Postnominal Clauses in English and Modern Standard Arabic: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This study investigates the internal structure of selected types of postnominal clauses (PNCs) in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and compares them with their counterparts in English. It particularly focuses on those PNCs which follow the head noun within an NP structure. This work addresses three types of PNCs in English: Restrictive Relative Clauses, Participial Relative Clauses and Complement Clauses. With regard to PNCs in MSA, four types of PNCs are addressed in this work. These are: (i) jumlat ?al-na9t 'The Adjectival Clause', (ii) jumlat ?al-hal 'The Circumstantial Clause', (iii) jumlat ?al-muDaf ?ilayhi 'the annexed to' clause and (iv) the relative clause which is preceded by ?al ?almawSula 'The Participial Relative Clause'. This study explores the main syntactic characteristics of each type of these clauses in both English and MSA.