<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Arabic-L: Mon 01 Dec 2008</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <<a href="mailto:dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu">dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu</a>></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">[To post messages to the list, send them to <a href="mailto:arabic-l@byu.edu">arabic-l@byu.edu</a>]</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="mailto:listserv@byu.edu">listserv@byu.edu</a> with first line reading:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> unsubscribe arabic-l ]</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">-------------------------Directory------------------------------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1) Subject:my house query</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">2) Subject:my house query</div><div><br></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1)</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Date: 01 Dec 2008</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">From:kalam la <<a href="mailto:lakalam@gmail.com">lakalam@gmail.com</a>></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Subject:my house query</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div dir="ltr"><div>The sentences are simple, but the topic is interesting.</div><div>I think grammatically, all of them are correct, but this might be better analyzed from information structure.</div><div> </div><div>I asked three Egyptians.</div><div>All of them accept the first and second ones, but not the third one</div><div>Two of them prefer the second one most, and the third prefer the first one most.</div><div><div> </div><div>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)</div></div><div> </div><div>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)</div><div><strong>So if our colleagues will post to this topic, I'd like to know their original region. </strong></div><div> </div><div>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:</div><div>1) beet-i 'urayyib عan beet-ak min hena.</div><div>3) beet-i 'urayyib min hena عan beet-ak.</div><div> </div><div><div>And they <strong>accepted the (3)</strong> in this expression. </div></div><div>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'?</div><div>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.</div><div>I think it's interesting if we can use dialects in some way to analyze MSA sentences.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Best regards.</div><div> </div><div>Tomoko Kondo in Cairo </div><div><br></div></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1)</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Date: 01 Dec 2008</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">From:kalam la <<a href="mailto:lakalam@gmail.com">lakalam@gmail.com</a>></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Subject:my house query</div><div><br></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>I add more information about my informanats in case it may be related.</div><div>Three Egyptians, One female (25 years old) and two males (both 19years old).</div><div>University degree. Living in Cairo.<br></div><div> </div><div>Tomoko Kondo in Cairo<br></div></div><br></div></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">End of Arabic-L: 01 Dec 2008</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>