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Volume :29 Issue : 115 2011
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The Syntax and Cognitive Semantics of Comitative Constructions in English and Arabic
Auther : Mohamed Abdelmageed Mansour
This study presents a contrastive analysis of the comitativization process in both English and Arabic. The syntactic features of Comitative such as form, function and type are explored. Moreover, A-bar movement as well as control of Equi in complements and reflexives are discussed using the constituent analysis test and the semantic constraint of anomaly. The exploration of plurality feature and premodification of comitative constructions reveals a main difference between the two languages. Moreover, a cognitive-semantic typology of Comitative through introducing a three-layer analysis of comitative constructions is proposed. Ambiguity of case due to polysemy and anaphora in comitative constructions is investigated and the degree of principality of DPs is highlighted. The results of the study indicate that though there are some differences between English and Arabic comitative constructions, they exhibit a similar behaviour, hence the two languages should receive a unified analysis.