COMPLEX PREPOSITIONS IN CONTEMPORARY MODERN STANDARD ARABIC
COMPLEX PREPOSITIONS IN CONTEMPORARY MODERN STANDARD ARABIC

Summary/Abstract: In this synchronic study we scrutinize multi-word sequences of different structure and complexity that fulfil the function of prepositions in contemporary Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Many of these structures such as bi-sababi “because of”, natīǧatan li-“as a result of”, ‘alā r-raġmi min “in spite of”, bi-ġaḍḍi n-naḍari ‘an “regardless of” and ǧanban ʼilā ǧanbin ma‘a “side by side with”, which occur especially in more formal registers of MSA (including Media Arabic), underwent the process of grammaticalization and became a part of the Arabic lexicon. We gathered 230 multi-word sequences of this type and analyzed them as to their structure, syntax and semantics using a large corpus of newspaper texts. The complex prepositions in question, representing Prep-N, Prep1-N-Prep2 and indefNacc -Prep structural types, are used mainly as heads of prepositional phrases functioning as adjuncts, which express miscellaneous semantic relations.

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