abstract: ABSTRACT This study explores some grammatical aspects of Rural Palestinian Arabic (RPA), spoken in the vicinity of the city of Tulkarm in the Northwest part of the West Bank, and compares the variety to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Urban Palestinian Arabic (UPA). The study introduces an overview of the Arabic language and its colloquial dialects and the status of diglossia in the Arab world. Subject-verb agreement in MSA and RPA is also discussed. The focus of this study is on the pronominal system and negation in both MSA and RPA. It investigates the correlations between dependent subject pronouns and independent pronouns and their phonological and syntactic relationships. I argue that dependent subject pronouns are reduced forms of the independent subject pronoun. The study explains how dependent subject pronouns are formed by deleting the initial syllable, except for the first person singular and the third person masculine plural, which use suppletive forms instead. Dependent object pronouns are also derived from their independent counterparts by the deletion of the second syllable, with the exception of third person plural pronouns, which take the same form as clitics attached to their hosts. I argue that dependent subject pronouns are agreement affixes used to mark verb argument features, whereas pronominal object and possessive pronouns are clitics attached to their hosts, which can be verbs, nouns, prepositions, and quantifiers. This study investigates other uses of subject pronouns, such as the use of third person pronouns as copulas in both MSA and RPA. Additionally, third person pronouns are used as question pronouns for yes/no questions in RPA. The dissertation also explores the morphosyntactic properties of sentential negation in RPA in comparison to sentential negation in MSA. The study shows that the negative markers ma: and -iš are used to negate perfective and imperfective verbs, while muš precedes non-verbal predicates, such as adjectives, prepositional phrases (PPs), and participles. The main predicate in the negative phrase does not need the noun phrase (NP) to raise to T if there is no need to merge with the negative element. Keywords: Standard Arabic, Rural Palestinian Arabic, Urban Palestinian Arabic, independent pronouns, dependent pronouns, pronominal clitics, copula pronouns, negation / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

Die vorliegende Arbeit soll beispielhaft die Verwendung von dialektalen und hochsprachlichen Elementen im gesprochenen Arabisch untersuchen. Dabei erhebt sie jedoch keinen dialektologischen Anspruch, sondern das Hauptaugenmerk liegt vielmehr auf der interdialektalen Kommunikation gebildeter Sprecher. Im weitesten Sinne soll diese Arbeit einen Beitrag dazu zu leisten, die Frage nach einer dialektübergreifenden, gehobenen arabischen Umgangssprache zu beantworten. Bei der Wahl des Themas war die Überlegung ausschlaggebend, dass Studenten der arabischen Sprache und insbesondere des Faches Dolmetschen in ihrem Studium ausschließlich die moderne arabische Schriftsprache vermittelt wird. Außerhalb der Lehrveranstaltungen werden sie jedoch bald mit den arabischen Dialekten konfrontiert, die die eigentliche Muttersprache arabischer Sprecher darstellen. Aus diesem Grund kommen sie nicht umhin, sich zumindest passive Sprachkenntnisse in einigen dieser Dialekte anzueignen, um nicht nur Nachrichtensendungen auf Hocharabisch folgen zu können, sondern auch mit Muttersprachlern aus verschiedenen Regionen der arabischen Welt kommunizieren zu können. Besonders für Studierende des Faches Dolmetschen ist es im Hinblick auf ihre spätere Tätigkeit nicht ratsam, sich auf eine bestimmte Region festzulegen. Zudem sind für Dolmetscher in erster Linie fachliche Themen, etwa aus den Bereichen Politik und Wirtschaft, und vergleichsweise formelle Anlässe von Interesse. Für die Bearbeitung des Themas wurde daher eine Fernsehsendung ausgewählt, die nicht nur die Möglichkeit bietet, die Kommunikation zwischen Sprechern mit unterschiedlichem dialektalem Hintergrund zu untersuchen, sondern auch Themengebiete behandelt, die für die spätere Dolmetschertätigkeit der Studierenden relevant sind. Die Wahl der politischen Talkshow Ḥiwār al-ᶜArab, in der Themen von öffentlichem Interesse von Fachleuten aus verschiedenen arabischen Ländern diskutiert werden, bot sich daher an. Um den Rahmen einer Studienabschlussarbeit nicht zu sprengen, wurde nur eine Ausgabe der genannten Sendung für die sprachwissenschaftliche Analyse herangezogen. Die Redebeiträge der verschiedenen Sprecher, die in der untersuchten Ausgabe auftreten, sollen auf dialektale und hochsprachliche Elemente untersucht werden, um so Arabischlernenden einen Einblick zu verschaffen, welche Arten von Dialektinterferenzen in realen Kommunikationssituationen auftreten können. Nach Möglichkeit soll zudem bereits eine erste grobe Einteilung verschiedener Stufen von Dialektinterferenzen vorgenommen werden. Dabei konnten jedoch nicht alle auftretenden sprachlichen Merkmale berücksichtigt werden. Aus diesem Grund wurden für jeden Sprecher nur die jeweils wichtigsten phonetischen, lexikalischen und grammatischen Eigenheiten beschrieben. Auch wurden die Studenten, die sich nur sehr kurz in der Sendung äußern, bei der Analyse außer Acht gelassen. Da für die Talkshow Ḥiwār al-ᶜArab keine schriftliche Fassung vorliegt, wurde die untersuchte Ausgabe der Sendung nach Gehör transkribiert. Dabei wurde versucht, der tatsächlichen Aussprache so weit wie möglich gerecht zu werden. Um die Transkription auch ohne Kenntnis der sprachlichen Analyse so verständlich wie möglich zu halten, wurden jedoch nicht alle beobachteten phonetischen Merkmale in der Umschrift wiedergegeben. Gegebenenfalls wurden bestimmte Laute in der Analyse näher beschrieben. Die Wiedergabe in IPA-Transkription steht dabei in eckigen Klammern. Inhaltlich wurden lediglich sehr schlecht hörbare Satzteile und einzelne vom Moderator eingeworfene Wörter ohne besondere Bedeutung („Ṭayyib, ṭayyib…“) ausgelassen, die nicht zum Ziel haben, den Redenden zu unterbrechen. Satzzeichen wurden nach eigenem Ermessen und Intonation des Sprechers gesetzt und dienen lediglich der besseren Lesbarkeit.

The present dissertation investigates grammatical gender representation and processing in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as a first (L1) and a second (L2) language. It mainly examines whether L2 can process gender agreement in a native-like manner, and the extent to which L2 processing is influenced by the properties of the L2 speakers’ L1. Additionally, it examines whether L2 gender agreement processing is influenced by noun animacy (animate and inanimate) and word order (verb-subject and subject-verb). A series of experiments using both online and offline techniques were conducted to address these questions. In all of the experiments, gender agreement between verb and nouns was examined. The first series of experiments examined native speakers of MSA (n=49) using a self-paced reading task (SPR), an event-related potential (ERP) experiment, and a grammaticality judgment (GJ) task. Results of these experiments revealed that native speakers were sensitive to grammatical violations. Native speakers showed longer reaction times (RT) in the SPR task, and a P600 effect in the ERP, in responses to sentences with mismatched gender agreement as compared to sentences with matched gender agreement. They also performed at ceiling in the GJ task. The second series of experiments examined L2 speakers of MSA (n=74) using an SPR task, and a GJ task. Both experiments included adult L2 speakers whom were divided into two subgroups, -Gender and +Gender, based on whether or not their L1s has a grammatical gender system. The results of both experiments revealed that both groups were sensitive to gender agreement violations. The L2 speakers showed longer RTs, in the SPR task, in responses to sentences with mismatched gender agreement as compared to sentences with matched gender agreement. No difference was found between the L2 groups in this task. The L2 speakers also performed well in the GJ task, as they were able to correctly identify the grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. Interestingly in this task, the -Gender group outperformed +Gender group, which could be due to proficiency in the L2 as the former group obtained a better score on the proficiency task, or it could be that +Gender group showed negative transfer from their L1s. Based on the results of these two experiments, this dissertation argues that late L2 speakers are not restricted to their L1 grammar, and thus, they are able to acquire gender agreement system of their L2 even if this feature is not instantiated in their L1. The results provide converging evidence for the FTFA rather than FFFH model, as it appears that the -Gender group was able to reset their L1 gender parameter according to the L2 gender values. Although the L2 speakers were advanced, they showed slower RTs than the native speakers in the SPR task, and lower accuracy in the GJT. However, it is possible that they are still in the process of acquiring gender agreement of MSA and have not reached their final stage of acquisition. This is supported by the fact that some L2 speakers from both -Gender and +Gender groups performed as well as native speakers in both SPR and GJ tasks. Regarding the effect of animacy, the L2 speakers had slower RT and lower accuracy on sentences with inanimate nouns than on those with animate ones, which is in line with previous L2 studies (Anton-Medez, 1999; Alarcón, 2009; Gelin, & Bugaiska, 2014). The native speakers, on the other hand, showed no effect of animacy in both SPR task and GJT. Further, no N400 effect was observed as a result of semantic gender agreement violations in the ERP experiment. Finally, the results revealed a potential effect of word order. Both the native and L2 speakers showed longer RTs on VS word order than SV word order in the SPR task. Further the native speakers showed earlier and greater P600 effect on VS word order than SV word order in the ERP. This result suggests that processing gender agreement violation is more complex in the VS word order than in the SV word order due to the inherent asymmetry in the subject-verb agreement system in the two-word orders in MSA.

This study develops a new approach to agreement variation in Standard Arabic (SA) and Rural Jordanian Arabic (RJA) based on the Probe-Goal framework of Chomsky (2000, 2001). The key patterns investigated are the variation in fullness of agreement in the SV and VS word orders, the relationship between agreement and clitic doubling, and the patterning of agreement with conjoined subjects. The thesis argues for a connection between agreement, clitic doubling, and word order. Full agreement on T (in person, number, and gender) causes the subject to move to [Spec, TP], deriving SV order. However, partial agreement on T (lacking person) creates only a partial copy of the subject in [Spec, TP]. This partial copy is realized as a pronominal clitic in some contexts (giving CLsVS word order) and as null pro in other contexts (giving VS word order). This approach enables a unified account of various differences in the patterning of agreement in SA and RJA. Turning to the more complex case of agreement with conjoined subjects, both varieties exhibit full resolved agreement with preverbal conjoined subjects. With postverbal conjoined subjects, however, there is variation: SA allows only partial agreement with the first conjunct while RJA allows partial agreement either with the first conjunct or with the entire conjoined phrase, depending on the features and the order of the conjoined nominals. The Probe-Goal framework augmented with Multiple Agree and the Continuity condition (Nevins 2007, 2011) will be employed to account for the choice between these two options in RJA. The more general theoretical conclusion is that the variation in agreement patterns is constrained by the internal hierarchical structure of φ-features on the probe. I propose that the probe has the same hierarchical structure as a pronoun (i.e. a DP). This proposal makes predictions about the range of possible variation in the features that are active in agreement and connects to broader issues such as the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis (Jelinek 1984) and the diachronic relationship between pronouns and agreement markers. / May 2017

Cette étude porte sur l'arabe standard parlé par des locuteurs algériens (trois femmes et trois hommes). Notre objectif était d'apporter des précisions quant au système consonantique de cette langue, en particulier les fricatives. Ce système est riche en lieux d'articulation: labiodental,interdental, alvéolaire, postalvéolaire, uvulaire, pharyngal et laryngale. Il est également caractérisé par le phénomène de la pharyngalisation lié à deux paires de fricatives, les interdentales et les alvéolaires. A travers cette étude à visée acoustique, nous nous sommes focalisée sur les propriétés relatives au bruit de friction des fricatives, en calculant son centre de gravité (CoG). Nous nous sommes intéressée également aux caractéristiques des quatre premiers formants des voyelles [a]brève et [a:] longue à proximité des fricatives, dans les séquences d'ordre CV. Puis, nous avons étudié la durée segmentale absolue et relative, l'intensité relative et l'harmonicité (HNR) des quatorze fricatives de cette langue, en ciblant leur lieu d'articulation, et le trait phonologique de leur voisement. Enfin, nous avons relevé les particularités phonétiques des lieux postérieurs, uvulaire, pharyngal et laryngal qui se sont révélés intéressants en tant qu'indices phonétiques discriminants. / This acoustic study focuses on standard Arabic, spoken by Algerian subjects (three female and three male subjects). The main thrust of the investigations is to provide clarification on the consonantal system of the language, and more particularly on the acoustic properties of its fricatives. This system is rich in places of articulation: labiodental, interdental, alveolar, postalveolair, uvular, pharyngeal and laryngeal. It is also characterized by the phenomenon of pharyngalisation, appearing in two pairs of fricatives: the interdental and alveolar fricatives. Based on our acoustic study, we have observed the properties relating to the frication noise of fricatives by calculating their center of gravity (CoG). We have also discussed the characteristics of the first four formants of the back vowels, short [a] and long [a:], in the vicinity of the fricatives, in CV sequences. Then, we have study absolute and relative segmental durations, relative intensity and harmonicity (HNR) of the fourteen fricatives of our study. This analyse was carried out to target their place of articulation and the phonological voicing contrast. Finally, we have tried to address the features of posterior locations, uvular, pharyngeal and laryngeal, which proved to be relevant as contrastive phonetic cues

Le développement d’outils de traitement automatique pour les dialectes de l’arabe se heurte à l’absence de ressources pour ces derniers. Comme conséquence d’une situation de diglossie, il existe une variante de l’arabe, l’arabe moderne standard, pour laquelle de nombreuses ressources ont été développées et ont permis de construire des outils de traitement automatique de la langue. Étant donné la proximité des dialectes de l’arabe, avec l’arabe moderne standard, une voie consiste à réaliser une conversion surfacique du dialecte vers l’arabe mo- derne standard afin de pouvoir utiliser les outils existants pour l’arabe standard. Dans ce travail, nous nous intéressons particulièrement au traitement du dialecte tunisien. Nous proposons un système de conversion du tunisien vers une forme approximative de l’arabe standard pour laquelle l’application des outils conçus pour ce dernier permet d’obtenir de bons résultats. Afin de valider cette approche, nous avons eu recours à un étiqueteur morphosyntaxique conçu pour l’étiquetage de l’arabe standard. Ce dernier permet d’assigner des étiquettes morphosyntaxiques à la sortie de notre système de conver- sion. Ces étiquettes sont finalement projetées sur le tunisien. Notre système atteint une précision de 89% suite à la conversion qui repré- sente une augmentation absolue de ∼20% par rapport à l’étiquetage d’avant la conversion. / Developing natural language processing tools usually requires a large number of resources (lexica, annotated corpora, ...), which often do not exist for less- resourced languages. One way to overcome the problem of lack of resources is to devote substantial efforts to build new ones from scratch. Another approach is to exploit existing resources of closely related languages. Taking advantage of the closeness of standard Arabic and its dialects, one way to solve the problem of limited resources, consists in performing a conversion of Arabic dialects into standard Arabic in order to use the tools developed to handle the latter. In this work, we focus especially on processing Tunisian Arabic dialect. We propose a conversion system of Tunisian into a closely form of standard Arabic for which the application of natural language processing tools designed for the latter provides good results. In order to validate our approach, we focused on part-of-speech tagging. Our system achieved an accuracy of 89% which presents ∼20% of absolute improvement over a standard Arabic tagger baseline.

L’enseignement du lexique arabe à l’Institut supérieur des langues de Damas n’est pas encore à la hauteur des attentes de l’apprenant pour lui fournir une bonne connaissance lexicale. Les outils pour développer ce travail n’ont pas évolué dans les méthodes utilisées. Dans ces méthodes, on applique toujours l’approche classique du lexique. Cette approche n’est plus valable au moment où le critère de fonctionnalité lié à la notion de fréquence a commencé à avoir sa place dans la nouvelle conception du lexique. Ce projet de thèse vise donc à contribuer à l’enseignement de l’arabe langue étrangère à l'Institut supérieur des langues en profitant des recherches faites pour l'enseignement d’autres langues vivantes, et spécialement celles qui s’inscrivent dans le Cadre européen commun de référence pour les langues (CECRL). / Standard Arabic is actually the language of writing. The speeches made in the media and in some TV series are, in most cases, a literal restatement of visual coding of the language (text written in standard Arabic) in auditory coding (reading aloud the written text). Similarly, everyday Arabic does not have the same coding as Arabic that exists in the media, in books and in Arabic language courses. This gives the impression that the current teaching content is not suitable for a usage outside the language classroom.This thesis deals with the problem of the composition of the lexical content of textbooks of teaching Arabic L2 of Higher Language Institute of Damascus (Syria). A content that does not withdraw from standard norms (focus on the adaptation of a classic or moderne standard Arabic), but seeks to be as close as possible to the daily practice of language that is very rich in dialect. The current content represents the traditional approach of the lexicon, which focuses on the semantics of words and phrases while the communicative features of these language elements are little treated. The proposed analysisshows the weak points in the structure of textbooks now in use. It is based on the criteria of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the skill references of Niveaux pour le français that offer an approach batter adapted to the preparation of the lexicon in recent textbooks of teaching moderne languages. This analysis focuses on finding the crossing points in standard and spoken Arabic in Syria to build a route map that allows the learner an easy passage from what he learns in the Arabic language classroom to Arabic that is really practiced in everyday communications. It provides some solutions to reduce the gap between these two usages of Arabic.

La description des termes dans les ressources terminologiques traditionnelles se limite à certaines informations, comme le terme (principalement nominal), sa définition et son équivalent dans une langue étrangère. Cette description donne rarement d’autres informations qui peuvent être très utiles pour l’utilisateur, surtout s’il consulte les ressources dans le but d’approfondir ses connaissances dans un domaine de spécialité, maitriser la rédaction professionnelle ou trouver des contextes où le terme recherché est réalisé. Les informations pouvant être utiles dans ce sens comprennent la description de la structure actancielle des termes, des contextes provenant de sources authentiques et l’inclusion d’autres parties du discours comme les verbes. Les verbes et les noms déverbaux, ou les unités terminologiques prédicatives (UTP), souvent ignorés par la terminologie classique, revêtent une grande importance lorsqu’il s’agit d’exprimer une action, un processus ou un évènement. Or, la description de ces unités nécessite un modèle de description terminologique qui rend compte de leurs particularités. Un certain nombre de terminologues (Condamines 1993, Mathieu-Colas 2002, Gross et Mathieu-Colas 2001 et L’Homme 2012, 2015) ont d’ailleurs proposé des modèles de description basés sur différents cadres théoriques. Notre recherche consiste à proposer une méthodologie de description terminologique des UTP de la langue arabe, notamment l’arabe standard moderne (ASM), selon la théorie de la Sémantique des cadres (Frame Semantics) de Fillmore (1976, 1977, 1982, 1985) et son application, le projet FrameNet (Ruppenhofer et al. 2010). Le domaine de spécialité qui nous intéresse est l’informatique. Dans notre recherche, nous nous appuyons sur un corpus recueilli du web et nous nous inspirons d’une ressource terminologique existante, le DiCoInfo (L’Homme 2008), pour compiler notre propre ressource. Nos objectifs se résument comme suit. Premièrement, nous souhaitons jeter les premières bases d’une version en ASM de cette ressource. Cette version a ses propres particularités : 1) nous visons des unités bien spécifiques, à savoir les UTP verbales et déverbales; 2) la méthodologie développée pour la compilation du DiCoInfo original devra être adaptée pour prendre en compte une langue sémitique. Par la suite, nous souhaitons créer une version en cadres de cette ressource, où nous regroupons les UTP dans des cadres sémantiques, en nous inspirant du modèle de FrameNet. À cette ressource, nous ajoutons les UTP anglaises et françaises, puisque cette partie du travail a une portée multilingue. La méthodologie consiste à extraire automatiquement les unités terminologiques verbales et nominales (UTV et UTN), comme Ham~ala (حمل) (télécharger) et taHmiyl (تحميل) (téléchargement). Pour ce faire, nous avons adapté un extracteur automatique existant, TermoStat (Drouin 2004). Ensuite, à l’aide des critères de validation terminologique (L’Homme 2004), nous validons le statut terminologique d’une partie des candidats. Après la validation, nous procédons à la création de fiches terminologiques, à l’aide d’un éditeur XML, pour chaque UTV et UTN retenue. Ces fiches comprennent certains éléments comme la structure actancielle des UTP et jusqu’à vingt contextes annotés. La dernière étape consiste à créer des cadres sémantiques à partir des UTP de l’ASM. Nous associons également des UTP anglaises et françaises en fonction des cadres créés. Cette association a mené à la création d’une ressource terminologique appelée « DiCoInfo : A Framed Version ». Dans cette ressource, les UTP qui partagent les mêmes propriétés sémantiques et structures actancielles sont regroupées dans des cadres sémantiques. Par exemple, le cadre sémantique Product_development regroupe des UTP comme Taw~ara (طور) (développer), to develop et développer. À la suite de ces étapes, nous avons obtenu un total de 106 UTP ASM compilées dans la version en ASM du DiCoInfo et 57 cadres sémantiques associés à ces unités dans la version en cadres du DiCoInfo. Notre recherche montre que l’ASM peut être décrite avec la méthodologie que nous avons mise au point. / The description of terms in traditional terminological resources is limited to certain details, such as the term (which is usually a noun), its definition, and its equivalent. This description seldom takes into account other details, which can be of high importance for the users, especially if they consult resources to enhance their knowledge of the domain, to improve professional writing, or to find contexts where the term is realized. The information that might be useful includes the description of the actantial structure of the terms, contexts from authentic resources and the inclusion of other parts of speech such as verbs. Verbs and deverbal nouns, or predicative terminological units (PTUs), which are often ignored by traditional terminology, are of great importance especially for expressing actions, processes or events. But the description of these units requires a model of terminological description that takes into account their special features. Some terminologists (Condamines 1993, Mathieu-Colas 2002, Gross et Mathieu-Colas 2001 et L’Homme 2012, 2015) proposed description models based on different theoretical frameworks. Our research consists of proposing a methodology of terminological description of PTUs of the Arabic language, in particular Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), according to the theory of Frame Semantics of Fillmore (1976, 1977, 1982, 1985) and its application, the FrameNet project (Ruppenhofer et al. 2010). The specialized domain in which we are interested is computing. In our research, we compiled a corpus that we collected from online material and we based our method on an existing online terminological resource called the DiCoInfo (L’Homme 2008) in our pursuit to compile our own. Our objectives are the following. First, we will lay the foundations of an MSA version of the aforementioned resource. This version has its own features: 1) we target specific units, namely verbal and deverbal PTUs; 2) the developed methodology for the compilation of the original DiCoInfo should be adapted to take into account a Semitic language. Afterwards, we will create a framed version of this resource. In this version, we organize the PTUs in semantic frames according to the model of FrameNet. Since this frame version has a multilingual dimension, we add English and French PTUs to the resource. Our methodology consists of automatically extracting the verbal and nominal terminological units (VTUs and NTUs) such as Ham~ala (حمل) (download). To do this, we integrated the MSA to an existing automatic extractor, TermoStat (Drouin 2004). Then, with the help of terminological validation criteria, we validate the terminological status of the candidates. After the validation, we create terminological files with an XML editor for each VTU and NTU. These files contain elements, such as the actantial structure of the PTUs and up to 20 annotated contexts. The last step consists of creating semantic frames from the MSA PTUs. We also associate English and French PTUs to the created frames. This association resulted in the creation of a second terminological resource called “DiCoInfo: A Framed Version”. In this resource, the PTUs that share the same semantic features and actantial structures are organized in semantic frames. For example, the semantic frame Product_development groups PTUs such as Taw~ara (طور) (develop), to develop and développer. As a result of our methodology, we obtained a total of 106 PTUs in MSA compiled in the MSA version of DiCoInfo and 57 semantic frames associated to these units in the framed version. Our research shows that the MSA can be described using the methodology that we set up.

The research presented in this dissertation adopts an empirical Saussurean structuralist approach to elucidating the true meaning of the verb patterns characterised formally by vowel lengthening in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The verbal system as a whole is examined in order to place the patterns of interest (III and VI) in context, the complexities of Arabic verbal morphology are explored and the challenges revealed by previous attempts to draw links between form and meaning are presented. An exhaustive dictionary survey is employed to provide quantifiable data to empirically test the largely accepted view that the vowel lengthening patterns have mutual/reciprocal meaning. Finding the traditional explanation inadequate and prone to too many exceptions, alternative commonalities of meaning are similarly investigated. Whilst confirming the detransitivising function of the ta- prefix which derives pattern VI from pattern III, analysis of valency data also precludes transitivity as a viable explanation for pattern III meaning compared with the base form. Examination of formally similar morphology in certain nouns leads to the intuitive possibility that vowel lengthening has aspectual meaning. A model of linguistic aspect is investigated for its applicability to MSA and used to isolate the aspectual feature common to the majority of pattern III and pattern VI verbs, which is determined to be atelicity. A set of verbs which appear to be exceptional in that they are not attributable to atelic aspectual categories is found to be characterised by inceptive meaning and a three-phase model of event time structure is developed to include an inceptive verbal category, demonstrating that these verbs too are atelic. Thus the form-meaning relationship which is discovered is that the vowel lengthening verbal patterns in Modern Standard Arabic have atelic aspectual meaning.

Language is the learning device and the device which forms the student's knowledge in math, his ability to define concepts, express mathematical ideas and solve mathematical problems. Difficulties in the Language are seen more in word problems, clarity and in the way the text is read by the student have a direct effect on the understanding of the problem and therefore, on its solution, could delay the problem solving process. The connection between language and mathematical achievements has a more distinctive significance regarding the Arab student. This is due to the fact that the language which is used in the schools and in textbooks is classical (traditional) Arabic. It is far different than the language used in everyday conversations with family and friends (the spoken Arabic). Our research examine whether rephrasing word problems can affect the achievements of the Arab students in it. The experimental group received mathematics instruction using learning materials of word problems that were rewritten in a “middle language” closer to the students’ everyday language (spoken Arabic), thus keeping the mathematical level of the problems. The research findings showed that students in the experimental group improved their achievements in word and geometric problems significantly more than students from control group.