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<Paper uid="C90-3068">
  <Title>A Formal Description of Arabic Syntax in Definite Clause Grammar</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
1o Introduction
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Arabic has some features which lead to comlpex syntax different from those of the European languages. Moreover, Arabic grammar exists cmly in a descriptive form and there is no comprehensive formal rep~ resentation for it so far.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> The few attempts to give a formal mode~ for Arabic sentences were based on transformational generative grammar \[111, \[2\], \[3\] and others-but some linguists adopted more recent linguistic models such as Lexical Functional Grammar \[4\], dependency grammar \[5\] and functional grammar 16\].</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Selecting a suitable grammar formalism for Arabic and the formulation of the grammar itself is the subject of a big debate in the Arab countries nowadays. Our descriptio:n of Arabic syntax in Definite Clause Grammar is different from the attempts undertaken so far.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> 2. Deft,ire clat,se gram,,ar for Arabic syntax In this grammar, the arguments of non terminals are used to hold special features of Arabic words such as the definitely or indefinitely determined feature of norms which is essential to recognize many structures. Also, the ability of Definite Clause Grammar to provide a general treatment of context sensitivity through the proper use of arguments of non terminals makes it easy to account for agreemeats such as number, gender and person agreements.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Another important characteristic of l)efinite Clause Grammar, which suits Arabic, is the possibility of imposing extra conditions on the constituents of a phrase which must be satisfied for a rule to be valid \[7\].</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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