| Author(s) | Abdul Jawad T. Mahmoud |
| Affiliation | Assistant Proftssor, Department of European Languages and Translation, College of Languages and Translation, King Saud University, Riyadh. Saudi Arabia |
| Title | The Syntax and Semantics of Some Locative |
| Source | Journal of King Saud University. Languages & Translation. Volume 11, No 1. (1999/1419) |
| Abstract | Despite the fact that Arabic and English are typologically different, the locative alternations exhibited by the 'substance -adding' verbs have been shown in this study to have the same syntactic properties and the same subtle difference in semantic interpretation. The fmdings of the study have also shown that the Arabic and English 'substance -adding' verbs do not in fact constitute a homogeneous class. Based on syntactic and semantic evidence, these verbs have been categorized into three classes: the 'spray I rassa' class, the 'pour / sabba' class, and the 'fill / mala?a' class. Each class is associated with distinct syntactic behavior and distinct semantic interpretation. However, despite the striking similarity between the two languages with respect to the phenomenon under consideration, it has been found in this study that some English 'substance -adding' verbs allow for both the 'Iocative preposition' alternation and the 'with / bi' alternation, while their Arabic counterparts allow for the 'Iocative preposition' alternation only. This implies that an understanding of verb classes is essential for predicting what alternations will be possible when translating ITom one language to another. Thus, these fmdings could be useful in Arabic / English translation, as well as in the representation of these verbs in bilingual dictionaries. |
