Word Order Typology of Standard Arabic, According to Dryer’s Correlations (1992)

Abstract

As you know, in typology, languages are categorized on the basis of morphological, syntactic, and semantic features. These categories help linguistics to introduce language universals. This article aims to determine the word order typology in Standard Arabic. Standard Arabic is the standardized and literary variety of Arabic used in writing and in most formal speech throughout the Arab world. The results of the article are of importance in teaching Persian to Arab students. In this article, word-order of the Standard Arabic is analyzed on the basis of the 25 typological correlations (Dryer 1992 and Dabirmoghaddam 2014). The results suggest that Standard Arabic, in comparison to African, Eurasia languages and other languages, which Dryer indicated them in his article, has 20, 22 and 23 correlations of strong VO languages; and also, has 12, 8 and 8 correlations of strong OV languages. Thus, Standard Arabic has a tendency towards strong VO languages.

Keywords

• typology
• standard arabic
• language universals
• linguistic correlations