"The Refutation of the Grammarians" by Ibn Mada' al-Qurtubi: A translation, with syntactic analysis of "Bab al-Ishtighal"

Government and Binding Theory dictates that the case features of noun phrases are assigned structurally under government. On this basis the claim by Ibn Mada'al-Qurtubi, in The Refutation of the Grammarians, that case is assigned solely by the language user on strictly semantic grounds, is rejected; also untenable, however, is the position of traditional Arab grammarians that case can, in some contexts, be assigned by "concealed" governors, as the Projection and Structure-Preserving Principles require that material having semantic content be visible at all levels of representation. Government and Binding principles are adequate to account for case-assignment in the issues raised by Ibn Mada'; they cannot, however, offer a clear solution to the apparent violation of Principle C of the Binding Theory found in some examples of bab al-tanazuᶜ, the category of "contention in government"