Masdar Constructions in Southern Saudi Arabic: a Concise Reference

This thesis provides for the first time a detailed description and analysis of masdar constructions within the framework of LFG (Lexical Functional Grammar) in an unstudied vernacular dialect of Arabic, Saudi Southern Arabic (SA) as spoken in Bisha. The current thesis discusses the masdar nominalisations in usual normal constructions, and in complex constructions. Building on previous syntactic accounts of mixed category constructions and masdar constructions in LFG, I argue that the first of those masdar constructions (MC A) includes nominal elements and verbal elements at the same time. Additionally, there is a mismatch between the external syntax (nominal) and the internal syntax (mixed) of the masdar nominalisation in this construction. Therefore, following Lowe (2016), I argue that MC A is a truly mixed construction. On the other hand, I argue that the second masdar construction (MC B) is fully nominal in SA as it shows purely nominal characteristics. The masdar nominalisation in this construction shows a uniform external and internal syntax. Therefore, I treat the masdar in this construction as a non-mixed category, and argue that the masdar in MC B does not entail a mixed heading sharing analysis. In this study, similar to B ̈orjars et al. (2015), I propose a uniform analysis for both bare object masdar construction (MC A) and PP-object masdar construction (MC B). Such an analysis avoids us the long list of problems of the head-sharing approach, and allows us to analyse the controversial masdar constructions smoothly within the normal usual rules of LFG. SA facts appear to be similar to MSA data, especially MC A. However, MC B was found to be different from its counterpart in MSA. This thesis is a contribution to the long-standing debate in the literature on mixed category constructions, and how to analyse them in LFG, as well as to the syntax of neglected vernacular Arabic dialects.