The Flexibility of Placing the Subject in Arabic Sentences: A Study of Syntactic Word Order Restrictions and their Application to Arabic Grammar

Abstract

This research addresses the possibility of placing the subject in a pre-verb position in verbal sentences in Arabic, without necessarily stipulating that if the subject is preposed before the verb, it becomes a topic. In this way, the subject is a non-overt pronoun positioned within or after the verb, because the subject is conventionally acknowledged by grammarians to move freely to various post-verbal positions, but never pre-verbally. The research considers the views and opinions of linguists and grammarians who have dealt with this issue in detail, presenting a discussion of these views to reveal the strict restrictions imposed on the movement of the subject. It is hoped that this will contribute to the facilitation of teaching and learning Arabic grammar. It will also revitalize the discussion of views in Arabic grammatical traditions to try to establish new grammatical principles that contemporary linguists may adopt when reformulating the rules of Arabic grammar. This endeavor may simplify the task of learning rules and contribute to presenting them more flexibly and plausibly.