---
title: "(In)definiteness Spread in Semitic Construct State: Does it Really"
description: "The paper challenges a long-held assumption about the Semitic Construct State (CS): that the head noun inherits definiteness… 61 references."
authors: ["Mohammed Q. Shormani"]
year: 2017
venue: "Linguistik Online 80"
source: "https://bop.unibe.ch/linguistik-online/article/view/3568"
doi: "10.13092/lo.80.3568"
licence: "CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; Linguistik Online)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/shormani-2017-definiteness-spread-semitic-construct-state/"
---
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# (In)definiteness Spread in Semitic Construct State: Does it Really Exist?

**Authors:** [Mohammed Q. Shormani](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/mohammed-q-shormani/) · **Year:** 2017 · **Venue:** [Linguistik Online 80](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/linguistik-online/) ([Linguistik Online 2017](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/linguistik-online/2017/)) · **Publisher:** [University of Bern](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/university-of-bern/) · **Licence:** [CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; Linguistik Online)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.13092/lo.80.3568) · [PDF](https://bop.unibe.ch/linguistik-online/article/download/3568/5424) · [DOI 10.13092/lo.80.3568](https://doi.org/10.13092/lo.80.3568) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2587580448)

**Citations:** 3 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
The paper challenges a long-held assumption about the Semitic Construct State (CS): that the head noun inherits definiteness or indefiniteness from its genitive DP complement (GDC). This is a theoretical study. It uses no corpus or treebank and relies instead on Arabic and Hebrew examples, including Yemeni Arabic and Spanish Arabic data. Shormani first reviews the prosodic, head-movement and semantic accounts of "spread." He shows that each one faces counterexamples or rests on stipulations. He then argues that there are just two kinds of CS: definite ones, where the head itself carries al-/ha-, and indefinite ones, where it does not. The missing Arabic indefinite marker -n on the head is attributed to a phonological rule he calls VCR (Vowel Contextualization Rule), not to a missing feature. The specificity or uniqueness that some CS heads show is linked to possession, possibly through a Universal Grammar principle or parameter. This matters because it removes a construction-specific feature-percolation mechanism from the grammar.

## Key points
- The paper rests on three claims:
  - The literature is deeply divided on whether spread exists.
  - Arabic and Hebrew CS heads can take the definite article.
  - The absence of Arabic -n follows from the phonological rule VCR.
- Earlier accounts infer spread from adjective agreement. In "bayt-u l-mudarris-i l-kabiir-u", the definite adjective is taken as proof that the bare head noun is definite.
- Adjectives can come between the head and the GDC, which undermines the "one word" prosodic analysis:
  - Spanish Arabic: al-kās al-ṣagīr al-fiđđata (from Corriente 1997, discussed by Ouhalla 2009).
  - Yemeni Arabic: al-şahn l-kabiir l-zijaaj.
- The paper cites four objections by Danon (2008) to Borer's (1999) incorporation analysis. Examples are the stipulated movement to Spec-NumP and the unmotivated Definiteness Criterion.
- If the head really shared features with the GDC, other features such as Case and ϕ-features should spread too, but they do not.

## Interesting ideas
- The paper locates definiteness in overt marking on the head itself and treats uniqueness from possession as a separate, independent source of specificity.
- A missing affix is explained by a phonological rule rather than read as a negative feature value. Zero marking is not evidence that a feature is absent.
- A claimed adjacency/one-word property is tested by finding a single intervening modifier, which is a cheap and decisive falsification test.
- Selectivity serves as a sanity check: a mechanism that supposedly shares features should not share only one of them.
- Agreement on a modifier is treated as possibly misleading evidence about the head's own features.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (world): Entity records could hold "definite by article" and "unique by possession" as two separate flags, so referent resolution can explain which cue it used.
- **I2** (tokens): The morphology layer could label a missing marker as "suppressed by context" instead of assigning a feature value, which avoids false negative feature values.
- **I3** (learn): Self-induced repair rules that assume adjacency, such as possessor–head or compound rules, could be checked automatically against silver trees containing intervening adjectives as negative controls.
- **I4** (learn): Any learned agreement-propagation rule could be audited by checking whether it explains the full set of features it should transfer, and flagged if it covers only one.
- **I5** (tree): When converting UD dialects or treebanks, Definite features on amod dependents should not be copied onto the head noun without an overt marker on the head.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

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## Cite

Cite as: Mohammed Q. Shormani. 2017. (In)definiteness Spread in Semitic Construct State: Does it Really Exist?. Linguistik Online 80.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{shormani2017definiteness,
  title = {{(In)definiteness Spread in Semitic Construct State: Does it Really Exist?}},
  author = {Mohammed Q. Shormani},
  booktitle = {Linguistik Online 80},
  year = {2017},
  doi = {10.13092/lo.80.3568},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.13092/lo.80.3568}
}
```

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*Updated 1 November 2026*