The Interpersonal Metafunction of Finite Clauses in Modern Standard Arabic and English: A Contrastive Study

Abstract

This study compares and contrasts the structures of finite clauses in Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth MSA) and English to identify their internal constituents. It attempts to point out the similarities and differences in the moods formulated by these clauses in both languages. The Sketch Engine corpus was used to retrieve a comprehensive number of instances representing finite clauses in both languages. The study employed the Interpersonal Metafunction of Systemic Functional Grammar (henceforth SFG) to analyse the collected data. SFG investigates the interplay between subjects and finite operators to form different moods, the contribution of finite operators in clauses, and whether they operate independently or are fused with the predicator. The ultimate goal is to compare the two languages. The analysis investigated all temporal aspects in both MSA and English and identified notable similarities and differences in the orientations and distributions of finite operators, the use of predicators, and the formulation of moods and modalities.