The Verbal Sentence in Written Arabic

Abstract

This study is concerned with the Arabic verbal sentence structure and the main purpose is to examine the elements of this structure - both the verb and the agent - and their relationship, investigating the classical and modern grammarians' views. Therefore, this research is not based on any single aspect within this structure.

The general trend of this research is from the general to the particular; hence a discussion on the parts of speech precedes an analysis of the verbal sentence structure since it is composed of these parts (noun and verb). This study concentrates on syntactic and semantic issues that relate to verbal forms and the agent. In addition, an attempt is made to compare the essential characterisers of Arabic verbal sentence with English sentence structure.

This thesis consists of eleven chapters. Chapter One is an introduction. Chapter Two presents a brief account of the three Arabic grammar schools of thought and their methods. In Chapter Three I review the literature related to the verbal sentence. Chapter Four discusses the points of view of medieval and modern grammarians regarding parts of speech and the types of sentence. The fist element of the verbal sentence (the predicate) is examined in Chapters Five and Six; Chapter Five focusing on the transitive and intransitive verb while Chapter Six is in a passive voice. The second element of the verbal sentence (the subject) is examined in Chapters Seven and Eight; Chapter Seven showing the difference between agent and subject terminology and the rules related to them. Chapter Eight is on the deputy agent, examining the reasons for the omission of the agent, the types of deputy agent and the element which takes an agent's place. The basic word order of verbal sentence and the alternative word order forms are analysed in detail in Chapter Nine while Chapter Ten concentrates on the concept of the tense and aspect and the primary and secondary types of them. Chapter Eleven summarises the main findings of the study and makes recommendations for future research.