PRO vs pro in Arabic Syntax: Theoretical Analysis Atef Mustafa Jalabneh Department of English, College of Languages and Translation, Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Abstract—The objective of this work is to investigate the syntactic and semantic properties of the empty categories PRO and pro in Modern Standard Arabic syntax. The problem: both of them are always syntactically covert at PF; semantically, though PRO bears same / or different theta roles from its anaphor at spell out, it leads to correct interpretation at LF; however, pro bears different theta roles that determine correct c-selection at spell out and lead to correct interpretations at LF. Conclusions: Syntactically PRO occupies, merely, the subject position of non- finite phrases; it does not check the nominative case since the phrases lack [Agrs, T]. However, pro occupies the subject position of finite clauses in (i) independent clause, (ii) embedding, (iii) subordinate and (iv) independent clauses related to weather (expletive) verbs; it checks the nominative case by [Agrs, T]. Semantically, PRO checks, merely, the theta roles of agent and experiencer; however, pro checks the theta roles of agent, patient, experiencer, theme, instrument and location. Index Terms—PRO, pro, nominative case, theta role, interpretation I. INTRODUCTION Arabic is a pro – drop – language in which there are various types of pronouns that have the structure of a noun phrase. They are classified into three types, namely, (i) the overt attached personal pronouns, (ii) non-attached overt personal pronouns and (iii) the covert personal pronouns. (i) and (ii) are not included in this analysis; however, the focus of the analysis is on the third category in which the empty categories PRO and pro occur. PRO occupies the subject position of infinitival, gerundival phrases and small clauses; it is posited at spell out in an attempt to capture the relevant intuition of reference in the interpretation process at LF. It is claimed that the implicit subject becomes explicit if the relevant clauses are paraphrased by finite clauses. PRO creates multiple confusions in the interpretations of the structures in which it occurs. This is due to the syntactic fact that PRO has different referents at all levels of syntax. Thus, the control theory was proposed as a module of grammar to account for its syntactic distribution and semantic interpretations at spell-out and LF. Infinitival clauses, in Arabic, are introduced by the infinitive marker ?an ‘to’ as in [ h aawala zaidun i ?an PRO i yadrusa ‘Zaid tried [ PRO to study’]. However, gerundival clauses are of three types, namely, (i) subject gerund as in [al-sibaah atu PRO mufīdatan ‘PRO swimming is good’], (ii) gerund after a verb as in [?tadhakkartu pro mughaadarta PRO al-manzili ‘I remember PRO leaving the house’] and (iii) gerund after a preposition as in [yahtammu PRO zaidun i fi al-s ibaah ati ‘Zaid is interested in PRO swimming’]. At last small clauses are represented in the specimen [was ala zaidun i PRO i ghad baanun ‘Zaid arrived PRO angry’]. However, pro occupies, merely, the subject position of finite clauses whether main, embedding or subordinate clauses; it is overt at spell out but covert at LF / PF. This element satisfies the EPP in that a clause without a subject is ungrammatical whether the subject is overt or cover; pro occurs in a sentence if the verb is in the imperfective form as in [?uwaafiqu pro c ala qaraarika ‘I agree with your decision.], in the perfective as in [raja c at pro bi khufai h unain ‘She came back with the two shoes of Hunain’] and in the imperative as in [?uktub pro al- risaalata ‘Write the letter!’ (cf., Alghalayini, p. 80 for the examples only in Arabic). As Arabic is rich in agreement markers, it occurs in all types of tenses in Arabic syntax. II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The problem of this study is that both of them are always syntactically covert at PF; as they occur in complementary distribution, they succumb to different syntactic features in syntax; semantically, though PRO bears same / or different theta roles from its anaphor at spell out, it imposes correct interpretation at LF; pro has various theta roles that determine correct c-selection at spell out and lead to correct semantic interpretations at LF. Such problematic issues need to be explicated in this work in a theoretical manner. III. OBJECTIVES AND QUESTIONS OF THE STUDY The objective of this study is to check the syntactic as well as the semantics properties of PRO and pro in Arabic syntax. For such reasons, the researcher proposed the following questions: (1). What are the syntactic positions in which they occur? And (2). What are their theta roles? ISSN 1799-2591 Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 12, No. 7, pp. 1271-1277, July 2022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1207.04 © 2022 ACADEMY PUBLICATION