The Syntax of Comitative Structure in Standard Arabic: A Minimalist Approach

This paper investigates comitative structures in Standard Arabic from a Minimalist perspective. The main aim is to find generalizations that describe and explain comitative structures. Specifically, the objectives are to distinguish comitative structures from coordinative structures and to analyze comitative structures from syntactic and semantic perspectives. We reach the following results: first, there is a difference between /wa/ in coordination and /wa/ in comitative structures. Second, comitative structures can be symmetric and asymmetric. In the symmetric comitative structures, the concomitate object is an argument and obligatorily agrees with DP1 in terms of the [ animate] feature. In the asymmetric comitative structures, the concomitate object is an adjunct and optionally agrees with DP1 in terms of the [ animate]. In our analysis of comitative structure, we propose the complex DP, headed by /wa/. The difference between the two types of comitative structures is that the derivation of the symmetric one happens at the level of complementation; in contract, the asymmetric one is merged in the adjunct position. Another significant finding is that the verb is not always the one that assigns the accusative Case. The major significance of this study is that it gives a distinction between comitative and coordinative structures, distinguishes between two types of comitative structures, and analyses the structure in the light of the DP hypothesis and the Minimalist program