Expressivity in Arabic

Abstract This chapter provides a syntactic account of expressive demonstratives (i.e., post-demonstratives, expressive ha-demonstratives) as well as the expressive intensifier la?allah, with a particular focus on data from Jordanian Arabic (JA). Expressivity is manifested in JA grammar as a syntactic feature, i.e., [exp] and [exp] which may not be present on different heads (D0, C0, etc.). Rather it projects its own functional phrase (ExpPhrase), mainly above DemPs and AdjPs. We propose that Exp0 is an affixal head, which can carry an EPP that drives the movement of certain elements (bearing an [uexp]) to its Spec. Additionally, Exp0 is shown to be filled in certain cases with a designated expressive marker, such as ?umm and ?abulic. This proposal of expressives offers a direct route to account systematically for the syntactic behavior of expressive demonstratives and intensifiers in JA, especially regarding the ordering restrictions of these elements inside their constructions.