Nominal Constructions in Modern Standard Arabic With Reference to English

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate nominal constructions of modern standard Arabic in terms of their types, their patterns and selectional restrictions and compare them with their counterparts in English so as to arrive at points that will be productive for pedagogical and translation purposes. The analysis of the data focuses on morphsyntactic processes to see in order to show the constructions morphologically as one word nominal or syntactically as a group of nouns in nominal positions. The objective of this study is to provide an account on a specific syntactic structure with special reference to English, in efforts to promote the importance of modern standard Arabic studies as an appropriate mean to better understand the standard and formal form of a language. The study concludes with the investigation as well as the main conclusions reached and offers a suggestion for further studies.

Full text

Nominal Constructions in Modern Standard Arabic With Reference to English
Ali Hussein Hazem*, Waleed Younus Meteab
Department of English, College of Education, University of Al-Hamdaniya, Iraq
Corresponding Author: Mr. Ali Hussein Hazem, E-mail: alininawa@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to investigate nominal constructions of modern standard Arabic in terms
of their types, their patterns and selectional restrictions and compare them with their counterparts
in English so as to arrive at points that will be productive for pedagogical and translation
purposes. The analysis of the data focuses on morphsyntactic processes to see in order to show
the constructions morphologically as one word nominal or syntactically as a group of nouns in
nominal positions. The objective of this study is to provide an account on a specic syntactic
structure with special reference to English, in efforts to promote the importance of modern
standard Arabic studies as an appropriate mean to better understand the standard and formal
form of a language. The study concludes with the investigation as well as the main conclusions
reached and offers a suggestion for further studies.
Key words: Nominals, Noun Phrase, Syntax, Morphology, Predicative, Copula
INTRODUCTION
Nominal Constructions in Modern Standard Arabic is very
important area in linguistics eld because stand for the main
part of clauses or sentences in the production and construc-
tions indication. The study aims at investigating the types,
the patterns and the restrictions of building a structure with
nominal so as to be easier and understood for those who are
interested in translation elds or the pedagogical purposes
especially in English. The analysis of the data focuses on
morphsyntactic processes in order to show the constructions
morphologically as one word nominal or syntactically as a
group of nouns in nominal positions. The objective of this
study is to provide an account on a specic syntactic struc-
ture with special reference to English, in efforts to promote
the importance of modern standard Arabic studies as an ap-
propriate mean to better understand the standard and formal
form of a language. The study concludes with the investi-
gation as well as the main conclusions reached and offers a
suggestion for further studies.
Semantically, Arabic differs in aspect of noun morphol-
ogy. When there is a change in the inection or derivation
it showsand functions then with inection in the sentence
‘morpho- syntax’ taking into account the noun derivation. It
is worth to mention that the process of morphology and syn-
tax in Arabic distinct considerably from that of English. The
study provides a general overview of nominal construction
in modern standard Arabic. A descriptive study that seeks to
lay out the varying range of nominal construction in Modern
Standard Arabic (MSA) and compare them to those found in
English. The objective of this study is to provide an account
Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.
Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.8n.2p.97
on a specic syntactic structure in efforts to promote the im-
portance of studies as an appropriate mean to better under-
stand the standard and formal form of a language.
Statement of the Problem
Nominal constructions in modern standard Arabic has not
been tackled too much by scholars and linguists. Thus, in
translation of such constructions, there will be difculties to
build a suitable structure for the addressee because of the
lack of the construction of nominals viz. modern standard
Arabic that is used too much in every day medium.
Methodology
This study will be interesting for translators and foreign lan-
guages because after the procedures, they will be awareness
of Arabic nominal constructions with reference and contrast
to English. Modern Standard Arabic is a branch of Semitic
language in which distincts morphologically and syntactical-
ly characteristics.
MAJOR STUDIES ON NOMINALS
The concept nominal refers to a noun, noun phrase or to any
element acting like a noun. According to (Richard, 2017),
Nominals occurs in the subject or the object of a sentence,
or in the predicate position, which follows a linking verb
and explains what the subject is. The nominal is a construc-
tion which differs in the form of a noun or a noun phrase.
However, in modern standard Arabic, the construction of a
International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature
E-ISSN: 2200-3452 & P-ISSN: 2200-3592
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ARTICLE INFO
Article history
Received: November 15, 2018
Accepted: January 24, 2019
Published: March 31, 2019
Volume: 8 Issue: 2
Advance access: February 2019
Conicts of interest: None
Funding: None

98 IJALEL 8(2):97-101
nominal follows singularity and plurality numbers wheth-
er these nouns are regular or irregular or collectives. Some
structures have gender distinctions. Some linguists such as,
Aboudi (1985), Borer (1996), Mohammad (1991), Hazout
(2000), Fassi-Fehri (1993) among many others analyse the
construct in Arabic while (Ayob 1985, Mohammed 1988,
Ouhala, 1994) assign in the analysis of the data the parallel
structure to the structure of a clause.
NOMINAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN MODERN
STANDARD ARABIC
Nominals in Arabic consists of a noun which can be the head
of a clause with non-verbal element. This noun is followed
by another constituent which completes or describes the
noun head. The constitute is one of the part of speech that re-
ports the initial or the noun head. Some linguists analyse the
nominal construction structurally either in term of subject
or a topic of the sentence. Modern standard Arabic is mor-
phologically rich. From phonology point of view a derived
noun is formed through xed root with morphology rules
which can be known as the process of ‘morphophonemic’.
Moreover, this process can be applied like rules to various
kinds of construction nouns. From (LearnArabicOnline.
com, 2003-2010a), the formation of nouns in Arabic can be
shown in the following:
1. Gerund (ism masdar) names the action denoted by its
corresponding verb.
e.g. mansoor ‘ the helped’.
2. Active participle (ism alfail) entity that enacts the base
meaning i.e. the general actor. e.g. Katib ‘writer’
3. Hyperbolic participle (ism almubulagha) a structure that
adds extra meaning to the base noun overstatement. So it
modies the actor with the meaning affect the purposes.
e.g.: qawam ‘strength’
4. Passive participle (ism almafuwl) The meaning of
this kind of nouns based on the object. e.g.: mawood:
‘Promised’
5. Resembling participle (alsifa almushabaha) This theo-
retically takes the meaning of Active and Passive Parti-
ciples. e.g.: jamel ul-soora ‘Nice look’.
6. Tool noun (ism alalah) A structure that refers the base
meaning i.e. instrument used to set the action. e.g.: qa-
lam ‘pen’.
7. Location noun (?sm al-tharf) any noun that refers or
performs through place or time reference. e.g.: manbaa
‘source’.
8. Comparative and superlative (ism altafdhil)- an ele-
ment that overhead the nature of the meaning. e.g.: kbar
‘greater’.
Categories of Nominal Constructions in Arabic
The counterparts of Arabic nominals is broader than in other
languages. Some Arabic adjectives and adverbs, are trans-
acted as nominals. Furthermore, nominlas in Arabic can be
constructed from other verbs or nouns. A nominal that is
derived from the verb is the basic construction one. Arabic
nouns can be categorized based several dimensions. A name
is categorized for a human, thing, and place, product, nor-
mally used to distinguish one from another. Nouns can show
species a class or groups or even one thing, either individu-
ally, or in a context.
- A person: Ahmed, Fatima = (insan) human
- An animal: (asfoor) = bird
- A thing: kitab= book
These lexical items can be simples or complexes. It is
clear that to dene the simple lexical item in a nominal syn-
tagm such is the case for the verbal syntagm, it is necessary
to clear all nominal afxes. The Arabic noun is characterized
by:
(1) - The acceptance of “the” (al) (bayt-- al-bayt) House –
the house.
(2) - The acceptance of the short vowel, assigned by the pres-
ence (before the name) of one of ‘ al-jar ’ prepositions
or a complement of name: (fawqa albayt-i)’ above the
house’-GEN.
(3) - The acceptance of an appellative. e.g.: daktoor
‘Doctor’.
(4) - The acceptance of at-tanwin nominal accent. e.g.: taw-
ilun ‘tall’
(5) - The acceptance of diminution (be diminutive) nuhair
(small river.) the diminutive morpheme modies the vo-
calic morphology of lexical item; so we have: (invari-
able morphology.) the morpheme grammatical takes the
six short vowels
(6) - The acceptance of predicate. Bahirul altawiil ‘a long
river’.
(1), (2) (4) and (5) are afxative nominal morphemes,
which are agglutinated to the noun, and form with it a new
and one written form. As we take for example the noun: (in-
san) ‘human’, it is an undened noun, its graphemes and their
short vowels constitute its morphology. If another homo-
graph does not exist, it does not justify the absence of short
vowels for the considered morphology. Another characteris-
tic is present; it is common between names and verbs. It is the
interrogative morpheme. These afxations are syntagmatics.
Through the derivational process, nominals in Arabic di-
vide into:
1. Nouns without derivation:
This kind of a noun can be stand by its self. Consider the
following:
asad
lion. singular noun
‘Lion’
An example of a non-derived, static noun is/asad/which
means ‘lion’ not originated from other parts of speech. This
noun is static because there is no any derivation process from
other parts of speech i.e. it stands alone.
2. Derivation nouns:
Nouns from this are derived from other nouns or verbs.
Consider the following example:
Mudaris
Teacher. Singular. Noun
This nominal construction is an example of a derived
noun because is derived from the verb ‘ ‘daras-a’ refers to
‘He taught’ in English equivalent.

99
Nominal Constructions in Subject Positions
a. al- tulab-u ijtazu al-imtihnat-a l-amaa
the-students.M 1st -nom passed the exams-acc the-gneral
“The students passed the general exams.”
b. al-fatayat-u yaakulna l- tufahaat-a
the-girls. F 3rd -nom eat the- apple
‘The girls eat apples.’
In examples above the nominals occur in the subject po-
sition as a preverbal where they are construed as topics by
some grammarians such as (Bakir 1980; Fassi- Fehri 1993;
Ouhalla and others. According to Bakr, 1980, there is agree-
ment of such construction between subjects and verbs:
Baida-u zahra-un raat-ha.
Baida- N zahra- N saw.3sg
‘Baida, Zahra saw her.’
Properties of nominal constructions in modern standard
Arabic
A. Deniteness of Arabic Nominal Constructions
Deniteness in Arabic is characterized by afxation, the
prex (al-) in Arabic marks deniteness, as in:
al-walad
DEF-boy
‘the boy.’
B. The second property of nominal constructions is the
genitive case According to Abdullatif et. al., (1997) and
Alrajhi (2011) genitives in Arabic are marked by (-i).
The following examples are from MSA where the geni-
tive marker (-i) is attached to the noun phrases.
(a) sayarat-u-n  Sh -shari-i
Car-FS-NOM-INDEF in DEF-street-M-GEN
‘A car in the street.’
(b) amam-u al-dari-i
in front-NOM DEF-house.MS-GEN
‘In front of the house.’
According to Alkhazy (2016:19) there are two main constit-
uents make up a nominal sentence in Arabic. First, almubtda a
nominal that occurs in the subject position which equals sub-
ject position in English. It characterized by carrying the nomi-
native case as in ‘alwaladu’ inr the following example:
al-walad-u dhalki-un
the- boy. Msg. NOM Clever- NOM
“ The boy is clever.”
The second main constituent is called alkhabar, the predi-
cate (report) which completes, adds or gives the information
to the sentence. This constitute can be a single word, phrase,
or a complete sentence, for example the report dhalki-un in
the following is carries the nominative Alkhazy(2016:23):
al-walad-u dhalki-un
the- boy. Msg. NOM Clever- NOM
“ The boy is clever.”
Copular Clauses
The main class of nominal construction can be found in
clauses with. The predicate part of clause is without verb,
as in:
alsayab shairun-un iraqi-un
Al- Sayyab poet-N Iraqi-N
‘Al- Sayyab is an Iraqi poet.’
According to (Fassi-Fehri 1982; Eid 1991; Matthews,
1991, Plunkett 1993; Mohammad 1998), a structure like
above termed Copular clauses. The following example
shows the pronoun with the initial subject:
Amjed-un huwwa dhaki-un.
Amjed. Msg-nom pronoun clever-nom
‘Amjed is clever.’
NOMINAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN ENGLISH
Nominal constructions in English are shown through the
noun or noun phrases. Syntactically, they occupy different
positions in a clause or a sentence. (Richard, 2017:1). Leech
states that “nominal constructions as a noun phrase occupy a
position among nouns or noun phrases or between them. The
following example illustrates:
A large piece of a cake.
The nominal construction in a above example makes a
sense to say that ‘large’ is a modier of ‘a piece of cake’.
Quirk et al.(1973) classify nominal into six groups:
1. That clause
2. Subordinate interrogative clauses
3. Subordinate exclamative clauses
4. Nominal relative clauses
5. To - innitive clauses and – ing clauses.
DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE AND
ANALYSIS
According to theoretical sections that mentioned above, Ara-
bic nominal construction can be divided into topic and attri-
bute. A topic is either single word (1) or phrase(2), whereas
attribute nominal is either single word (3), phrase(4) or sen-
tence(5) A nominal sentence can contain a verbal sentence
with different forms:
1. Jwad-un thaki-un
Jwad-NOM clever- NOM
“Jwad is clever”.
2. Madkhal-u u kuliat al tarbiya wasii.
Entrce-NOM the- College. N the education Wide
“The entrance of the college of education is wide”.
3. Alsayaratu Jamilatun.
The Car. NOM nice. NOM
“The car is nice.”
4. Alrajul tawilul qama.
The Man tall size
“The man is tall in size”.
5. i. Alwaladu yaqra.
The boy read.3sg
“The boy reads”.
ii. alwalad yaqrau sariaan.
The- boys. Pl Read.3 pl. quickly- ACC
“The boy reads quickly.”
iii. almudaris-u yashrahu aldarsa.
The – Teacher-NOM teach.3sg The lesson. ACC
“The teacher explains the lesson.”

100 IJALEL 8(2):97-101
iv. al mudir u yamnah al talbu almumiziin al jawaizz.
The director- NOM give 3sg the student clever gifts
“The director gives gifts to distinguished students.”
Discussion
In accordance with the procedures of the given data of the
practical part of the present study, the following topic of the
discussion:
In (1) the nominal construction Jawad is a single word
and stands in subject position whereas in (2) the nominal
construction Madkhal kuliat al tarbiya which consists of
three nouns and form as a phrase. Syntactic speaking, the
rst two sentences the nominls are constructed without verbs
and this structure can be called topic nominal sentence. If we
translate them to English the copular (is) should be insert to
give the correct meaning to English construct.
Conversely, nominals can also be occurred attributivel-
ly. The examples in (3and 4) the nominals “ jamilatun” as
single word occurred attributively. Moreover, the construct
nominal “tawilul alqama” used attributively as a phrase.
The (5) sentence(s), we can see different forms of
nominal constructions which contain verbs. In (5i) Alwaladu
yaqra the structure forms of Noun + Verb. Consequently,
sentence (5ii) “alwalad yaqrau sariaan”, the structure is
Noun + Verb + Adjective.
The form in (5iii). almudarisu yashrahu aldarsa.
Verb +Noun
Finally the nominal in (5 iv) “almudiru yamnah altul-
bu almumiziin aljawaizz”. The construct is Verb + Noun +
Adjective + Noun.
The genitive noun case refers modies the noun, so the
construction like this with two nominal in one structure
should be ordered xed. No other element can intervene
or lineage. The structure will be always the head noun then
modier. Moreover, The construction such this labeled ‘ con-
struct state’ takes supplementary form. In this structure, the
noun phrase will stand alone without deniteness markers
because of the modication of the noun head. The modier
occupies genitive case position:
a. markaz-u madina- ti
Centre-NOM -gentive-indenite
‘a City Centre’
b. markaz-u -l-madinat-i
Centre- NOM the City- genitive
‘ The City Centre.’
Examples above show that the head noun is makaz. This
head takes a case ending. It does not have a denite article,
nor an indenite sufx. The genitive modier, madina ‘city’,
does take a deniteness marker.
RESULTS
It is worth mentioning that the nominal construction in Ar-
abic shows the determiners, possessive and number. A case
plays a vital role in the construction of beside the gender, but
no independent head.
CONCLUSIONS
Building on the results, the study concludes that nominal
construction is an important to be understood for those who
required a foreign language. The study has arrived to a con-
clusion that the nominal structures in Arabic differs from
that of English because of the structures of two unrelat-
ed languages. Through the literature review that we have
presented and data analysis, the construction of nominals
in Arabic and English seem to be different in morphology,
syntax and semantics. This is because the two languages
are related to different branches (Indo-European and Se-
mitic Languages). The classications of the nominal con-
struction are presented the static nouns with distinct uses.
The noun behave like gerunds in English in case of having
a verb. Some nominal constructions are recognized through
the verbs like mudaris’ teacher’ from the base darsa ‘
taught’
Moreover, bases can assign accusative case in which ver-
bal bases can have a verb head. Because all bases have the
division and many of the features of nouns.
The nominal sentence is composed of two constitu-
ents: almubta, the initial noun phrase, and allkhaba, the
predicate. The two constituents are always assigned the
nominative case, and agree in terms of number, gender, and
deniteness.
Finally, the understanding of nominals aspect as a
grammatical category helps the translators and learners of
a foreign language the awareness of the uses and the pro-
duction morphologically, syntactically and semantically in
target language i.e. English. Classifying the nominal con-
structions in Iraqi Arabic Dialect is an important research
is not considered yet. Therefore, the researchers suggest to
be studied.
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