University of Mosul

College of Arts
Department of English
Advanced Course in Contrastive Linguistics

Contrastive Morphology

Presented by:
Maha Khaled Yaseen

Supervised by:
Dr. Wafa’a Mudhaffar Ali
 1. Introduction

The concept of “word” is fascinating in its flexibility. Meaning, it can be

perceived in various ways by language users. They think that they thoroughly
understand this concept. However, the concept of “word” is inherently complex,
and its formation involves even more intricate processes. Therefore, Morphology,
a significant branch of linguistics, is dedicated to studying the structure and
formation of words. Definitely, each language has its own formations and
structures of its words. Due to this fact, considerable work has been done to explore
the variation in the morphological processes of two or more languages. In other
words, the differences and similarities they have in their morphological system.
Hence, the concept of contrastive morphology emerged. Contrastive Morphology
is highly significant in the domain of contrastive linguistics. Therefore, the current
seminar tries to provide a comprehensive overview of contrastive morphology.

2. Morphology

Morphology is an essential subdiscipline of linguistics; according to

Crystal, it is “the branch of grammar which studies the structure or forms of words,
primarily through the use of the morpheme construct. It is traditionally
distinguished from syntax, which deals with the rules governing the combination
of words in sentences (2008).” Morphology, in particular, aims to provide the
principles that relate form and meaning, explain the formation of morphological
units and how they are interpreted, and demonstrate the organisational process of
morphological units in the lexicon in terms of affinity and contrast. Morphology
shows a considerable diversity across languages; that is, what is morphologically

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expressed in a language may be represented by a word in another—for instance,
the difference between English and Yoruba (a Nigerian language) in expressing
plural nouns. In English, it is expressed morphologically (ball\balls); on the other
hand, Yoruba uses a separate word (okùnrin means '(the) man', and the word àwon
can be used to express the plural: àwon okùnrin 'the men'). In addition, the degree
of morphology usage is not stable; some languages use morphology more than
others. Linguists sometimes use two terms to describe such a phenomenon. They
use the terms "analytic language" and "synthetic language" to describe languages
that make modest use of morphology and those that make fair use of it, respectively
(Haspelmath, 2010).

Morphology, as agreed upon by linguists, is the study of the

meaningful parts of words. However, there have been two broadly distinct ways of
looking at the overall role played by these meaningful parts of words in language.
One approach has been to downplay the status of the word itself and examine the
role of its parts within the overall syntax; the other has been to focus on the word
as a central unit. All linguists agree that, no matter which approach is followed,
meaningful elements within words can be perceived. For instance, in the English
word "watched," two elements of meaning are present: "watch" + past tense. The
past tense and the present tense are generally referred to as morphemes
(Malmkjaer, 2002). It is essential to indicate that a morpheme is “the smallest
meaningful part of a linguistic expression that can be identified by segmentation”
(Haspelmath, 2010). Morphemes are of two types: bound and free morphemes.
According to Yule (2022), bound morphemes are those forms that are meaningless
unless they are attached to other forms; on the other hand, free morphemes can
stand alone meaningfully without being attached to other forms.

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 Traditionally, the most basic concepts in morphology are word-formation,
inflectional morphology, and derivational morphology. These concepts are
language-specific, meaning that each language has its own conceptualisation of
them. Therefore, the diversity of these concepts in languages is tackled in the
following sections.

3. Word-Formation Process: Arabic Vs English

Different languages, such as English and Arabic, have differences in word
formation. English relies heavily on affixation, while Arabic relies on the
combination of roots with morphological patterns. Words in Arabic represent many
concepts represented by affixes in English. English employs productive methods,
such as blending and abbreviation, which result in the creation of short words.
Arabic does not have methods that are as productive as these. These differences
result in dissimilarity in the length of terms created in each language, as well as in
the differences in the length of English terms and their Arabic translation
equivalents. In other words, Typologically and structurally different languages,
such as English (a West Germanic language) and Arabic (a Semitic language), have
more differences than similarities in the methods of word formation they use to
create lexical items. For example, both languages use compounding and derivation
as two primary methods of word formation. However, in deriving new words,
English, as a concatenative language, relies heavily on affixation. This process
belongs to concatenative morphology, “in which syntactic linkage and grammatical
categories are signalled by the simple addition of affixes to stems (Brown & Miller,
2013, p. 95), as in the creation of the term antidemationalization. Lexically, it is a
single word, but morphologically, it is complex, consisting of six elements: a base
(nation), two prefixes (anti– and de–), and three suffixes (–al, –ize, and –

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 ation). Each of these six elements represents a specific concept; therefore, the term
is also semantically complex.

Arabic as a nonconcatenative language (or derivational language, lugha

‘ishtiga- aqiyya [cf. al-Qasimiyy 2008, 377]) relies on the combination of radical
consonantal roots (which represent lexical meaning) with morphological patterns
(al-siyagh al-sa rfiyya), which represent functional meaning to create words. In
other words, “a pattern is a bound and, in many cases, discontinuous morpheme
consisting of one or more vowels and slots for root phonemes (radicals), which
either alone or in combination with one to three derivational suffixes, interlocks
with a root to form a stem, and which generally has grammatical meaning” (Ryding,
2005, p. 48). Roots in Arabic consist of either two consonants (bilateral), three
consonants (trilateral), four consonants (quadrilateral), or five consonants
(quinquiliteral). The majority of Arabic roots are trilateral in structure. Through the
manipulation of morphological patterns, Arabic creates morphologically related
words denoting semantically related concepts. For example, the combination of the
trilateral root k-t-b "related to writing" with different morphological patterns
produces the following words:

Conversely, many of the concepts represented by prefixes and suffixes in English

are represented by full words (root and pattern) in Arabic. For example, the concepts
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“against,” “opposed to,” or “opposite of” denoted by the English prefix anti– are
usually expressed by full words in Arabic—namely, didda, mudaadd, or ‘aks.
English also uses other productive methods of word formation, such as blending,
conversion (or zero formation), backformation, clipping, and abbreviation. All these
English methods of word formation produce relatively short lexical items (see Bauer
1983, 226–38; Bauer, Lieber, and Plag 2015; Quirk et al. 1985, 1517–85). Arabic,
conversely, does have some of these methods, such as blending naht (e.g., hasbala
[from hashiya Allah], basmala [from bi-smi Allah], barmaa’iyy “amphibious” [from
barriyy and maa’iyy ]) and backformation (e.g., tasahḥur “desertification” [from
ṣahraa’ ]), but with limited productivity (Giaber, 2017).

4. Inflectional Morphology
The term “inflection” generally refers to phonological changes a word
undergoes as it is being used in context. In English, some common inflectional
categories are: number (singular and plural), tense (e.g., past, present), and voice
(active and passive). Generally speaking, Arabic words are marked for more
grammatical categories than English words. Some of these categories are familiar
to English speakers (such as tense and number), while others, such as inflection for
case or gender, are not. There are eight major grammatical categories in Arabic:
tense/aspect, person, voice, mood, gender, number, case, and definiteness. Six of
these apply to verbs (tense/aspect, person, voice, mood, gender, number), four
apply to nouns and adjectives (gender, number, case, definiteness), and four apply
to pronouns (person, gender, number, and – to a limited extent – case)(Owens,
2006).

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 Inflectional Morphology in English
1. English number

English has two forms of number: singular and plural. Nouns, pronouns,
verbs, the indefinite article, and demonstratives are marked for number. Adjectives
and the definite article are not marked for number. English subjects (head nouns
and pronouns) and verbs show number agreement. Singular subjects (head nouns
or pronouns) take singular verbs, and plural subjects take plural verbs. English
demonstratives and the indefinite article also show number agreement with the
noun they modify.

• Nouns:

In English, the class noun is associated with an inflectional category number.

The plural suffix /-s/ may be added to the base form, which is singular, to convert
it to plural. This plural suffix has a large number of allomorphs. The following is a
detailed description of the form, distribution, and meaning of the plural suffix.
(1) The regular plural suffix -s is added to singular nouns, e.g., cats,
(2) The suffix -es is added to singular nouns ending in e.g., buses.,
(3) The suffix /-s/ occurs in some plural invariable nouns. e.g.: scissors,
(4) Some singular nouns ending in -f have a regular plural: beliefs,
(5) The suffix /-en/ is used with or without additional changes; child, children.

• Verbs
In English, verbs are not fully inflected for number. Only the present third
The person singular is marked for number.
e.g.: He goes, she writes, it eats

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 • Pronouns
Distinctions occur between the first person (I, we) and the third person (he, she, it,
they). The second person pronoun (you) is unmarked for number. English also
makes number distinctions in definitive pronouns, e.g., one, ones; other, others.
• Determiners
English articles and demonstratives in some forms show number agreement with the
noun they modify. The indefinite article occurs only before singular nouns (a book,
an orange). Demonstratives have singular-plural forms:
This book \these books.

2. Gender
Gender is a set of classes that govern the forms of nouns, verbs, pronouns,
adjectives, and articles; specifically, in English and Arabic, these are the masculine
and feminine genders. English makes gender distinctions. Where they are made, the
connection between the biological category 'sex' and the grammatical category
'gender' is very close. Gender distinctions are not made in the article, verb, or
adjective. Some pronouns are gender sensitive.
The English pronoun makes gender distinctions only in the third-person singular
forms. He (masculine), she (feminine), it (neuter). It can refer to particular creatures
of either sex, such as a baby or a cat, and to sexless things, like a car, beauty, or a
book.
The others (I, we, you, they) are unmarked. (Stageberg:1967).
The English noun makes gender distinctions king/queen
Other variations: the variant is sometimes by adding: e.g. duke, duchess/ hero,
heroine

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 3. Tense and Aspect
The English language has two tenses, past and present. The present tense
inflectional suffix is -s, which is used with the third person singular
present: He leaves to London tomorrow.
The past tense inflectional suffix is -ed
past: he played.
There is no obvious future tense corresponding to the time/tense relation for the
present and the past. The future is denoted by means of modal auxiliaries - I will
go to school. (modal auxiliary).
In terms of aspect, there are two fundamental grammatical aspects: progressive and
perfective. The progressive aspect is combined with two tenses, the present and the
past. Aspect is shown by the use of suffixes {-ing} and {-ed} and/or auxiliary words
be and have, as in:
They are running
He has played

4. Mood
English verbs have two marked moods, in addition to the unmarked indicative
mood: the subjunctive and the imperative. The use of the former is limited to formal
style.

(1) Subjunctive Mood

The English subjunctive has two forms: present and past. The base form of
the verb realises the present subjunctive and has two uses: "mandative" and
"formulaic".

Mandative: I insist that the committee MAKE its decision today.

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 Formulaic: Long LIVE the King.

The past subjunctive, on the other hand, is realised by the past form of BE,
namely WERE.

If I WERE rich, I would build a hospital.

The subjunctive lacks the -s suffix that appears on the 3rd person singular
verb. Moreover, if the sentence contains a copula, BE is used for possible
conditions, whereas " were " is used for unreal or impossible conditions.

(2) Imperative Mood

A verb in the imperative mood expresses commands. Its form is the

uninflected base of the verb, e.g., Go out.

5. Voice

English verbs have an active form and a passive form. The passive voice in English
is a morphosyntactic operation in the sense that the head verb is morphologically
changed into its past participle form and is followed by a form of be that indicates
tense and aspect, and sentence word order is also changed, as in:
He plays tennis: tennis is played.

Inflectional Morphology in Arabic

1. Number: Arabic has three forms of number: singular, dual and plural.
Arabic subjects and verbs, demonstratives and nouns, adjectives and nouns, and
relative pronouns and nouns show number agreement. Singular subjects take
singular verbs; dual subjects take dual verbs and plural subjects take plural verbs.
Arabic plural is classified into regular and broken (irregular).

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 a. Nouns: Arabic nouns have three number contrasts: singular, dual, and
plural. Special inflectional suffixes mark the dual and plural. The dual inflectional
suffix has two forms: /‫ ان‬/ (NOM) and /‫ين‬/ (ACC/GEN)

Dual: NOM : ‫معلمان‬two male teachers'

‫معلمتان‬ two male teachers'

ACC/GEN: ‫معلمين‬ two male teachers'

‫معلمتين‬ 'two female teachers'

Arabic has two types of plural: sound plural (SP)and broken '(ablaut) plural
(BPY SPs are formed by suffixation. Masculine nouns take /‫ون‬/ (NOM) and /‫ين‬/
(ACC/GEN), whereas feminine ones take ‫ات‬/ /(NOM) and (ACC/GEN)

Masculine: ‫(معلمون‬NOM)' / ‫( معلمين‬ACC/GEN) ( teachers).

Feminine: ‫معلمات‬ (NOM) and (ACC/GEN) (teachers).

In contrast to pattern-governed SP, BPs are formed by stem-internal

consonant and vowel changes , such as

‫ تحفة‬: ‫تحف‬ (presents)

‫ يوم‬:‫ايام‬ )days)

b. Adjectives

Arabic makes number distinctions in adjectives. An adjective may be singular,

dual or plural. Dual adjectives are formed by adding the dual suffix /-aan, -aani/ to
the singular form in the nominative case; and by adding the suffix /-ayn, -ayni/ to
the singular form in the oblique (accusative or genitive case).
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 Singular , dual , plural

mas ‫مجتهد‬/ ‫ مجتهدين‬,‫مجتهدان‬ /‫ مجتهدون‬:

fem ‫ مجتهدة‬/ ‫مجتهدتان‬ ‫مجتهدتين‬ ‫مجتهدات‬

c. Verbs

In Arabic, perfect (past), imperfect (present) and imperative verbs are

inflected for number:

- perfect:

singular : ُ‫ شربت‬, َ‫شربت‬, ‫شربت‬, ‫شربت‬

dual : ‫شربا‬

plural : ‫ شربنا‬- َ‫شربن‬

- Imperfect:

singular :‫ اشرب‬-‫ تشرب‬- ‫ يشرب‬-‫تشربين‬

dual : ‫يشربان‬- ‫تشربان‬

plural : -‫تشربن‬-‫يشربون‬

- Imperative:, ‫ اشربوا‬- ‫ اشربي – اشربا‬- ‫اشرب‬

d. Pronouns

The Arabic pronoun system makes distinctions for number (‫انا‬,‫ انت‬, َ‫ انت‬,‫هو‬, ‫هي‬
are singular; ‫ انتما‬,‫ هما‬are dual; ‫انتم‬,‫ نحن‬are plural.

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 The relative pronouns ( ‫ الذي‬، ‫ )التي‬are singular; ( ‫ اللذيان‬، ‫ اللذيين‬، ‫ اللتذان‬، ‫)اللتين‬
are dual; and ( ‫ اللواتي‬,‫ الالتي‬, ‫ الالئي‬، ‫ )اليين‬are plural .

e. Demonstratives

Arabic makes gender distinction in demonstrative pronouns. Gender

distinctions are made in the singular, dual and plural forms. The following are the
masculine and the feminine forms of the demonstrative pronouns.

Singular:

Mas Fem

‫هيا ولد‬ ‫هيه بنت‬

‫ يلك معلم‬,‫ياك‬ ‫تلك معلمة‬

Dual :

Mas Fem

‫هيان رجالن‬ ‫ هاتان بنتان‬/ ‫هاتين بنتين‬

‫هيين رجلين‬

plural:

Mas fem

‫هؤالء رجال‬ ‫هؤالء نساء‬

‫اولئك رجال‬ ‫اولئك نساء‬

2. Gender

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 Arabic makes gender distinctions in nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns,
relative pronouns and demonstratives. There are two genders: masculine and
feminine. Persons, things and animals may be masculine or feminine.

Masculine gender is considered the unmarked form, whereas feminine gender

is considered the marked form, and it has three feminine markers as follows: ‫ ة‬as
in )‫)معلمة‬teacher , ‫ ى‬as in ( ‫)يكرى‬memory , and ‫ء‬as in ) ‫ (صذحراء‬desert , but we
have masculine nouns that have the same markers as in ‫ براء‬, ‫ طلحة‬. Additionally,
there are feminine nouns that lack feminine markers, such as ‫ ارض‬,‫زينب‬, and ‫كأس‬.
Semantic content has priority over form.

3. Tense And Aspect

The Arabic language has two tenses, past (‫ )الماضذي‬and present ( ‫)المضذار‬. The
past tense is marked by suffixes, whereas the present is marked by suffixes and
prefixes as well as internal vowel change. There is no future tense corresponding
to the time/tense relation for the present and the past. The future time is rendered
by means of the future particles( ‫سوف‬,‫)سذ‬.

past: )‫كتب‬
َ ( - He wrote / she wrote (( ‫كتبت‬

present )‫يكتب‬
ُ ( - He writes , / she writes ( ‫تكتب‬ (

future - ) ‫سيكتب‬
ُ ( ( )‫( سوف تكتب( سوف يكتبون‬

Arabic has two aspects: the perfect )‫(الماضذي‬and the imperfect )‫ (المضااع‬. The
perfect refers to past time (or completed action), and the imperfect refers to present
or non-past time. In Arabic, aspect-tense is shown by the addition of an aspect-
tense prefix to the base form of the verb.

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 4. Mood

Arabic has three mood categories: indicative ,)‫(العفع‬subjunctive ) ‫(النصااا‬,

and jussive ‫ (الجزم‬and they are marked by suffixation as follows:

Indicative: used with imperfect and perfect forms. In the imperfect, it has
(‫ )الضذذمة‬at its end, while in the perfect, it is expressed by ( ‫)الفتحة‬. e.g. ‫كت َ الطالب‬
– ‫الدرس‬

‫يكت َ الطالب الدرس‬

Subjunctive: Imperfect verbs are marked for the subjunctive mood by )‫الفتحة‬
( or elision of n ) ‫ (حذفَالنون‬.e.g. ‫اعيد ان ادرس – لن يدرسوا‬
َ

Jussive : Imperfect verbs are marked for jussive by ( ) ‫ الساااكون‬after use of

jussive particles( ‫ )لم –لما‬or elision of n )َ‫ )حذفَالنون‬or elision of final long vowels

)‫(حيف حروف العلة‬

Jussive: َ ‫ يلعب –لم يلع‬: ‫السكون‬

Elision of n: ‫ لم يأكلوا‬--- ‫ ياكلون‬:‫حيف النون‬

Elision of final long vowels: ‫ ارمي – ارم‬- ‫ يعطي – لم يعط‬: ‫حيف حروف العلة‬

Jussive particles: ‫لم اقل هيا – لما ينته اخوك من عمله‬

With imperative: ‫ لنيهب الى البيت – اكتبن الدرس‬- ‫ال تقل هيا‬-

5. Voice

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 Arabic verbs are conjugated to indicate the passive voice. The passive voice
in Arabic is mainly a morphological operation. The past and present forms of the
Arabic verb are changed into passive by simply changing the vowel pattern

‫ب الماء‬ ُ : ‫شرب احمد الماء‬

َ ‫شر‬

‫ب الماء‬ ُ ُ‫ ي‬: ‫يشرب احمد الماء‬

َ ‫شر‬

4. Derivational Morphology
Derivation means the formation of new words. This can be achieved through
morphological processes such as affixation, compounding, and abbreviations.

✓ Affixation
Affixation is a productive morphological process in both English and Arabic.
English derivational affixes are either prefixes or suffixes. The former are bound
morphemes that are attached at the beginning of a word, whereas the latter are
attached at the end of a word. In contrast, Arabic has not only suffixes and prefixes
but also infixes, which are inserted within the word.

(a) English Affixation (Quirk et al, 1985)

(i) Prefixes
English prefixes can be divided into two types based on the effect prefixation
has on the class of the word that receives the prefix: class-maintaining prefixes and
class-changing ones. The following are the meanings of the different prefixes,
together with examples of each meaning: (NOTE: Words are hyphenated to
identify the prefix. Words that usually are hyphenated are marked by a dagger.)

(1) Class-maintaining prefixes

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 • Negative: dis-trust, a-moral, in-complete, un-happy, inon-smoker

• Reversative: de-frost, dis-infect, un-do

• Pejorative: mal-treat, mis-hear

• Degree or size: arch-bishop, ico-heir, hyper-active, lmini-market, out-class,

over-coat, sub-normal, super-man, sur-tax, lultra-modern, under-play

• Orientation: lanit-social, contra-indicate, counter-act, lpro-student

• Locative: fore-man, inter-wine, sub-let, super-script, trans-plant

• Time/order: lex-president, fore-tell, lpost-war, lpre-war, ire-use

• Number: bi-plane, di-graph, poly-glot, linulti-purpose, semi-vowel, demi-

god, tri-cycle, uni-sex, mono-plane

• Neo-classical: auto-biography, lextra-affectionate, Ineo-Gothic, lpan-African,

proto-type, tele-gram, lyice-chairman

(2) Class-changing prefixes

Verb-adjective: sleep:a-sleep

Noun-verb: friend:be-friend; mesh:en-mesh; power:em-power

(II) Suffixes
Suffixes will be classified on grammatical grounds since they change the
grammatical function of the base.

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(1) Noun Suffixes

o Denominal nouns: mile-age, bore-dom, machine-ry, spoon-ful, manhood,

material-ism, theo-cracy, friend-ship, volunt-eer, ten-age, kingship, book-
let, duck-ling, farm-ing, usher-ette, wait(e)-ess

o Deverbal Nouns: account-ant, nomin-ee, teach-er, conduct-or, break-age,

surviv-al, general-ion, writ-ing, manage-ment

o De-adjectival Noun: sever-ity, kind-ness

o Noun-adjective: Chin-ese, sex-ist, Chomsky-an, Chomsky-ite, boy-ish

(2) Adjective Suffixes

▪ Denominal Suffixes: worri-ed, beauti-ful, snobb-ish, home-less, man-like,

man-ly, wind-y, music-al, Arab-esque, economic, danger-ous

▪ Deverbal Suffixes: read-able, act-ive

(3) Adverb Suffixes: quick-ly, north-wards, money-wise

(4) Verb Suffixes: activ-ate, length-en, solid-ify, critic-ize

b) Arabic Affixation

In Arabic, new words are derived by analogy 'al-'lštíqaaqu bi-l-qiyaas ‫االشتقاق‬

‫بذذذالذذقذذيذذذاس‬. Derivation involves arranging the root, the carrier of primary lexical
meaning, in different patterns, such as awzaan (‫)اوزان‬, siyaq ( ‫)صذذي‬, and qawaalib
(‫)قوالب‬, each of which has a specific signification. For example, derived verbs 'al-
'af aalu l-muštaqqatu ‫ 'األفعال المشذذتقة‬fall into 15 possible patterns, only 10 of which
are commonly used. Potentially, each triliteral root has a basic form and nine

17
derived forms. No verb has all its derived forms. The following Table presents
examples of the nine forms:

The derivation of Forms 6 to 10 involves the insertion of anaptyctic -i and

prothetic glottal stop.

Example: kataba َ ‫* َكت‬nkataba

‫َب‬ َ ‫نَ َكت‬
‫َب‬

*inkataba َ ‫*ان َكت‬inkataba

‫َب‬ َ ‫ان َكت‬
‫َب‬

Arabic also has derived nouns, which are derived through affixation. Arabic
nouns are either "primitive" jāmidah ‫ َجام َدة‬or derived muštaqqah ‫ ُمشتَقَّة‬. For example,
the lexical item mušmās "sunny" is derived ultimately from the primitive lexical
item šams "sun"; it is the active participle of the pattern muCCiC, from the verb
'ašmasa 'to become sunny', of the pattern 'aCCaCa. The function of this derivation
is to create a new lexical item in this semantic field.

Contrast

The following are the major differences between English and Arabic
derivation by affixation. First, English derivation involves affixation, ablaut and
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compounding, whereas Arabic derivation involves affixation, ablaut and root-and-
pattern formation. Second, Derivational affixation is very productive in English but
very limited in Arabic. For example, Arabic has very few derivational suffixes and
prefixes:

- **m- prefix**: instrument, time and place nouns, e.g.,

- **miftāḥ** ‫' مفتَاح‬key'

- **maktab** ‫' َمكتَب‬office'

- **mawʿid** ‫' َموعد‬appointment'

- **madxal** ‫' َمدخَل‬entrance'

- **-iyy suffix**: nationalities, e.g.,

- **filasṭīniyy** ‫' ف َلسطيني‬Palestinian'

- **-iyya suffix**: abstract nouns, e.g.,

- **ʿunṣuriyya** ‫صريَّة‬
ُ ‫عن‬
ُ 'racism'

Third, a large number of English stems are of Latin and Greek origin, e.g.,
con-tain, socio-logy. In contrast, Arabic derivational processes work primarily on
purely native roots. For example, the Arabic word for television is mirnaa(t) ‫مرناة‬,
which is a noun of instrument derived from the verb ranaa ‫' رنا‬He looked attentively
(with focus)'. Fourth, the root in English is fixed -- that is, it does not allow
infixation. In contrast, the root in Arabic is discontinuous: infixes may be inserted
between consonants, resulting in internal vocalic re-arrangement:

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 kataba ‫' كتب‬he wrote' kaatib ‫' كاتب‬writer'

Finally, the Arabic forms of 'at-tasgiir ‫' التصذذرير‬the diminutive' and 'an-nisba
‫'النسبة‬relational adjective' are commonly derived according to morphophonological
rules and patterns. In contrast, English has very few nouns that have diminutive
forms, e.g., booklet, Johnnie, doggie. Moreover, the derivation of nationality terms
by suffixation in English is not rule-governed, e.g., Chinese, Malaysian, Pakistani.

Implications for Translation

Arabic and English are not cognate languages, i.e., genetically related. They
are considerably different in the classes that are characterized by inflectional
affixes. Arabic has inflection in the nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, relative and
demonstrative pronouns; English has inflection in all these except adjectives. In
Arabic, Inflectional affixes may be prefixes (in verbs), suffixes; in English, they
are suffixes only. Arabic has three number forms: singular, dual, and plural;
English has singular and plural.

Translation of English Singular and Plural Forms:

Although English and Arabic differ in the type of number morphemes, their
variants, and distribution, the number morphemes are generally similar in meaning
in both languages. None of the English plural suffixes can be used freely with any
stem. The English plural suffix is characterized by having a large number of
variants. This makes English irregular plurals unpredictable, and the student has to
learn them as individual items. Translation students in particular have to learn
which stems take /-en/, and which take/-a/; whether such suffixes are allomorphs
of one suffix and whether they are distinct suffixes. There is practical value in
knowing that/-en/ in oxen is an allomorph of /-z/ in boys, for this tells us that oxen
similarly functions in English to /-z/ in boys and tables.
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 Translating Uncountable Nouns

Uncountable nouns refer to masses that cannot be easily thought of as

consisting of separate items, such as substances, liquids, gases, and abstract ideas.
Uncountable nouns have no plural form and hence do not take the plural suffix or
any of its variants. The Arabic equivalent to English singular invariable concrete
uncountable nouns is also a singular uncountable noun: wood ‫ ; خشب‬paper‫ ;ورق‬silk
‫ ;حرير‬gold ‫ ;يهب‬flour‫ ;دقيق‬rice‫ ; رز‬meat ‫ ;لحم لحوم‬fish ‫ ; سمك‬fruit ‫ فواكه فاكهة‬, rain ‫;مطر‬
water‫ ;ماء‬juice‫ ; عصذير‬tea ‫ ; شذا‬air ‫ ; هواء‬oxygen ‫ ;; اكسذجين‬traffic ‫; حركة السذير‬money
‫ ; مال‬noise ‫ ; ضذذجي‬space‫ ; فضذذاء‬time ‫ ; وقت‬history ‫; تاريخ‬The Arabic equivalent of
some English uncountable nouns is the sound feminine plural, e.g.: printed matter
‫ ;مطبوعات‬jewelry ‫;مجوهرات‬dissert ‫ ;حلويات‬machinery ·‫ معدات‬، ‫آليات‬

Unit words like piece, lump, item, sheet, a bar of, a lock of, a slice of, a stick
of can be used to divide uncountable nouns into countable units. When translating
English uncountable nouns in their countable form, the Arabic equivalent in most
cases contains a unit noun, and in some cases, a singular noun is used (Al-Jarf,
1994):

A piece of furniture: ‫قطعة اثاث‬

A length of rope:

‫قطعة حبل‬A sheet of glass: ‫لوح من الزجاج‬

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 References

1. Haspelmath, M., & Sims, A. (2010). Understanding Morphology (2nd ed.).

Routledge. [Link]

2. Crystal, D. (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (6th ed.).

Oxford: Blackwell. [Link]

3. Malmkjaer, K. (Ed.). (2002). Linguistics Encyclopedia (2nd ed.). Routledge.

[Link]

4. Yule, G. (2022). The Study of Language (8th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

5. Giaber, J. M. (2017). Differences in word formation between Arabic and

English: Implications for concision in terminology translation. Al-ʿArabiyya,
53-79.

6. Medjdoub, R. (2022). Verb inflection in English and Arabic: A contrastive

analysis study. Milev Journal of Research & Studies, 8(1), 414–422.
Abdelhafid Boussouf University Centre, Mila (Algeria).

7. Owens, J. (2006). A reference grammar of modern standard Arabic.

Cambridge University Press.

8. Al-Jarf, R. (1994). A contrastive analysis of English and Arabic morphology

for translation students: Course material. [Unpublished manuscript].

9. [Link].(1999) .A contrastive grammar of English and Arabic. Bethlehem

University Press.

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