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This book investigates the historical paths leading from pronouns to markers of verbal agreement and proposes a unified formal account of this grammaticalization process. In opposition to beliefs widely held in the literature, it is argued that new agreement formatives can be coined in a multitude of syntactic environments. Still, the individual paths toward agreement are shown to exhibit a set of underlying similarities which are attributed to universal principles that govern the reanalysis of pronominal clitics as exponents of verbal agreement across languages. It is claimed that syntactic principles impose only a set of necessary conditions on the reanalysis in question, while its ultimate trigger is morphological in nature. More specifically, it is argued that the acquisition of inflectional morphology is governed by blocking effects which operate during language acquisition and promote the grammaticalization of new markers if this change serves to replace ‘worn-out’, underspecified forms with new, more specified candidates.
For a lifetime Kees Versteegh played a leading role in Arabic linguistics, dialects (diglossia, creolization, pidginization), the history of Arabic grammar, and other fields related to Arabic. From among his global contacts, colleagues contributed to a Liber Amicorum in appreciation of his stimulating efforts to reopen, deepen and complete our knowledge of Arabic Grammar and Linguistics. In three sections, History, Linguistics and Dialects, 27 contributors discuss (alphabetically): bilingual verb construction; contractual language; current developments; language description; language use; lexicology; organization of language; pause; sentence types; and specific topics: ʾallaḏī; featuring; government; homonymy; ʾiḍmār; inflection; maṣdar; the origin of grammatical tradition; variety conflicts; and verbal schematic (ir)regularities; waqf; and ẓarf.
Abdallah Nacereddine first taught Arabic in the United States before moving to Switzerland, where he led Arabic language courses at the League of Arab States and in conjunction with the Arab-Swiss Chamber of Commerce. He directed his own Institute for Arabic Language Teaching in Geneva, Lausanne, Bern, and Zurich, and taught Arabic at the United Nations in Geneva for over twenty-two years. At present, he is teaching at the International Labour Office. His teaching materials are the result of this experience and have been thoroughly tested in class. One of the first Arabic grammar books was published in the 13th century, under the title al-Alfia (didactic treatise in one thousand lines) by Ibn Malek (600-673 A. H. / 1203-1274 A. D) Since that time, Arabic grammar has not changed at all. In 1636, Thomas Erpenius published his definitive work, Grammatica Arabica, in Latin at Leiden. He followed a methodology which suited the European mind and adopted a specific terminology, which had to be applied by every non Arabic-speaking grammarian. Following this, several Arabic grammar books were published in different languages. Contrary to the grammar of other languages which have continued to evolve, Arabic grammar has remained unchanged. There are already a certain number of Arabic grammar books. What then is the point of publishing yet another? From his childhood, the author studied Arabic grammar, mainly from the al-Alfia treatise. He started to teach it in exactly the same archaic manner that he had learnt it. It was when he began to teach Arabic at the United Nations in Geneva to non-Arabic speakers in a multicultural context that he had to learn a new teaching method and its terminology. He therefore started to follow the European methodology for teaching Arabic grammar and to use its terminology.
In light of recent generative minimalism, and comparative parametric theory of language variation, the book investigates key features and parameters of Arabic grammar. Part I addresses morpho-syntactic and semantic interfaces in temporality, aspectuality, and actionality, including the Past/Perfect/Perfective ambiguity akin to the very synthetic temporal morphology, collocating time adverb construal, and interpretability of verbal Number as pluractional. Part II is dedicated to nominal architecture, the behaviour of bare nouns as true indefinites, the count/mass dichotomy (re-examined in light of general, collective, and singulative DP properties), the mirror image ordering of serialized adjectives, and N-to-D Move in synthetic possession, proper names, and individuated vocatives. Part III examines the role of CP in time and space anchoring, double access reading (in a DAR language such as Arabic), sequence of tense (SOT), silent pronominal categories in consistent null subject languages (including referential and generic pro), and the interpretability of inflection. Semantic and formal parameters are set out, within a mixed macro/micro-parametric model of language variation. The book is of particular interest to students, researchers, and teachers of Arabic, Semitic, comparative, typological, or general linguistics.
This book traces the origins and development of the Arabic grammatical marker s/sī, which is found in interrogatives, negators, and indefinite determiners in many Arabic dialects. It argues that s/sī does not derive from Arabic say 'thing' but from a Semitic demonstrative pronoun.
A guide to Arabic syntax covering a broad variety of topics including argument structure, negation, tense, agreement phenomena, and resumption. The discussion of each topic sums up the key research results and provides new points of departure for further research.
This book presents a comprehensive portrait of the Kitāb Sībawayhi. It offers new insights into its historical and linguistic arguments and underlines their strong correlation. The decisive historical argument highlights al-Ḥīra’s role, not only as the centre of pre-Islamic Arabic culture, but also as the matrix within which early Arab linguistics grew and developed. The Kitāb’s value as a communicative grammar forms the crux of the linguistic argument. The complementarity of syntax and pragmatics is established as a condition sine qua non for Sībawayhi’s analysis of language. The benefits of a complementary approach are reflected in the analysis of nominal sentences and related notions of ibtidā’ and definiteness. The pragmatic principle of identifiability is uncovered as the ultimate determiner of word order.
A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic is a comprehensive handbook on the structure of Arabic. Keeping technical terminology to a minimum, it provides a detailed yet accessible overview of Modern Standard Arabic in which the essential aspects of its phonology, morphology and syntax can be readily looked up and understood. Accompanied by extensive carefully-chosen examples, it will prove invaluable as a practical guide for supporting students' textbooks, classroom work or self-study, and will also be a useful resource for scholars and professionals wishing to develop an understanding of the key features of the language. Grammar notes are numbered for ease of reference, and a section is included on how to use an Arabic dictionary, as well as helpful glossaries of Arabic and English linguistic terms and a useful bibliography. Clearly structured and systematically organised, this book is set to become the standard guide to the grammar of contemporary Arabic.