Arabic-L:LING:more on 'anta wa'anaa

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Tue 22 Mar  2005
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:more on 'anta wa'anaa
2) Subject:more on 'anta wa'anaa

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1)
Date: 22 Mar  2005
From:Michael.Schub at trincoll.edu
Subject:more on 'anta wa'anaa

Dear Colleagues,
      Thank you for your input, but I think that none of the
sourceslisted cite  any actual (NOT theoretical) examples in Modern
Written Arabic  of  */anta  wa-anaa/;  */huwa  wa-anta/;  */hiya
wa-anaa/, etc.
      Am I wrong?  Has anyone else come across any specimens from actual
texts??  Thank you.

             Mike Schub

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2)
Date: 22 Mar  2005
From:Dilworth Parkinson <dil at byu.edu>
Subject:more on 'anta wa'anaa

Sorry for not letting everyone have a chance before jumping in, but I
couldn't resist responding to the above message before posting it.
First, I think we need to be careful about interpreting as 'rules'
things that may only be tendencies, or simply the unmarked form.
Pedagogic grammars often state things more starkly than they actually
are for simplification purposes.  This is the case, I believe, with the
'rule' about the order of pronouns: 1st, 2nd and 3rd, vs. 3rd, 2nd and
1st in English.  Arabic simply has a freer word order than English in
general, and since this is a matter a information presentation, it is
unlikely that there is a hard fast rule, although it is admitted that
1st, 2nd, 3rd is the unmarked form.
Second, I don't think it is necessary to assume Western grammatical
influence.  I'm actually quite sick of hearing the anecdote about how
Arabic newspapers have to quickly translate newswire stories into
Arabic and thus end up with lots of English calques.  Having sat in a
bunch of Arabic language composing, editing and 'correction' rooms, and
being a long term reader of both Al-Ahram and Al-Hayat, this just
doesn't ring true to me as a significant source of grammatical
influence.  There are internal, information presentational reasons why
alternate word orders might be used.
Anyway, to answer the question above, here is what a computer search of
one year of Al-Ahram and one year of al-Hayat produced for the relevant
structures (by 'forward' I mean using the canonical order, 1st, 2nd,
3rd; by 'backward' I mean the opposite order) (you may have to copy the
table below into an editor and set the tabs wider to be able to read
the information on the tables below):

Forward:

	Hayat	Ahram	Total
LnA wLnt	15	10	25
LnA whw	4	5	9
LnA why	1	4	5
Lnt whw	2	2	4
Lnt why	3	0	3

Subtotals	25	21
Grand Total			46


Backward:

	Hayat	Ahram	Total
LNt wLnA	8	6	14
hw wLnA	4	2	6
hy wLnA	3	0	3
hw wLnt	0	0	0
hy wLnt	0	0	0

Subtotals	15	8
Grand Total			23


Percent of total of backward ones:

	Hayat	Ahram	Total
LnA wLnt	34.8%	37.5%	35.9%
LnA whw	50.0%	28.6%	40.0%
LnA why	75.0%	0.0%	37.5%
Lnt whw	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Lnt why	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Subtotals	37.5%	27.6%
Grand Total			33.3%

These results indicate that at least for those two years in the Ahram
and Hayat, writers used the 'backwards' version about 1/3 of the time,
a rather significant amount for an unmarked or disfavored form, so one
must assume that the 'rule' or 'tendency' is not all that strong.  Some
examples of the backward usages (using my idiosyncratic transliteration
system, which should be at least partially decipherable--L is alif with
hamza above, p is shiin, c is 'ayn, v is dhaal, V is thaa'):

ynbgy clynA,    Lnt wLnA,    Ln ySbH kl wAHd mnA Lm~nA bAlvAt
Lnt wLnA    nfhm. jydAN.
ldyh mA yryd An yqwlh llmlk wHdh, fgAdrnA,    hw wLnA,    AlmkAn
lm nstTc    hw wAnA    An nnZmhA mnhjyAN
xyl Aly~ AnnA dAYmA hkvA Twl cmrnA:    hy wAnA    cle Alsryr bcd An
AstHmmt bAlmyAh AlsAxnQ wAlSAbwn AlmcTr
AjtmcnA fy pqty, rymwn    why wLnA
Lnt wLnA    nnZr Ely mjls Alpcb wnSly mn Ljl mSr!
LmA    Lnt wLnA    flA yhmnA kVyrA Ln yjyC AlqTAr fy mwcdh
AtfqnA cle mwASlQ AlnqAp,    hw wAnA,    fy kl AlmwADyc Alty thm AlslTQ
AlflsTynyQ
An Almlk dcAny llqAC lm yHDrh AlA    hw wAnA

Also, using Arabic google search for any of the 'backwards'
combinations turns up a rather large number of hits.

dil

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End of Arabic-L:  22 Mar  2005