On the communicative role of word order in written modern standard Arabic : a contribution to functional linguistics

Osman, MES

Abstract

The majority of the available studies which have been done on word
order in Arabic are derived from improvised and restricted data taken
from the classical variety of Arabic. ALL these studies are
generatively-oriented, and consequently their main concern was to find
out which word order is the basic one and which orders derive from it.
In brief, all these studies are basically structural and have very
little, if anything, to do with the situations in which the language was
used or with the factors that motivated it's use.
We think that such treatments are inadequate, because: (1) the
modern standard variety has been totally neglected, and (2) the basic
functions of Language as a tool of human communication is not accounted
for by these studies.
To make up for these inadequacies we are going to approach the issue
of word order from a functional vantage point which seeks to relate the
structure and it's function. Secondly, we will choose 'Modern Standard
Arabic' to be our field of inquiry. Thirdly, all the examples which we
are going to discuss will be taken from concrete linguistic situations.
We intend to test the following hypotheses:
1. The traditional dichotomy of word order in marked/unmarked terms at
the sentence level is unsatisfactory.
2. It is useful to differentiate between basicness and unmarkedness of
word order.
3. The frequency with which each word order type occurs may depend on
the type of text, and the attitude of the writer towards his/her
addressees.
4. A switch from a certain word order-type to another within the same
text can sometimes be determined by a shift in the text-typologicalfocus.
5. Permutations of sentence constituents in Arabic sometimes change the
grammatical status of the constituents permuted and sometimes do
not.
6. The Principle of Functional Sentence Perspective has great influence
in Arabic Language,
7. Passivization as a syntactic device influences the order of words in
Arabic.
8. Reasons for having different word orders in Arabic can be elucidated
by appealing to other cornrnunicative considerations.
9. Different word orders in Arabic serve semantic, syntactic and
pragmatic functions.

Citation

Osman, M. On the communicative role of word order in written modern standard Arabic : a contribution to functional linguistics. (Thesis). University of Salford, UK

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jul 7, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 7, 2009
• Additional Information: Additional Information : PhD supervisor: Dr. M. P. Williams
• Award Date: Sep 1, 1989