compare sentence in Arabic and English

1. English and Arabic Basic
Sentence structure

2. Course :
Translation 3
Supervised by :
Dr. Aisha Maashi

3. Prepared by:
*Manal Aied Al-Nomasi
*Maali Salim Al-Atawi
*Hamda Mohammad Al-Inazi
*Basma Ali Al-Inazi
*Shareefa Aied Al-Nomasi
*Anoud Abdullah Al-Inazi
* Manal Owied Al-Blowi
*Hanan Mubarak Al-Inazi
*Samira Salim Al-Howaiti

4. The aim is to present the
English and Arabic basic
sentence structure

5. Sentence Elements
Sentence
PredicateSubject

6. Subject :
The something or someone that the sentence is about. It
determines the Number and the Person of the verb.
Subjects are always nouns or pronouns .
 John comes late.
 John and Sam come late
 He comes late.

7. Predicate:
Contains information about the someone or the something
that is the SUBJECT.
The predicate includes basically a verb . It could also be
a verb with direct object/indirect object/adjective /adverb
 Sara eats.
 Sara eats an apple.
 Sara gave me an apple.

8. English sentence basic five
structures
Subject + Verb
* The boy plays.
Subject + Verb +
Adverb
* The boy ran quickly.
Subject + Verb + Noun
* The boy is a student.
Subject + Verb +
Adjective
* The girl is pretty.
Subject + Verb +
Object
* John kicks the ball.

9. Arabic Sentence Structure

10. There are two types of sentences in Arabic:
Equational/copula , and Verbal sentence
 Equational sentence
‫اسمية‬ ‫(جملة‬Jumlaa
ismiyaa)
 Which doesn’t have any
verb /verb less.
 ‫زيد‬‫طالب‬
(Zaid-un Talib-un)
 Verbal sentence ‫جملة‬
‫فعلية‬
(Jumlaa fieleeyya)
 A sentence with a verb
 ‫أكل‬‫محمد‬
(Akala Muhammad)

11. Elements of the Equational
sentence
Also Verb less Sentence.
 First component/ Mubtada
It acts like the sentence
subject and technically
referred to as (the topic).
‫الجو‬‫جميل‬
* it is definite and could be
noun or pronoun phrase or
clause.
‫العلم‬‫نور‬.
‫هو‬‫مجتهد‬ ‫تلميذ‬
 Second component /Xabar
It acts like the sentence
predicate and technically
referred to as ( the
comment)
‫الولد‬‫طويل‬
* It is mostly indefinite and
could be noun ,adjective,
verb, pronoun phrase ,
clause or even a full
sentence.
‫امل‬‫طالبة‬ * (noun)
‫المؤمنون‬‫هللا‬ ‫يحبهم‬ * (full
sentence)
‫الجو‬‫جميل‬ * ( adjective )

12. ELEMENTS OF VERBAL
SENTENCE
( THE COMMONEST TYPE OF SENTENCES IN ARABIC)
The verbal sentence has
three elements :
1. The verb
2. The subject
3. The object
The Verb
*can be transitive(has object). ‫ركل‬‫احمد‬‫الكرة‬ or
intransitive ‫الرجل‬ ‫ذهب‬
The Subject
*can be explicit noun ‫عمر‬ ‫جاء‬ or implied
pronoun ‫وصل‬*‫متأخرا‬*(‫هو‬)
The Object
*can be a noun ‫أكل‬‫البرتقالة‬ or pronoun
‫أخذته‬*‫الملعب‬ ‫إلي‬ ‫الطفل‬*( .‫انا‬)

13. Possible word order of the verbal
sentence
Verb – Subject –
Object
V S O
• ‫شرب‬‫خالد‬‫الحليب‬
Subject – Verb –
Object
S V O
• ‫خالد‬‫شرب‬‫الحليب‬
Verb – Object –
Subject
V O S
• ‫شرب‬‫ه‬‫خالد‬

14. Conclusion
There are of course some difference between English and Arabic
Language sentence structure . In English a complete sentence must
have a verb while in Arabic a sentence can stand in its own with out
a verb like that of the Equational sentence which could cause some
problems in translation.
The sentence
‫طويل‬ ‫الولد‬ could be translated into The boy tall while the correct
translation is The boy is tall.
• different structures in Arabic can be used to express the same
sentence structure in English which can cause translation problems.
• ‫خالد‬ ‫شربه‬ ‫الحليب‬ ‫شرب‬ ‫خالد‬ ‫الحليب‬ ‫خالد‬ ‫شرب‬
Wrong Drank it Khalid Khalid drank the milk Drank Khalid the
milk
Correct Khalid drank it Khalid drank the milk Khalid drank the
milk

15. References
- Brinton, Laurel J.(2000). The Structure of Modern English :A Linguistic
Introduction
- Fabb, Nigel. (2005). Sentence Structure. Routledge
- Radford, Andrew .(2010). An Introduction to English Sentence
Structure
- Alhawary, Mohammad T. (2011). Modern Standard Arabic Grammar: A
Learner’s Guide. Willey- Blackwell
- Rydin, Karin.(2005). A Reference Grammar Modern Standard Arabic.
John Benjamin's Publishing