Comment clauses in English and Arabic : a comparative analysis

Abstract EN

The present study sheds light on comment clauses in English and Arabic.

In English, comment clauses refer to those clauses which comment either on the content of the main clause or the attitude of the speaker towards the way of speaking.

Arabic comment clauses are non- functional clauses which occur either between two parts of the same speech or two independent speeches connected by meaning in order to illustrate, emphasize or improve certain meanings that the speaker wants to convey.

This study is divided into three sections.

The first section tackles comment clauses in English with reference to definition, structure, position, types and pragmatic functions.

Following the same way, the second section deals with comment clauses in Arabic.

The third section concentrates on the similarities and differences in both languages: English and Arabic.

The study aims to investigate comment clauses in English and Arabic, and to draw a comparison in order to show the similarities and differences between them.

The analysis shows that English comment clauses can take the finite or non-finite forms whereas Arabic clauses can take the form of nominal, verbal, interrogative or conditional sentence starting with one of the particles such as Waw or Fa'a which are considered as the widely used particles in comment clauses.

Also, both English and Arabic comment clauses lack a syntactic connection with the main clause.