Intonational phrasing in modern standard Arabic with reference to English

الملخص EN

This study tries to investigate the intonational phrasing in Modern Standard Arabic sentences.

Intonational phrasing is the process of dividing an utterance into meaningful groups of information.

Each group is separated from the other by certain intonational cues at specific positions within the utterance.

Focus is made on how the Arabic sentence structures “subject-verb-object (henceforth SVO)” and „verb-subject-object (henceforth VSO) are phrased and the factors determining their grouping into sets of information.

This is carried out through discussing 7 Arabic target sentences, 4 are of SVO structure and 3 are of VSO.

All the target sentences have various internal structures concerning the length of both the subject and object in different positions.

The target sentences are read by 8 candidates who are selected on the basis of being professional college teachers of Arabic in the Department of Arabic in College of Arts in the University of Mosul.

The performance utterances are recorded and analyzed in order detect the main factors that influence the intonational phrasing in Arabic sentences.