Arabic-L:LING:my house query

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 01 Dec 2008
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1) Subject:my house query
2) Subject:my house query

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1)
Date: 01 Dec 2008
From:kalam la <lakalam at gmail.com>
Subject:my house query

The sentences are simple, but the topic is interesting.
I think grammatically, all of them are correct, but this might be  
better analyzed from information structure.

I asked three Egyptians.
All of them accept the first and second ones, but not the third one
Two of them prefer the second one most, and the third prefer the first  
one most.

I thought the reason of their preference of the second one is that the  
second sentence clearly show a topic-comment structure. ('from here'  
is the topic)

I'm also wandering if the regional difference might affect the  
acceptability/well-formedness, or it may be just personal preference.  
So I want to know where all those who answered this question come  
from. (In my case, three answers are from Egytpians)
So if our colleagues will post to this topic, I'd like to know their  
original region.

In Egyptian Arabic, there is another expression of ocomparison using  
positive degree ('urayyib = 'near') and preposition عan. So the  
coprresponding structure of the first and third ones are:
1) beet-i 'urayyib عan beet-ak min hena.
3) beet-i 'urayyib min hena عan beet-ak.

And they accepted the (3) in this expression.
So their inacceptance of the third sentence in MSA may be caused by  
awkwardness or ambiguiety of the target of comparison, i.e. 'min  
hunaa' and ''aqrab min', both of which  are expressed by 'min'?
If so, I assume those three Egyptians may accept the third one if they  
think of the aceptability of the third one many times. I haven't asked  
them yet, but it often happens to me in my language. And if so, it may  
be more related to information structure.
I think it's interesting if we can use dialects in some way to analyze  
MSA sentences.


Best regards.

Tomoko  Kondo  in Cairo

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1)
Date: 01 Dec 2008
From:kalam la <lakalam at gmail.com>
Subject:my house query

I add more information about my informanats in case it may be related.
Three Egyptians, One female (25 years old)  and two males (both  
19years old).
University degree. Living in Cairo.

Tomoko Kondo in Cairo

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