study proposes a novel analysis that diverges from previous approaches to coordination. Instead of treating coordination as a ternary structure or employing mechanisms like Across-the-Board movement, the author argues for a binary relation where each coordinated conjunct is a full CP (Complementizer Phrase), and the conjunction serves as the head of a Conjunction Phrase (ConjP).
A key aspect of the analysis is the licensing of deletion in Gapping constructions. The author proposes that an unvalued E-Feature on the Conjunction head interacts with matching goals bearing non-F-marked (given or non-contrastive) features, in addition to valued φ-features and unvalued Case features.
The paper presents a hybrid approach combining semantic and syntactic explanations for Gapping in MSA. This analysis eliminates the need for a distinct structure for coordination and offers a unified account of various Gapping phenomena in the language.
Throughout the paper, the author provides numerous examples from MSA to illustrate the proposed analysis, comparing and contrasting with English Gapping constructions where relevant. The study contributes to the broader understanding of coordination structures and ellipsis phenomena in Arabic linguistics.