NON-RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES IN ARABIC: BETWEEN SYNTACTIC DEPENDENCY AND SEMANTIC INDEPENDENCE

NON-RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES IN ARABIC: BETWEEN SYNTACTIC DEPENDENCY AND SEMANTIC INDEPENDENCE

DIZDAR, Elma

Although there are no formal differences between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in Arabic, these two types of Arabic relative clauses function in significantly different ways. Restrictive relative clauses, aiming to delimit the reference of the head noun, fully deserve their role as noun-phrase modifiers, and can usually be replaced by other noun-phrase modifiers, such as adjectives and prepositional phrases. Unlike their restrictive counterparts, non-restrictive relative clauses operate based on the assumption that the head-noun reference is already defined. Thus they aim merely to present new information and can consequently be replaced by a wide range of structures, from various types of adverbial clauses to independent sentences. This paper focuses on analysis of semantic implications of non-restrictive relative clauses in Arabic. Although there have been references in literature linking non-restrictive relative clauses with reason adverbials, the paper aims to show that non-restrictive clauses, given their semantic independence, are used to express a wide variety of relations, from those usually expressed by adverbial clauses to those so difficult to define that they tend to take the form of independent sentence. The diversity of semantic implications of Arabic non-restrictive clauses is discussed both based on mechanisms of their paraphrase, i.e. replacement in Arabic, and their existing translations into other languages. Finally, Arabic non-restrictive relative clauses are shown to be stylistically more effective and attractive means of conveying the same meaning than other structures they can be replaced by.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2014

3415