Clause Structure and the Syntax of Verbless Sentences

Abstract

This chapter examines clause structure and the syntax of so-called verbless sentences, focusing on a key issue in the theory of clause structure that also engages the interface between syntax and morphology: whether both tense and verb are universally projected elements in every clause. Drawing on a study of verbless sentences in Arabic, it argues that tense is universally projected but verb is not and proposes that tense is categorially defined in terms of a feature D (nominal) and an optional feature V (verbal). More specifically, it suggests that past tense is specified for both D- and V-features, while present tense is specified for a D-feature only. The chapter also considers whether verbless sentences have a verbal copula, sentential negation and tense, the morphology of tense, and the nominal feature of tense.

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