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<Paper uid="C90-3068">
  <Title>A Formal Description of Arabic Syntax in Definite Clause Grammar</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="346" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3. The develol,ed /ormal g,'ammar
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Due to the fact that there is IIO single basic word order for Arabic sentences, three basic sentence types were defined: a. Nominal sentence: a sentence that does not contain a verb or contains a verb which follows the subject.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> b. Verbal sentence: a sentence that contains a verb which precedes the subject. null c. Sentences with special structures such as vocative sentences.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Sentences are further classified functionally and according to their modalities. Larger sentences are also described in this grammar by conjoining sentences or embedding simpler sentences.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> We have used the grammatical categories together with the functional roles to define the syntactic structures. Grammatical categories alone were considered not sufficient to describe all the structures  since word categories in Arabic are globally classified into verbs, nominals and particles only. Nouns, adjectives and adverbs for example are differentiated in tt'te sentence according to their functions.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> This dual formulation increases the descriptive power of the grammar. In order to use this dual formulation to define the syntactic structures, some non standard definitions of grammatical categories were used.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> A nominal sentence (ns) is defined formally as composed from a 'mobtadaa' phrase, mbp, and a predicate phrase, predp: ns(ns(MBP, PREDP)) -~ mbp (N,G,m, -., MBP), predp (N,G,n,PREDP).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> A mbp is defined as a noun phrase (np) that can have 'motaalkat' which are either a prepositional phrase (PP) or adverbial. A predp can be one of the following:  * a noun phrase that can have 'motaalkat' null * a prepositional phrase or adverbial - a sentence which can be : - a verbal sentence - a nominal sentence (under certain conditions).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> Verbal sentences (vs) can be followed by either a subject phrase, sp, or a subject phrase and a complement phrase, cop: vs(vs(VP))-~ vp(T,V,S,I',VP).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> For verbs in the passive voice the sp is replaced by 'naabfael' phrase (nsp), which can be either a np or pp.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> For non-terminal argument definitions the reader is referred to sections 3.1.1., 3.1.2 and 3.1.3. Tlle values of the arguments indicated above are: a for active voice, n for indefinite determination, m for definite determination and - for acceptance of any value.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> Verb phrases (vp) are defined as follows: vp --~ (cop), (particle), verb, (cop).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12"> whereas noun phrases (rip) are defined as follows: np -~ (particle), noutL (postmoditiers). null Subject phrases are noun phrases whereas complement phrases modify the verbs and are one or more noun phrases (such as tile direct object) and/or prepositional phrases.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13"> The cop category is used to cater for the cases where the sp separates the verb from some of its modifiers, which is a characteristic of Arabic syntax.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="14"> Sentences with special structures haw,, different structures which vary from one case to anotller.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15"> Sp and cop can be relative pllrases and in some cases the predp can precede the mbp. Categories with no equivalent in English are indicated between single quotes and categories inside the brackets are optional.</Paragraph>
    <Section position="1" start_page="345" end_page="346" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.1. Non Terminal mgu,tents
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Non-terminal arguments are used to hold features of Arabic words necessary for recognizing some structures and for allowing agreements between the different costituents of the sentence. Arguments are introduced in the lexical entries of words and are inherited by the phrase in which the words are constituents, h't this grammar, arguments are defined as fol\]OWS: null 3.1.1. Arguments associated With verbs T transitivity, V voice, P person, S semantic feature.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> 3.1.2. Arguments associated with nouns N number, G gender, D definite or indefinite determination, I:' person, S semantic feature.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> 3.1.3. Arguments associated with pronouns N number, G gender, P person.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> M is an argument associated with senre non-terminals to test the possibility of modifying a verb witll objects.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> 3.2. Use of semantic features to reduce ambiguity in Arabic senstences.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> Semantic features art, used with verbs  and nouns in order to test the subject verb semantic agreement.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="6"> The use of the described semantic features in the developed grammar helps in the diifferentiation between the subject and the object in Arabic sentences, since it is not possible on purely grammatical basis (except in some exceptional cases) to differentiate between them.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="346" end_page="346" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.3. Examples
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> In this section, examples of the syntactic structures of a nominal sentence and a verbal sentence according to the developed grammar are given.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> 3.3.1. Example of a nominal sentence: Which means: the big dog is in the garden.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> In arabic, the definite article is a prefix, there is no copulative verb and direction of writing is from right to left.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="346" end_page="346" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
4. Conclusiml
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> This grammar has been implemented in a syntactic analyzer \[8\] developed in Prolog on a 1'C/XT-286 and tested on a large number of Arabic sentences.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> It is hoped that the developed grammar will contribute to the efforts undertaken recently in the Arab countries towards the development of a comprehensive, agreed upon, formal grammar for Arabic syntax.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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