Rules of Replacing the Indefinite with the Definite Noun in Arabic Grammar
Abstract
The present study investigated substituting the indefinite with definite in Arabic which are both considered as theoretical applications. It is an analytical descriptive study that aims at identifying the factors that control this process according to the syntacticians' classifications of the predicate, adverb of manner, subject or object complement, negative exclusive(la), the indefinite adjective and indefinite emphasis that involves variation in the criteria of definiteness and indefiniteness. The study consisted of three chapters preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion exploring the philosophy of the syntacticians' identification of definiteness and indefiniteness , their linguistic as well as terminological aspects, the most definite nouns, their number, classification and linguistic inflections. Moreover, it explored the semantic role of substituting the indefinite with the definite focusing on inflection and its semantic implications and guards against ambiguity. It also explained the role played by the context in this process through its paralinguistic factors , substitution , sentence order, lexicographical and morphological aspects according to various syntacticians' views.