Barile, Paul

This research is an examination of the morphological and syntactical features found within verb phrases of Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, a Semitic language which originates from Mesopotamia. From this examination, a configurational model is proposed, which depicts the grammatical arrangement of these morphosyntactic features during verb phrase formation. Additionally, accompanying this description of the language's verb phrases, a dependency-based approach is taken for the analysis of the language's sentence structure. Such a method departs from traditional perspectives which posit that the concept of a sentence is the compositional result of two distinct linguistic elements: a subject and a predicate (the verb phrase). However, from the analysis of the language, an argument is presented for a reconsideration of the conceptualization of a sentence that would position the verb as the primary element, or nucleus, on which all other occurring elements are either directly or indirectly dependent.