Modality and the modal particle al-Laam in Arabic a semantic and syntactic study

Abstract EN

Studies about modality in English language are performed generally in relation to the Modal Auxiliary system.

Efforts are directed towards finding the best way to identify the subtle, multiple and sometimes identical meanings that modals evoke.

In Arabic language there is no modal system counterpart in same way in English.

For this reason, studies are conducted about studying translational equivalence in Arabic instead.

In the present paper, it is assumed that particle system in Standard Arabic hence forth SA are the nearest class to the English Modal Auxiliary at the formal and semantic level.

One of these particles namely, (al-Laam) is chosen to study because it is considered as one of the most problematic and vast meanings particle in its group.

The paper presents a formal description, semantic classificion of meanings and syntactic classification for this particle.

Moreover, the paper resort to parsing to identify the the intended meaning of it.