Apostrophe in English and Arabic

الملخص EN

This study tackles the notion of apostrophe in English compared with that in Arabic.

Apostrophe is a turning away in which the absent person and the inanimate are adressed as though present and living.

The paper proposes to identify the areas of differences in apostrophe in English and Arabic and this problem is due to differences in linguistic system of the two languages.

The goal of the present paper is to explore apostrophe as one of the figures of speech in English as well as Arabic.

Moreover, it aims at identifing the points of similarity and difference between English apostrophe and its Arabic counterpart.

To fulfill these aims, it is hypothesized that: 1.English and Arabic differ in their definitions of apostrophe, the classification of its types and the syntactic and the semantic areas of apostrophe in both languages.

2.The differences between English apostrophe and its Arabic counterpart outweight the similarities.

The procedures to be adopted can be summarized as follows: Presenting a theoretical survey of the relevant literature on apostrophe and its types in English and Arabic to shed light on its syntactic and semantic aspects.

Conducting a comparison section of apostrophe in both languagesfocusing on its definitions, types, syntactic and semantic aspects.

The results of this study have shown the following conclusions: 1.Although there are various definitions of apostrophe in English and Arabic yet the concept is thesame in both languages.

2.The differences in apostrophe between English and its Arabic counterpart are reflected in its types.

Types of apostrophe in English are more restricted in comparison with Arabic.

In Arabic, the classification of the types of apostrophe enjoy more freedem of membership.

3.Apostrophe in English is expressed by more than one sentence type such as: statement, exclamation and question whereas in Arabic it tends to be expressed only by a statement.

4.English and Arabic differ in their meanings.

In English, the semantic implications of apostrophe are small in number in comparison with Arabic.