English and Arabic simple sentence structure

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. Depending on the nature of the first word the Arabic
sentence is divided into:
 Nominal sentence ‫جملة‬
‫(اسمية‬Jumlaa ismiyaa)
 In which the first word is
a Noun
 ‫محمد‬‫أكل‬
(Muhammad Akala)
 Verbal sentence ‫جملة‬
‫فعلية‬
(Jumlaa fieleeyya)
 In which the first word is
a Verb
 ‫أكل‬‫محمد‬
(Akala Muhammad)

11. Elements of the Nominal
sentence
it is known as Equational sentence if it doesn’t contain any
verb 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. 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 Nominal 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.

14. 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