A Cardiff grammar analysis of the simple clause in modern standard Arabic / Hanaa Naji Saleh Samaha

• Main Author: Hanaa Naji , Saleh Samaha
• Format: Thesis
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: P Philology. Linguistics
• Online Access: http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15281/2/Hanaa.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15281/1/Hanaa.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15281/
• Institution: Universiti Malaya

A dearth of literature has been found concerning matching the language components of form and meaning while exploring different linguistic issues in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Therefore, this study aims to identify the syntactic and semantic properties of the simple clause in MSA by utilizing the Cardiff Grammar (CG) model of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The study examines both types of clauses in MSA: the simple nominal clause (NCl) and the simple verbal clause (VCl), with the focus on matching the syntactic properties with the semantic features of the Transitivity system network and integrating them into one single tree diagram structure. The data for the current study consists of five editorials and five articles selected from ten daily newspapers written in the Arabic language and published in 2018. The findings have revealed that the NCls express a ‘relational attributive’ meaning or different sub-types of ‘relational’ meanings when the Complement is a single item, phrasal, or filled by an embedded nominal clause. But when the Complement is filled by an embedded verbal clause, the NCls express various types of Experiential meanings based on the sense of Process (Main verb) used in the embedded verbal clause. Concerning the VCls, the findings have indicated that MSA does not include zero-role Processes because Processes are usually associated with at least one Participant Role (PR), two PRs, three PRs, and four PRs. The study has offered two alternative accounts for the ‘cognition’ Processes as either two-role Processes or three-role Processes and two alternative accounts for ‘communication’ Processes as either three-role Processes or four-role Processes. The findings have revealed the significant role of the words’ case endings in determining the function of elements in MSA. The study has also shown the CG model as an applicable analytical model used to describe languages at the level of form as well as the level of meaning.