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Introduction

Welcome to my webpage and to Middlebury in the green state of Vermont

Usama Soltan
Professor of Arabic and Linguistics
Department of Arabic and the Linguistics Program

Middlebury College
Voter Hall, Room 016
Middlebury, VT 05753
Office phone: 802-443-5869
E-mail: usoltan (at) middlebury (dot) edu

I came to Middlebury in 2006 from the University of Maryland, College Park, where I did my Ph.D at the Department of Linguistics. At Middelbury, I offer courses in Arabic language, Arabic linguistics, as well as general linguistics, which contribute to the Arabic major/minor, the Middle East and North Africa Studies major, and the Linguistics minor. My research focuses on Arabic syntax, particularly on the Egyptian Arabic dialect. I also served as an elected member on the board of the Arabic Linguistics Society for two terms from 2012-2020.

TEACHING (Some recent and past courses)

Morphology and Syntax (Spring 2022)
ARBC0202: Intermediate Arabic II (Spring 2022)

ARBC/LNGT 0227: Arabic Sociolinguistics (Spring 2021)
ARBC 0103: Beginning Arabic III (Spring 2021)

Seminar on Arabic across history with focus on poetry (Fall 2019)
LNGT0101: Introduction to Linguistics (Fall 2015)

ARBC/LNGT 0435: Arabic Diglossia (Fall 2018)
ARBC/LNGT0421: Seminar on Arabic Linguistic Variation (Fall 2015)

RESEARCH

The main goal on my research agenda has been to bring data from Standard Arabic (SA), Egyptian Arabic, as well as other modern Arabic dialects to bear on issues of linguistic analysis, particularly within the principles and parameters framework.

Some research topics I’ve been interested in in recent years:
– The syntax of ellipsis in Egyptian Arabic
– The syntax of exceptive constructions in Egyptian Arabic
– The landscape of negative polarity in Egyptian Arabic.
– Negative concord in Arabic dialects (with Hamid Ouali).
– The syntax of wh-questions in Egyptian Arabic and other dialects.

My doctoral research primarily focused on the role of “formal” morphological features (e.g., Case, agreement, and mood-marking) in the investigation of linguistic phenomena, and how licensing of such features has empirical consequences for syntactic structures. In this regard, I worked on the familiar subject-verb agreement asymmetry in SA, first conjunct agreement, obligatory default agreement with seem-type predicates, accusative case-marking for ECM subjects of want-type and believe-type verbs, nullness or overtness of subjects of embedded “control-like” subjunctive clauses, and the interesting phenomena of inflecting negatives, complementizer alternation, and person-less imperatives in SA. You can download my dissertation HERE.

Publications (some are available in pre-final .pdf format below, but feel free to email me for copies of any of these papers)

‘On Arabic morphosyntax and its implications for the theory of generative grammar.’ In Karin Ryding and David Wilmsen (eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. 371 – 404.

‘On null objects in Egyptian Arabic: An argument ellipsis analysis.’ In Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 12:2, 2020, pp. 204–259.

‘On the Syntax of Correlation: Evidence from Egyptian Arabic.’ In Elly van Gelderen (ed.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics, Volume 32, 2020, pp. 71-107. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

‘On Two Types of Correlation Structures in Egyptian Arabic.’ In Proceedings of the 36th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 36). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 2019.

Co-edited volume: Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVII. Co-editor with Stuart Davis (Indiana University). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2016.

‘On the syntax of exceptive constructions in Egyptian Arabic.’ In Davis, Stuart and Usama Soltan (eds.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVII, pp. 35-57. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2016. The Handout from the 2013 conference at Indiana University can be found HERE.

“On sluicing and its kin: Evidence from Egyptian Arabic.” Manuscript in preparation.

‘The syntax of vocatives in Egyptian Arabic.’ In preparation.

‘The syntax of  fragment answers: Evidence from Egyptian Arabic.’ In preparation.

‘Splitting Neg: The Morphosyntax of Sentential Negation in Cairene Egyptian Arabic.’ In Froud, Karen and Reem Khamis-Dakwar (eds.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics Volume XXVI, pp. 91-119. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2014. Presentation slides from the ASAL 2012 conference is available HERE.

‘On the Distribution and Licensing of Polarity-Sensitive Items in Egyptian Arabic: The Cases of ʔayy and walaa.’ In Farawaneh, Samira and Hamid Ouali (eds.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics Volume XXIV-XXV, pp. 181-206. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2014. Presentation slides from the 2011 conference.

‘On Negative Concord in Egyptian and Moroccan Arabic.’ Co-authored with Hamid Ouali. In Farawaneh, Samira and Hamid Ouali (eds.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics Volume XXIV-XXV, pp. 159-180. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2014. Presentation slides from the 2011 conference.

“Remarks on heritage language grammars and their implications for linguistic theory.” In Theoretical Linguistics 2013; 39(3–4): 241–250. Commentary on Benmamoun, Montrul, and Polinsky’s Heritage Languages and Their Speakers: Opportunities and Challenges for Linguistics. See also authors’ reply to peer commentaries here: Defining an “ideal” heritage speaker (Reply to peer commentaries in TL).

‘The Fine Structure of the Neg-Domain: Evidence from Cairene Egyptian Arabic Sentential Negation.’ In Huber, Stefan, and Sonia Ramírez Wohlmuth (eds.) Tampa Papers in Linguistics Vol. 3. 2012, pp. 115-127. Update: This article can now be downloaded from this LINK in the Florida Linguistics Papers archive.

‘Morphosyntactic effects of NPI-licensing in Cairene Egyptian Arabic: The puzzle of –š disappearance resolved.’ In Proceedings of the 29th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics , ed. Jaehoon Choi et al., 241-249. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 2012. www.lingref.com, document #2708.

‘On Licensing Wh-Scope: Wh-Questions in Egyptian Arabic Revisited.’ In Arabic Language and Linguistics, ed. R. Bassiouney and G. Katz. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012. [Draft in .pdf]

‘On issues of Arabic syntax: An essay in syntactic argumentation.’ In Brill’s Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics Vol. 3, 2011.

‘Licensing of the NPI ʕumr and its implications for sentential negation in Cairene Egyptian Arabic.’ In the 2011 Linguistic Society of America Extended Abstracts. LINK: http://www.elanguage.net/journals/index.php/lsameeting/article/view/1457

‘On Strategies of Question-Formation and the Grammatical Status of the Q-particle huwwa in Egyptian Arabic Wh-Questions,’ In Lauren Friedman (ed.) University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: Vol. 17: Iss. 1, Article 24. Available at: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol17/iss1/24 (Please notice the following typo in all the examples in (24) and (26): the word ‘siʕaT’ (which is glossed ‘failed’), should be ‘siʕiT’)

‘Transitivity: Objects.’ 2009. A lemma in Versteegh, Kees et al (ed.) Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Vol. 4.

‘Agree in the functional domain: Evidence from the morphosyntax of positive and negative imperatives in Standard Arabic.’ In Ojo, Akinloye (ed.) for Selected Proceedings of ACAL 39 (Annual Conference on African Linguistics). Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA. 2009.

‘Heads of a feather ‘Agree’ together: On the morphosyntax of negation in Standard Arabic.’ In في اللغة والأدب والحضارة: كتاب تذكاري تكريماً للدكتور عوني عبد الرؤوف [On Language, Literature, and Culture: A Festschrift in Honor of Prof. Awni Abdel Ra’ouf], Galal, Iman, and Magid Mustafa, (eds.). Al-Karaz Publication House, Cairo, Egypt. [Pre-final version in .pdf]

Translation: Word by Word Picture Dictionary: English-Arabic second edition (Arabic translation). Prentice Hall Regents, Pearson Education, Inc. 2008.

‘On the individual-property contrast in Egyptian Arabic possessive nominals.’ In Mughazi, Mustafa (ed.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics Volume 20. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007. [Pre-final version in .pdf]

‘On postcyclic Merge and Agree in syntactic derivations: First conjunct agreement in Standard Arabic revisited.’ In Benmamoun, Elabbas (ed.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics Volume 19. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007. [Pre-final version in .pdf]

‘Standard Arabic subject-verb agreement asymmetry revisited in an Agree-based minimalist syntax.’ In Boeckx, Cedric (ed.) Agreement Systems. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2006. [Pre-final version in .pdf]

Co-edited volume: Volume 11 of University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics. Co-editor with Pritha Chandra, Tomohiro Fujii, and Masaya Yoshida. 2004.

Talks and Invited Talks

‘On the syntax of correlation structures.’ Invited talk to the Linguistics Unit at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (via Zoom), Aug 16, 2018.

‘On the grammar of correlation: Evidence from Egyptian Arabic.’ Keynote speech given at the 32nd Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, held at Arizona State University, Feb 23-25, 2018.

‘The syntactic landscape of exceptive constructions in Egyptian Arabic.’ Talk given at the conference on ‘The Syntax of the Arabics,’ held at University of Geneva, Switzerland, Aug 28-29, 2015.

‘Linguistic diversity in the Arab world.’ Invited talk (in Arabic) given at the Middlebury Arabic Language School (Mills College, Oakland, CA), July 1, 2015.

‘The Landscape of Polarity-Sensitive Items in Egyptian Arabic.’ Keynote speech at the Illinois Semitic Linguistics Symposium at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Nov 1-4, 2012.

‘On issues of teaching Arabic as a foreign language.’ A two-day summer workshop at Alexandria University, Egypt, July 26-27, 2009.

‘On linguistic diversity, child language, and the notion ‘possible human language’‘. Talk given at Middlebury College, Feb 18, 2009.

‘On issues of teaching Arabic as a second language.’ Presentation given at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, Feb 9, 2007.

‘On the syntactic asymmetries of the individual-property distinction in Egyptian Arabic free state nominals.’ A Research Colloquium talk at Williams College, Dec 4, 2006.

‘How much of Universal Grammar is accessible in second language acquisition?’ Talk given at Middlebury College, Nov 29, 2006.

‘Implications of linguistic typology for the study of second language acquisition.’ Talk given at Middlebury College, Middlebury, April 17, 2006.

‘The individual-property contrast at the syntax-semantics interface: Evidence from Egyptian Arabic possessive nominals.’ Talk given at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, April 13, 2006.

‘Morphosyntactic aspects of cross-linguistic variation and implications for L2A/L3A.’ Talk given at the Workshop on Linguistic Typology and Language Transfer in L2A and L3A, University of Maryland, College Park, August 22, 2005.

‘Typology of relative clauses, the Accessibility Hierarchy, and implications for SLA.’ Talk given (with Ilhan Cagri) at the Workshop on Linguistic Typology and Language Transfer in L2A and L3A, University of Maryland, College Park, August 23, 2005.

Refereed Conference Presentations

‘On null objects in Egyptian Arabic: Evidence for Argument Ellipsis.’ Paper presented at the conference on Null Objects from a Crosslinguistic and Developmental Perspective, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, Jan 29-30, 2021 (via Zoom).

‘Deriving null objects in Egyptian Arabic: Evidence for Argument Ellipsis.’ Paper presented at the 34th Arabic Linguistics Symposium, University of Arizona, Feb 28-March 1, 2020.

‘On sluicing and its kin in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 33rd Arabic Linguistics Symposium, University of Toronto, April 5-7, 2019.

‘On argument ellipsis in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 93rd Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Jan 3-6, 2019, New York City.

‘On the syntax of ellipsis: Sluicing and cleft-sluicing in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 46th North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics (NACAL), held at California State University, Long Beach, June 1-3, 2018.

‘On sluicing and its kin: Evidence from Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper accepted at the 54th Chicago Linguistics Society Annual Meeting, held at University of Chicago, April 26-28.

‘On the syntax of comparative correlatives: Evidence from Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 36th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, April 20-22, 2018.

‘Comparative correlatives: The case of Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 49th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), held at Michigan State University, March 22-25, 2018.

‘The syntax of vocatives in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 29th Arabic Linguistics Symposium, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, April 9-11, 2015.

‘The syntax of fragment answers: Evidence from Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 28th Arabic Linguistics Symposium,  University of Florida, Gainesville, March 13-15, 2014.

‘Negative concord as syntactic agreement: The case of Egyptian and Moroccan Arabic.’ (With Hamid Ouali). Paper presented at the 6th International Arabic Linguistics Symposium, Al-Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco, June 26-28, 2013.

‘On the syntax of ʔillaa in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 27th Arabic Linguistics Symposium, Indiana University, Bloomington, Feb 28-March 2, 2013.

‘On the syntax of exceptive constructions in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 87th Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Jan 3-6, 2013, Boston, MA.

‘A Split-Neg analysis of the morphosyntax of negation in Cairene Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 3rd Annual Tampa Workshop on Syntax, Semantics, and Phonology, held at University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, March 9-10, 2012.

‘Splitting Neg: Sentential Negation Patterns in Cairene Egyptian Arabic Revisited.’ Paper presented at the 26th Arabic Linguistics Symposium, held at Adelphi University and Columbia University, New York, March 1-3, 2012.

‘Morphosyntactic effects of NPI-licensing in Cairene Egyptian Arabic: The puzzle of –š disappearance resolved.’ Paper presented at the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 29, University of Arizona, Tucson, April 22-24, 2011.

‘On Licensing of Negative Polarity Items in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 25th Arabic Linguistics Symposium, held at University of Arizona, March 4-6, 2011.

‘On Negative Concord in Egyptian and Moroccan Arabic’ (with Hamid Ouali). Paper presented at the 25th Arabic Linguistics Symposium, held at University of Arizona, March 4-6, 2011.

‘Licensing of the NPI ʕumr and its implications for sentential negation in Cairene Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Jan 6-9, 2011, Pittsburg PA.

‘On the syntax of in-situ and ex-situ wh-questions in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 34th Penn Linguistics Colloquium at University of Pennsylvania, March 19-21, 2010.

‘On the syntax of wh-in-situ and wh-ex-situ in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the Georgetown University Round Table (GURT), at Georgetown University, March 12-14, 2010.

‘On the syntax of wh-in-situ in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 23rd Arabic Linguistics Symposium, held at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, April 3-5, 2009.

‘On wh-in-situ and wh-clefts in Egyptian Arabic.’ Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Jan 8-11, 2009, San Francisco, CA.

‘On the morphosyntax of negation and imperatives in Standard Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 39th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), held at University of Georgia, Athens, April 17-20, 2008.

‘Free state possessive nominals in Egyptian Arabic at the syntax-semantics interface.’ Paper presented at the 36th North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics (NACAL), held in Chicago, March 14-16, 2008.

‘Heads of a feather ‘Agree’ together: On the morphosyntax of imperatives in Standard Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 21st Arabic Linguistics Symposium, held at University of Maryland, College Park, March 8-9, 2008.

‘On the individual-property contrast in Egyptian Arabic free state possessive nominals.’ Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Jan 4-7, 2007, Anaheim, CA.

‘On adnominal possession in Egyptian Arabic and implications for the structure of DPs.’ Paper presented at the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 37), held at University of Oregon, April 6-9, 2006, Eugene, Oregon.

‘Adnominal possession in Egyptian Arabic and the internal structure of DPs.’ Paper presented at the 20th Arabic Linguistics Symposium, held at University of Western Michigan, March 3-6, 2006, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

‘On first conjunct agreement in Standard Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 19th Arabic Linguistics Symposium, held at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, April 1-3, 2005.

‘A minimalist analysis of first conjunct agreement in Standard Arabic.’ Paper presented at the 29th Penn Linguistics Colloquium, held at University of Pennsylvania, Feb 25-27, 2005.

‘Head movement at the syntax-morphology interface: Negation in Standard Arabic revisited.’ Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Jan 6-9, 2005, Oakland, CA.

‘Morphological fusion as Agree: Inflecting negatives in Standard Arabic revisited.’ Paper presented at the International Conference on the structure of the verb phrase in Afroasiatic: Morphophonological and syntactic approaches, held at Leiden University Center for Linguistics, Jan 14-15, 2005.

‘An argument for Agree and Multiple Spell-out: Standard Arabic agreement asymmetries revisited.’ Paper presented at the Workshop on Minimalist Theorizing, held at Indiana University, Bloomington, June 2004.

‘On agreement asymmetries in some varieties of Arabic.’ Paper presented at the second ECO5 Syntax Workshop held at University of Maryland, College Park, February 2004.
‘A minimalist analysis of locative inversion constructions.’ Paper presented at the 27th Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW) Conference held at University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, April 2004.

‘Locative Inversion: A phase-based analysis.’ Paper presented at the University of Maryland Student Conference of Linguistics, March 2003.

‘A parameter for default agreement.’ Paper presented at the University of Maryland Student Conference in Linguistics, March 2002.

Unpublished manuscripts

‘البرنامج الاختزالي للنظرية اللغوية: مقال فى علم اللغة النظري’ [The Minimalist Program of Linguistic Theory: An Essay in Theoretical Syntax.] A manuscript in Arabic. Faculty of Al-Alsun (Foreign Languages), Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, 1999.

‘A Comparative analysis of Some Deletion Phenomena in English and Standard Arabic.’ A Government-Binding Approach. MA Thesis, Faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, 1996.

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