Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics

The papers in this volume deal with various topics in Arabic Linguistics. Most of the papers focus on new issues and introduce new empirical generalizations that haven''t been studied before within the context of Arabic linguistics. The syntax and morphosyntax papers explore issues ranging from the nature of extraction strategies to various types of Construct State representations and the proper analysis of the distribution of the nominal, adjectival and verbal mophological features. The computational linguistics papers focus on the challenge posed by the non-concatenative nature of Arabic morphology. The authors illustrate how their programs can handle Arabic morphology. The papers in morpho-phonology and historical linguistics deal with the development of the Arabic complementizer system and the empirical and theoretical problems that arise in the context of hypocoristic formation in Arabic. The sociolinguistics papers take up the issues of sociolinguistic variation as they pertain to the phenomenon of diglossia and regional uses of the Standard variety of Arabic.