Sluicing and Standard Arabic

This paper is an endeavor to account for some aspects of sluicing in Standard Arabic. It discusses the views of two main schools that consider sluicing as either a PF or LF phenomenon. The topic has been tackled within the framework of the Minimalist Approach of Chomsky (1993, 1995). The paper shows that the compiled Arabic data lends support to the account offered by many scholars that sluicing is an LF phenomenon, rather than a PF phenomenon. At LF level, the behavior of the wh-remnant is different from that of wh-phrases in non-elliptical questions. One strong piece of evidence is the lack of wh-island effect on sluicing. Thus, the wh-phrase in situ is viewed as base-generated at the surface level. This boils down to saying that sluicing does not violate Subjacency or ECP as there is no movement involved. Yet, it has to be maintained that there are still a number of unsettled issues that await future research, such as cases of: Three men came to my house but I don t know how many girls, and also whether and to what extent can the correlate be sensitive to island constraints while sprouting cannot.