This chapter summarizes the central points argued for in the analyses chapters. The multi-locus analysis of negation provides a solid ground for investigating other syntactic categories such as the syntax of adverbs, subjects, tense, and the left periphery. The ability to explain the syntactic behavior of these categories (their co-occurance restrictions, semantic ambiguities, and subtle interpretational contrasts) leads us to a significantly better understanding of key issues related to the nature of subjects in syntactic theory, the movement of adverbs (XPs, syntactic adjuncts), and head movement of verbal and non-verbal predicates. Moreover, the multi-locus analysis of negation gives us insights into the syntactic licensing of a vital category of words, Negative Sensitive Items (NSIs), that have not received enough attention in the literature on Arabic. The syntactic licensing of these categories in Arabic bears on key theoretical issues in the cross-linguistic studies of negation and NSIs. Such issues include the syntactic licensing configurations for these items, the feature of structure/specifications of these items, and the availability of syntactic agreement in the context of negation.

Chapter 2 laid the ground for a multi-locus analysis for negation in Arabic. The chapter set out the background assumptions in the syntax of Arabic related to negation. Key issues were discussed including the previous analyses of negation, the position of the preverbal subjects, adverbial syntax, and the syntax of tense and aspect. The multi-locus analysis is initially motivated by key distributional contracts between the NegP protection below tense phrase (TP) and the one above TP in relation to the position of adverbs and subjects in the syntactic structure. Further support for this analysis is supplemented by the availability of complementizer deletion in certain contexts of negation, particularly with higher negation (use of maa by itself), and the availabity of certain negative markers such as laa and its variats lam and lan in the context of modals qad and sawfa in Arabic. The conclusion is that these modals and the higher negative compete to select a TP, hence their incompatibility with each other, and the compatibility between these modals and the lower negative.

Chapter 3 focuses on the semantic and pragmatic effects associated with the various positions of negation. The idea that the two negatives are located in different positions in the syntactic structure made it possible to probe the possible subtle semantic effects each negative has.