Reverse and Reserve : a Cardiff Grammar account on reversibility in equational clauses in modern standard Arabic
The sequence of clause elements not only determines the syntactic relations of categories but also recognizes the semantic and pragmatic roles associated with them. Therefore, this paper aims to examine reversibility in verbless Equational Clauses (ECls) by investigating the syntactic, experienti...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2021
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18527/1/49805-172411-2-PB.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18527/ https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1440 |
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| Summary: | The sequence of clause elements not only determines the syntactic relations of categories but
also recognizes the semantic and pragmatic roles associated with them. Therefore, this paper
aims to examine reversibility in verbless Equational Clauses (ECls) by investigating the
syntactic, experiential (Transitivity), and textual (thematic and informational) features of the
reversed elements in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) within the Cardiff Grammar model (CG).
The data consists of 138 ECls collected from twelve articles in seven daily newspapers, out of
which thirty-one ECls have been identified as reversed. The findings have revealed that Subject
and Complement can be optionally reversed in ECls to achieve discourse purposes. In this case,
when optional reversibility represents the Unmarked Participant Role Theme, the reversed
elements retain none of their syntactic, experiential, thematic, and informational meanings. But
when optional reversibility reflects the Marked Participant Role Theme, the reversed elements
retain their syntactic and experiential functions but not necessarily their thematic and
informational meanings. On the other hand, obligatory reversibility has been argued to stem
from the syntactic constraints concerning the violation of the definiteness norm and the
pragmatic factors. Finally, the paper concludes that the association of the ‘Theme’ concept with
what comes early in the clause should not be taken as a universally unified concept applied to
all languages. The findings imply that in designing syllabi for language learning and teaching,
learners should be made aware of the significant interplay of linguistic and extra-linguistic
factors that cause the inversion of the clause elements. This would probably help them reflect
on understanding the sentences they receive and produce in different contexts. |
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