On Definiteness and Beyond: a Contrastive Analysis of Nominal Determination in English and Arabic
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On Definiteness and Beyond : a Contrastive Analysis of Nominal Determination in English and Arabic Yousra Sabra To cite this version: Yousra Sabra. On Definiteness and Beyond : a Contrastive Analysis of Nominal Determination in English and Arabic. Linguistics. Université de Toulon; École doctorale des lettres et des sciences humaines et sociales (Beyrouth), 2014. English. NNT : 2014TOUL3001. tel-00997561 HAL Id: tel-00997561 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00997561 Submitted on 28 May 2014 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. UNIVERSIT É LIBANAISE ÉCOLE DOCTORALE nº 509. « Civilisations et Sociétés euro‐ méditerranéennes et comparées » de l’Université de Toulon Laboratoire Babel EA 2649 ECOLE DOCTORALE des Lettres &et des Sciences Humaines & Sociales Département de langue et littérature anglaises de l’Université Libanaise THÈSE Yousraprésentée par SABRA 24 janvier 2014 soutenue le : pour obtenir le grade de Docteur en Sciences du langage linguistique générale linguistique anglaise Spécialité : et On Definiteness and Beyond A Contrastive Study of Nominal Determination in English and Arabic THÈSE dirigée par : Madame Dairine NI CHEALLAIGH Monsieur Mohamad B. SHAHAL Professeur émérite à l’Université de Toulon : Professeur à l’Université Libanaise JURYMonsieur BARDIERE Yves Madame CHENDEB Hiba Monsieur DICHY Joseph Maître de conference habilité à l’Université de Nice Monsieur EL KALADI Ahmed Professeur associée à l’Univ ersité de Al‐Jinan, Liban Monsieur JOLY Andre Professeur à l’Université de Lyon II Madame NASR Najwa Maître de conférenc esà l’Université d’Artois Professeur émérite à l’Université de Paris IV‐Sorbonne Professeur émérite à l’Université Libanaise UNIVERSITÉ LIBANAISE ÉCOLE DOCTORALE nº 509. « Civilisations et Sociétés euro‐ méditerranéennes et comparées » de l’Université de Toulon Laboratoire Babel EA 2649 ECOLE DOCTORALE des Lettres &et des Sciences Humaines & Sociales Département de langue et littérature anglaises de l’Université Libanaise THÈSE Yousraprésentée par SABRA 24 janvier 2014 soutenue le : pour obtenir le grade de Docteur en Sciences du langage linguistique générale linguistique anglaise Spécialité : et On Definiteness and Beyond A Contrastive Study of Nominal Determination in English and Arabic Madame Dairine NI CHEALLAIGH THÈSE dirigée par : Monsieur Mohamad B. SHAHAL Professeur émérite à l’Université de Toulon : Professeur à l’Université Libanaise Monsieur BARDIERE Yves JURY Madame CHENDEB Hiba Monsieur DICHY Joseph Maître de conférences à l’Université de Nice Monsieur EL KALADI Ahmed Professeur associée à l’Université de Al‐Jinan Monsieur JOLY Andre Professeur à l’Université de Lyon II Madame NASR Najwa Maître de conférenc esà l’Université d’Artois Professeur émérite à l’Université de Paris IV‐Sorbonne Professeur émérite à l’Université Libanaise Dedication I dedicate my thesis to my sweet little daughters, Yasmina and Véra, whose presence has given my life purpose, meaning and significance. Upon writing these words, a vision of your laughter and playful behavior occupies my mind and heart, and I cannot but be tearful for being away from you, yet grateful to have you in my life. I also dedicate this thesis to my devoted husband, Mohammad Chreim, who supported me through these three years of hard-work; who took care of our daughters compensating for my absence with patience and love; and who believed in me, appreciated the potentials I have going far beyond the devotion of any typical husband. I dedicate my thesis to my loving mother, whose heart and mind were always with me; who prays for me and wishes me success at every occasion and even without an occasion – a person who gives devotion, sacrifice and dedication a new dimension. This thesis is also dedicated to my father and siblings. Their words of encouragement urging for tenacity ring in my ears. They have been my cheerleaders. A special feeling of gratitude goes to Mazeda. I do not know whether she is going to read this, but thanking her is not enough. I will always appreciate all she has done for my family. Acknowledgment Completing my PhD degree is probably among the most challenging activities of my life. The best and worst moments of my doctoral journey have been shared with many people. It has been a great privilege to have two thesis supervisors, and consequently, it is difficult to overstate my gratitude to them both, Professor Dairine Ni Cheallaigh and Professor Mohammad Badawi Shahhal. With her enthusiasm, her inspiration, and her great efforts to explain things clearly and simply, Prof. O’Kelly encouraged me to abandon my previous topic on didactics and embrace a new domain – general linguistics. Throughout my thesis- writing period, she provided encouragement, sound advice, good teaching, wonderful company, career opportunities, and lots of good ideas and chances for attending conferences. I would have been lost if she had not taken me by the hand on my first arrival on the UTLN Campus and guided me through the doctoral program and supervised the completion of my dissertation. I wish to thank her for the extensive list of resources, for the long hours of reading, rereading and rewriting, and for the time spent on researching. I am indebted to her for improving my style in writing and for providing a stimulating and fun environment in which to learn and grow. She has been a tremendous mentor for me. My second debt of gratitude must go to Professor Mohammad Badawi Shahhal. I appreciate the fact that he accepted to supervise my thesis on linguistics while his interests and main field of expertise is in literature, more specifically in American poetry. I want to thank him for the time he dedicated to reading the thesis and make the arduous journey to France. I am especially grateful to Prof. André Joly, who helped me understand many linguistic terms, especially those related to the Guillaumian school. Not only did he patiently read and edited this thesis, but also encouraged me to pursue further research in different areas in comparative linguistics. I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Lebanese University, particularly the award of a Postgraduate Research Studentship that helped in paying for my traveling between Lebanon and France and other expense. Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………… 8 Part 1 - Literature Review .................................................................................. 14 CHAPTER 1 DETERMINATION ................................................................................................. 15 1.1. THE DILEMMA OF DEFINITION .................................................................................. 15 1.2. DEFINITION OF DETERMINATION .............................................................................. 17 1.3. WHAT IS AN NP? ...................................................................................................... 18 1.4. TYPES AND SEQUENCE OF DETERMINERS ................................................................. 31 1.5. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DETERMINER AND ADJECTIVE .............................................. 36 CHAPTER 2 THE SYSTEM OF THE ARTICLE IN ENGLISH ........................................................ 41 2.1. THE STUDY OF THE ARTICLE .................................................................................... 41 2.2. CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION OF ARTICLES .......................................................... 43 2.3. ARTICLES AND INCIDENCE ....................................................................................... 46 2.4. THE DILEMMA OF DEFINITENESS .............................................................................. 49 2.5. APPROACHING THE ARTICLES .................................................................................. 52 CHAPTER 3 THE NOTION OF DEFINITENESS AND INDEFINITENESS IN ARABIC ..................... 78 IN THE ARABIC LANGUAGE ............................................................ 78 لف DEFINITENESS .3.1 3.2. TRANSLITERATION / ROMANIZATION............................................................................... 84 3.3. PARTS OF SPEECH ............................................................................................................ 87 95 ...................................................................................................... ل INDEFINITENESS .3.4 3.5. WAYS TO ACHIEVE DEFINITENESS IN ARABIC ............................................................... 102 3.6. HIERARCHICAL LEVELS OF DEFINITENESS ..................................................................... 145 Part 2 - Corpus Analysis ................................................................................... 149 CHAPTER 4 THE METHODOLOGY AND THE CORPUS ............................................................ 150 4.1. METHODOLOGY OF THE ANALYSIS ................................................................................ 150 4.2. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BROOK KERITH ................................................................... 152 CHAPTER 5 THE