A linguistic study of the impact of English on Arabic word formation

الملخص EN

It goes without saying that languages influence each'other in one way or another when they come into contact.

This paper aims at investigating the impact of English on Arabic word formation.

An attempt is also made to examine some aspects of derivation in English and: Arabic.

The researcher came to the conclusion that English has had a tremendous influence on Arabic in more than one area, particularly in the area of word formation, and will continue to do so in the future so far as our contemporary culture remains unproductive.

It was also concluded that combining derivational affixes to bases in English is not always arbitrary, as alleged by Stageberg, and that some resolutions passed by some linguistic bodies in the Arab world sometimes hinder, rather than promote, the process of neologisation.

Moreover, the researcher holds the view that Arabic derivation is not dissimilar from that of IndoEuropean languages.

The paper also assumes that some misconceptions about Arabic morphology stem from the use of traditional terminology developed centuries ago and that the structure of Arabic may be better understood if modem linguistic terminology is applied.

Moreover, negligenceof short vowels in Arabic orthography is misleadingas far as morphemicanalysis is concerned.