Deconstructing the Construct

In the recent decade, Construct State nominals (henceforth CSN) in Hebrew and Arabic have been the focus of much discussion and research, resulting in many important insights. Originating with a proposal of Ritter (1987, 1988) many analyses of that construction seek to tie (at least some of) its properties to raising of N to D (cf. Ritter, (1987, 1988, 1991); Fassi Fehri (1988, 1989, 1994); Ouhalla (1990, 1991); Hazout (1990); Muhammad (1988); Duffield (1992); Siloni (in press, 1994); among others). The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, I will review and evaluate the major insights behind the N-to-D hypothesis, showing that while some of them have led to an increased understanding of CSN, the N-to-D hypothesis does not, in fact, achieve the major tasks which its proponents claim it to achieve. I will conclude that while the operation of N-to-D cannot be directly excluded, based on word order, there is no direct evidence for its existence and the word order phenomena which such an account seeks to explain must be accounted for in some other way.