Coordination In Spoken Iraqi Arabic

Abstract

This study attempts to account for coordinate constructions in Spoken Iraqi Arabic. It begins with providing a definition for coordination as a structure in which constituents are symmetrically combined, thus differing from the dependency relationship found in subordination structures. The paper discusses the kinds of coordination in terms of the semantic relationship between the coordinands: natural vs accidental coordination and the related symmetrical vs asymmetrical coordination. The paper discusses the syntactic similarity between the coordinands in terms of the their categorial identity as a general condition on coordination, and the proposals presented to explain the instances of its violation, such as positing a similar super category for the coordinands of different categories, or an empty head for one of the coordinands to ensure their categorial unity. The discussion shows that semantic factors, such the close semantic coherence relationships also play an important role in rendering such violations of categorial difference acceptable. The study moves to discuss the syntactic structure of the coordination construction and adopts a binary structure for it, in accordance with the general principles of structure building hypothesis. The last point that the paper deals with is the coordinate structure constraint, which prohibits the displacement of the coordinands or any of their constituents outside the coordination construction. In its applications, the constraint seems to stem from general syntactic principles, and/or some more general principles that govern syntactic computation that prevent the displacement of constituents outside the coordinate construction. It also becomes clear that semantic considerations play an important role in the acceptable violations of this constraint, as in cases of asymmetrical coordination, split argument constructions, modifier-sharing constructions, and cases of across-the-board displacement.