Arabic Grammar
Thread poster: shamvi00
shamvi00
shamvi00
Czech Republic
Apr 24, 2014

Dear linguists,

I am writing an essay on cross-linguistic differences in metonymy and in my essay I provided some examples in Arabic. Now my teacher wants me to explain in detail and the sentence functions etc., which is very difficult since I am not and Arabic native speaker. Could someone, please help me out and check if I got it right. I would be very grateful.

qarar alqasr lkhfd rawatib .
The palace decided to lower salaries.
... See more
Dear linguists,

I am writing an essay on cross-linguistic differences in metonymy and in my essay I provided some examples in Arabic. Now my teacher wants me to explain in detail and the sentence functions etc., which is very difficult since I am not and Arabic native speaker. Could someone, please help me out and check if I got it right. I would be very grateful.

qarar alqasr lkhfd rawatib .
The palace decided to lower salaries.
predicate + det+ nom(SUBJ) + to verb + obj + ACCUS

Qala ra'ees ana albelad fe azmah
The head said that the country is in a crisis.
PREDICATE det+nom conj det+NOM PREP ACC

Ana shtreet volksvagen
NOM+ PREDICATE +ACCUSATIVE

Thank you very much
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Tim Friese
Tim Friese  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 13:54
Member (2013)
Arabic to English
+ ...
A couple issues Apr 25, 2014

First of all, note that proz is a site for professional translators, not academic linguists. Very few people on the site probably have experience with the kind of analysis you're looking for. However, my background is in generative linguistics, and I'm happy to help.

In order to figure out how to gloss these, it's important to know what you're interested in showing. There's a lot more morphology going on than what you've tagged, but you shouldn't mark everything just because you can
... See more
First of all, note that proz is a site for professional translators, not academic linguists. Very few people on the site probably have experience with the kind of analysis you're looking for. However, my background is in generative linguistics, and I'm happy to help.

In order to figure out how to gloss these, it's important to know what you're interested in showing. There's a lot more morphology going on than what you've tagged, but you shouldn't mark everything just because you can. You're also glossing things (like accusative) that you haven't indicated with a hyphen in the Arabic and that I don't expect are related to your point.

What are you trying to show? I see the metonymy in 1 and 2 but not in 3...

Lastly, you should use a more exact transliteration. Your current transliteration is pretty shaky, for example 'lkhfd' (?) 'qarar' (should be qarrar) 'rawatib' (should be rawaatib), 'fe' (IPA: fi).
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mopc
mopc  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 15:54
Member (2006)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
reply May 27, 2015

shamvi00 wrote:

Dear linguists,

I am writing an essay on cross-linguistic differences in metonymy and in my essay I provided some examples in Arabic. Now my teacher wants me to explain in detail and the sentence functions etc., which is very difficult since I am not and Arabic native speaker. Could someone, please help me out and check if I got it right. I would be very grateful.

qarar alqasr lkhfd rawatib .
The palace decided to lower salaries.
predicate + det+ nom(SUBJ) + to verb + obj + ACCUS

Qala ra'ees ana albelad fe azmah
The head said that the country is in a crisis.
PREDICATE det+nom conj det+NOM PREP ACC

Ana shtreet volksvagen
NOM+ PREDICATE +ACCUSATIVE

Thank you very much


In the second sentence, ra'is (=ra'ees) is better translated as 'president', not 'head' (ra's)

The first sentence needs voweling for lkhfd, which appears to be the prefixed preposition 'li' indicating purpose and the root 'خفض' (kh-f-D) meaning 'to lower'. I am not a native speaker of Arabic, only a poor second language learner, so I am not sure which voweling should go there.


The 3rd sentence is gibberish... street Volkswagen???


 
Tim Friese
Tim Friese  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 13:54
Member (2013)
Arabic to English
+ ...
Translation of third May 27, 2015

mopc wrote:

shamvi00 wrote:

Dear linguists,

I am writing an essay on cross-linguistic differences in metonymy and in my essay I provided some examples in Arabic. Now my teacher wants me to explain in detail and the sentence functions etc., which is very difficult since I am not and Arabic native speaker. Could someone, please help me out and check if I got it right. I would be very grateful.

qarar alqasr lkhfd rawatib .
The palace decided to lower salaries.
predicate + det+ nom(SUBJ) + to verb + obj + ACCUS

Qala ra'ees ana albelad fe azmah
The head said that the country is in a crisis.
PREDICATE det+nom conj det+NOM PREP ACC

Ana shtreet volksvagen
NOM+ PREDICATE +ACCUSATIVE

Thank you very much


In the second sentence, ra'is (=ra'ees) is better translated as 'president', not 'head' (ra's)

The first sentence needs voweling for lkhfd, which appears to be the prefixed preposition 'li' indicating purpose and the root 'خفض' (kh-f-D) meaning 'to lower'. I am not a native speaker of Arabic, only a poor second language learner, so I am not sure which voweling should go there.


The 3rd sentence is gibberish... street Volkswagen???


The translation of the 3rd sentence is pretty straightforward: "I bought a Volkswagen", but as for tagging, the OP would have to get back to us and let us know what they're looking for.


 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:54
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
I don't envy your task Jun 15, 2015

Trying to describe Arabic grammar using transliteration rather than the Arabic alphabet is like playing the game show Hole in the Wall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnFBM58UOYM

 


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Arabic Grammar






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