The Syntax of Negative Imperatives in Standard Arabic

This study is about the morphological and syntactic interaction of Standard Arabic negative particles with the imperative verbal form. The analysis is conducted within the framework of Chomsky's (1995) Minimalist Program as developed by subsequent literature. Previous analyses assume that there is a morphological asymmetry between positive imperatives and negative imperatives in SA. This asymmetry is witnessed in the absence of person agreement in the former and its obligatory presence in the latter. However, a close consideration of the use of the imperative reveals that this view is based on a misinterpretation of data under investigation. In other words, the absence of person agreement in positive imperative is a morpho-syntactic due to the inherent nature of the positive imperative form whereas its presence in negative imperative does not reflect that this morpheme expresses negative imperative. The presented analysis is based on a proposed classification of SA and Berber Negation elements into two types inflected Negs (for tense and/or agreement) and the non-inflected ones. These two types also differ in the way they interact with the verbal morphology including Tense Aspect and Mood. The negative imperative is expressed by the prohibitive laa in conjunction with a verb in the imperfective form.