عنوان المقالة:A Minimalist Analysis of the Animal Coding System in Mehri Language within Probe-Goal Matching Approach Article Information A Minimalist Analysis of the Animal Coding System in Mehri Language within Probe-Goal Matching Approach Article Information
This paper discusses an Animal Coding System (ACS) of Mehri, the oral
minority language in Yemen (Rubin, 2010; Watson, 2012). Considering the
fact that lexical items are inserted into a mind/brain with bundle features
(Adger, 2003) and (2008), we show that the ACS (camels and goats in
particular) has formal features. These features are often cognitively
understood, where some features are interpretable while others
uninterpretable. Employing Chomsky’s Probe-Goal Matching approach in
Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995, 2000, 2008), we examine the phrasal
constructions: verbal, non-verbal, definiteness, and genitive structures.
Among these, the ACS plays a significant position: as an agentive subject, a
thematic object, a non-verbal predicate, and a genitive annex. However, we
argue that Definite and Tense comprise uninterpretable features, which
automatically valued when they match and agree with the substantive
features in the spec-vP, the spec-PossP. In the view of the case-assignment,
we propose that both D and T are the nominative case assigners, the verbal
affix is the accusative case assigner and the genitive jargons ða- ‘of’ and
bɁal ‘with’ are the genitive case assigners on the complement annex.
Moreover, the null focus feature is the accusative case assigner on objective
animal codes in the non-verbal structures.
Publication Date
12/21/2015
Publisher
International Academic Research Journal of Social Science
د. سعيد سعد نجادان القميري | Dr. SAEED AL-QUMAIRI | 9691