The analysis of rightmost focus is alive and kicking

Abstract As far back as Cecchetto (1999) , Villalba (2000) and Belletti ( 2001 , 2004 ), the low IP area has gained prominence in the literature. In this article we show that right dislocation in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), qua an information-structural configuration, is counterintuitive to the argument that there is a discursive area sandwiched between IP and vP, and in favour of a clause-external analysis which locates right-dislocated phrases IP-externally. This claim is based on inspecting the properties of right dislocated elements in MSA relative to binding under Condition C, licensing negative polarity items, agreement alternation and wide focus. Crucially, the IP-external analysis of right dislocation, as a consequence, proves to present a unified account of focus in MSA, where we maintain that the apparent complexity and diversity of focus in this language is illusory, and epiphenomenal, emerging from the interaction of focus expressions and right dislocation — to wit, focalization in MSA occurs in situ, specifically in the rightmost position, with string-initial focus and string-medial focus being taken to be a reflex of an interfering right dislocation process targeting an IP-external position. The resulting outcome thus strongly lends support to Samek-Lodovici’s (2006) model of a focus-less split CP, gives evidence that the rightmost analysis of focus ( Zubizarreta 1998 ; Büring 2001 ; Dehé 2005 ; Samek-Lodovici 2006 , 2015 ) cover historically unrelated languages, and likewise casts a shadow of doubt on the viability of the cartographic approach to MSA à la Ouhalla ( 1994a , 1997 ) and Shlonsky (2000) .