Arabic word order pdf

Kamal Hasan. A short summary of this paper. Roll No. Showing the different word order patterns and the basic one 2. To show the agreement between the verbs and their subjects 4. We know that Arabic has a basic word order which is VSO and other patterns are derived. When SVO is used, there is a full agreement. But when it is VSO only gender agreemrnt. Second modern spoken Arabic focuses on SVO because of the lack of morphological marking. The Parameters Head Parameter : In GB, the proposed parameter by which a particular language chooses to put all its heads either to the left or to the right of their sisters.

In fact, very few languages appear to conform straightforwardly to either pattern. Word order Parameter A term used in government-binding theory for a parameter which determines the way languages have their order of elements of the sentences. Other properties of pro-drop languages have been suggested, such as that they have a rich system of verb- agreement, and free inversion of subject and verb.

English is a fixed word language. It has SVO order as its sole word order. Example : They study linguistics. First I will give examples about the five-word order patterns but I later will limit this presentation to only the two prominent types of them, namely, SVO and VSO because they are the most prominent in modern standard Arabic. MSA, as classical Arabic, enjoys a great deal of freedom in word order because of its rich inflectional morphology.

For example, if we take the following simple sentence: 1 Qara? We notice that 2 has a VOS word order. The students read the books. VSO order is unmarked for focus, emphasis and information distribution. Syntactically speaking, SVO nominal sentences structure are used in certain positions such as: a. Sentences consisting of a subject and a predicate : Khaled-un qara? Passive sentences Kuteb-a al-darsu Write-past-passive-sg the lesson-nom The lesson was written. Compare between the following: 1.

Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Mounya Souadkia. A short summary of this paper. An analytical study of word-order patterns in Standard Arabic simple sentence. DOI: Main methods concern description and comparison of word-order pat- terns observed.

Primarily the current study deals with some differentiations of the terms on sentence types and word-order patterns described by both medieval grammarians and modern linguists.

Simple sentences are highlighted to examine the occasions for using different patterns and where they are commonly found, along with examples to facilitate the explanation and use of these patterns. It is essential to point out that Standard Arabic is considered to be a language with a flexible word-order, which is why there exist word-order patterns of both VOS and SVO languages, though the latter is more frequently used.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4. In the study of languages, these regulations and meth- ods are known as the grammar of the language they represent. Due to the fact that there are various languages around the world, each belonging to the same or different family of languages, hence, languages which structurally differ from one another normally have got different regulations.

For native speakers, these rules and regula- tions are acquired at an early age, when they are in their childhood through a natural and innate process. For a foreign language learner, the acquisition of such grammatical descriptions and rules happens consciously, with the learner being aware of such a process.

The Arabic language is, of course, one of the many various languages of the world; it is spoken by a large number of people as a native or second or foreign one. It is considered the language of Islam and the main language of the Holy Quran. Be- longing to the Semitic family of languages, it is characterized by its rich morphology and complex grammar, therefore many linguists, native and foreign known as Arab- ists grew more interested in analyzing the Arabic language to explain the appearance of its various structures and rules of its application and acquisition.

Due to the fact that Arabic is spoken in different places by different people, many varieties of the language were developed, for instance, the dialect used in countries of Northern Afri- ca known as Arab Maghreb, such as in Algeria where the dialect called Maghrebi Ar- abic dialect is a mixture of mainly Berber, Arabic and loanwords from French, Otto- man Turkish and Spanish.

Therefore, Standard Arabic is usually the model language chosen for investigation. During the ancient period of Arabo-Islamic studies, Arabic grammar was among the disciplines to be formed.

In the lateMiddleAges, studies on the Arabic language in general, and on its grammar, in particular, were negatively influenced by the decline of Islam- ic civilization during that period of time. However, the prosperity of Semitic philolo- gy in the 19th century Europe, paved the way for scholars to develop a notable interest in studying the Arabic language, and analyzing its grammatical structures.

Addition- ally, during this period, these scholars were dependent on traditional Arabic grammat- ical discoveries, but it was only in the 20th century that the pieces of writing of the traditional Arab grammarians were really valued. Particularly, these modern theories led to the appearance of new ways for linguists acquainted with the Arabic language, whose main task was to study and analyze various grammatical phenomena from the point of view of modern linguistics.

Hence, the current study focuses on explaining some Arabic grammatical fea- tures highlighted by medieval grammarians and modern linguists alike. The theory developed to differentiate between sentence types and word-order patterns is also emphasized.

RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics, , 11 1 , 78—91 sentence in Standard Arabic with its main components and basic syntactic characteri- zations are defined analytically.

Furthermore, different word-order patterns of simple sentences are presented and analyzed along with examples illustrating and providing evidence of the different patterns that exist. Both medieval grammarians and modern Arabists have always been considering the subject of sentence types in Standard Arabic. Moreover, a nominal sentence is a sentence that starts with a noun a noun phrase , whereas, a verbal one starts with a verb a verb phrase [2.

According to Peled, a sentence type can be described using entirely pure syntac- tic terms, alongside the models utilized by the medieval grammarians.

Peled also points out that for any specific language, one can assume one or more model sentenc- es that can be made up of a set of small distinctive units characterizing all sentences that are likely to occur.

Greenberg believed that each language has its basic word-order patterns; more specifically the ordering of the subject S and object O in the sentence corresponding to the verb V. Later on, in their works, Winfred P. Modern cross-linguistic studies have questioned the model proposed by Green- berg in terms of its basic word-order patterns, as well as suggesting different typolo- gies. In their examinations, researchers fundamentally took into consideration syntac- tic, pragmatic and cognitive properties to explain various word-order patterns.

Subsequently, one remarkable idea is of Mithun, in which she differentiates between language that are syntactically based and those which are pragmatically based ones. In pragmatically based languages, in contrast, all ordering re- flects pragmatic considerations.

Recently, Kristen E. Although in the analysis of word-order, the paradigm of Greenberg has continued to be the most significant model of study, not least amidst Arabists and linguists concerned with the study of the Arabic language. Nevertheless, it is worth to mention that a general linguist whose main focus is on investigating an Indo- European language such as English, French or German, where the verb is the basis of each sentence; therefore, the placement of every other component of a sentence is to be determined according to the verb.

In the Arabic language, sentences that exist without a verb; can be found both in classical as well as modern texts of Arabic, and most of the times this kind of sentences share fundamental characteristics with sen- tences that have a verb [Ibid, P. However, in the recent study, the terms VSO and SVO are used to refer to word-order patterns, and not to sentence types. Thus, the notion of sentence type is difficult to understand, and is not restricted to these two word-order patterns [Ibid, P.

Subse- quently, in his dictionary of grammatical terms, Robert L. In addition, all types can be utilized to form a statement or ask a question, an imperative form is characterized by a sen- tence headed by a verb. Through time, grammarians had been focusing on distinguishing between a number of primary structures in the Arabic language, e.

To explain more, Sibawayhi refers to the first predicative con- stituents as musnad, while to the second as musnad 'ilayhi. Yet, Sibawayhi appears to have been fascinated not only by sentence constituents, but also by sentence for- mation; i. The Arabic language of the Semitic family of languages is morphologically rich and has a flexible word ordering. In theArabic grammar, the division of words into verbs, nouns, and particles is one of the most important criteria.

A noun can either be definite in Arabic or indefinite i. This feature is to some extent similar to what Zaggagi mentioned about a noun being a subject, even if it is semantically and pragmatically directed.

It is impossible not to mention the work of Sarrag which was the first total list of noun characteristics. Another list appeared later in the work of Anbari in which a few modifications were made; appearance with the vocative particle is intro- duced, also it is mentioned that nouns are those which appear as topics, subjects, ob- jects and possessors [6.

In the description of verbs, syntax does not play an important role as it is with nouns. Sarrag emphasizes the semantic contribution, and negative explanation, for in- stance, the things that do not specify a noun. Additionally, Mubarrad does not give a definition of verbs following a syntactic criterion, and Zaggagi provides only a semantic explanation, verbs are words that take past, present and future tenses that express an action. Yet, Zaggagi considers that verbs should be explained through syntactic criterion, or partially through analyzing the relations between sentence components when he compares them with nouns.

This implies that a verb a relation between an agent noun and itself [Ibid, P. But, once the morphological, syntactic and semantic descriptions of nouns and verbs have been identified, any words which do not meet such descriptions are believed to be particles. Word-order in Arabic sentences has different patterns. As it was mentioned above, the Arabic sentence takes two main forms that are usually used to contrast each other.

The two components are always nominative, and agree in terms of number, gender, as well as definiteness [8.