A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES OF ARABIC AND

HAUSA NOMINAL APPOSITIVE CONSTRUCTION

BY

DR. YAHAYA ABBAS

FEDERAL UNIVERSITY DUTSIN-MA, KATSINA

yabbas@fudutsinma.edu.ng
abbasyahaya800@gmail.com
Phone: +2348036796121

BEING A PAPER SUBMITTED TO THE JOURNAL OF ARABIC LANGUAGE AND

LITERATURE.

DEPARTMENT OF ARABIC LANGUAGE

FEDERAL UNIVERSITY DUTSIN-MA,KATSINA.

KATSINA STATE.

MAY, 2021.
 Abstract

This paper presents a contrastive analysis of the Arabic and Hausa Appositive construction in
terms of their structure. The aim of the paper is to contrast the structure of appositive
construction in both languages and bring out the similarities and differences that exist in the two
languages. Regardless of the distance between the two languages; they are said to be from a
common ancestor, Afro-asiatic phylum. The paper adopts the common methodological approach
to contrastive analysis which starts with a description of the language category in both
languages, and ends with pointing out its similarities and dissimilarities. The theoretical
framework adopted is that of X-bar theory. The findings show that

1.0 Introduction

Arabic and Hausa Languages are from a common ancestor, Afro-asiatic phylum and the two
languages are said to be the most widely spoken Semitic (Farghaly, 2008) and Chadic (Newman,
2000) languages respectively. A considerable number of Hausa Muslims speak Arabic as their
second or third language and a substantial amount of Arabic Literatures are translated into
Hausa. The link between both languages is also evident in the multitude of Arabic loan words
and expressions found in Hausa language to the extent that some scholars assert that one fifth of
Hausa lexical items are from Arabic language. This however, shows the socio-cultural and
linguistic linkage of the two languages.

Nominal Appositive Construction (NAC henceforth) is a grammatical category found in most

languages of the world, Arabic and Hausa Inclusive. The aim of this paper is to contrastively
describe the structure of the NAC in both languages and to figure out their similarities and
dissimilarities.

1.1 The Concept of Apposition

A prototypical example of the construction is given in example (1):

(1) John McClave, my neighbor, is a nice guy.

(Heringa, 2012:1)

The perplex nature of Apposition as a grammatical category had already generated some
confusion that baffled linguists in their effort to come up with a clear definition of the term,
which consequently led them to even use different definitions for the concept, resulting in a
variety of analyses. Listen to what Meyer (1992: xiii) said on this issue:

Apposition is a grammatical category discussed in most scholarly

grammars, from Jespersen's A modern English grammar on historical
principles to Quirk et al.'s A comprehensive grammar of the English
language. But despite the fact that apposition has been widely discussed, it
remains a category that is poorly understood. An investigation of
Jespersen, Quirk et al. or any of the other sources that discuss apposition
reveals numerous disagreements about how apposition should be defined
and a wide variety of different kinds of constructions that are considered
appositions.

The above assertion of poor treatment of apposition definition corroborated with what Quirk et
al.'s (1985:1302) opined that "Grammarians vary in the freedom with which they apply the term
apposition... "

According to Meyer (1992:1) Both Fries (1952:187) and Francis (1958:301) restrict the category
of apposition to coreferential noun phrases that are juxtaposed. Curme (1931) identify two major
types of apposition: non-proper appositive which includes predicate appositives (p.30):

(2) He came home sick,[italics in original]

Appositive genitives (p.84):

(3) The vice of intemperance

Apposition proper (pp.88-91), which can be loose (example 4) or close (example 5),
categorizations that correspond in this study to, respectively, non restrictive and restrictive
apposition (see 3.3):

(4) Mary, the belle of the village.

(5) my friend Jones

Latin word ‘apponere’ which means ‘to put at side.’ Heringa (2012) assert that Appositive
Construction had faced some challenges with regards to its definition and he showed that. C is
widely discussed in grammar books starting with Sibawaih who seem to be the first person to
have discussed it extensively in his book called “Al-Kitab”.

AC is defined as a sequence of co referential equal constituents, e.g. NPs, with the same

grammatical function, either of which can be felicitously omitted and often interchangeable

(Jaggar, 2001: 396). It is a modification of one noun phrase (NP1) by a second noun phrase

(NP2), without any morphological hiatus and such that the two NPs could be reformulated into a

well formed equative predication (i.e., NP1 is NP2) as rightly observed by Robert, D.H &

Andrew, R. j, (2015:1). A typical example of the AC in example one (1) below involves two NPs

in juxtaposition (put side by side). The first NP 1 in the sequence is called “anchor” while the

second NP2 is called “apposition” (Heringa 2011:1). Crystal, (2003:30) opines that both units

would not stand in apposition unless their referents have to be understood as identical. However,

these NPs appear with simple (one word) and complex (phrases) structures (Alsanawi 2011:1).

See example number one:

(1) a. Uwargidaa Laadì

(The senior wife, Ladi)
(Galadanci, 1969:16)

b. Àli sarkin-kàasuwaa
(Ali, the Market inspector)
(Galadanci, 1969:16)

c. Ministàn ìlmin Nàajeeriyàa, Àlhajì Jìbrîl Àmiinù.

(The Nigeria Minister of Education, Alhaji Jibril Aminu.)
(Furniss, 1991:34)

As we can see from the illustration above, the bolded words are the first NP 1 which is called

anchor, while the italicized ones are the second NP2 which is called appositive. Similarly, the

NPs in example (1a &1b) are simple NPs with one word construction each, while in example
(1c) both NPs appeared to be complex structure in the construction. In most literature, AC has

been distinguished with two major divisions, though with different nomenclatures. Curme,

(1931:89) and Heringa (2012:1) for example identified two groups of AC, namely, those loosely

connected with the headword, which is termed as “Loose Apposition”; e.g: “Mary, the belle of

the village”, “The Smith, the friend of my youth”; and those closely attached to the headword,

which is termed “Close Apposition” e.g: “King Edward”, “John Smith”, “my friend Jones”,

“Uncle Tom”, “the Virgin Mary, etc. In other hand Quirk`s et al. (1985:1303-1305) named it

“restrictive apposition” as alternative to “close apposition” and “non-restrictive apposition” as

alternative to “loose apposition”. Both the loose AC and close AC juxtapose two seemingly

equivalent expressions (Kim, 2014:79). In both ACs two elements, anchor and appositive are

identifiable, in which the latter serves to define or modify the former. However, the two are

different. The presence of comma in loose apposition, differentiates the two, eventually leading

to a difference in intonation (Kim, 2014:79). Moreover, the second element in “Loose

Apposition” that is appositive provides additional information about the first expression Quirk`s

et al. (1985:1305).

1.2 The Data

2.0 Analysis of The structural patterns of apposition

As we illustrated in the above section, it is possible to designate various types defined in terms of
the grammatical features of the appositional nominal phrase. In this section, the structural
patterns are also shown to be of various configurations according to the constitutional
combinations that are present in the two constituent nominal phrases.

Abbas (2021) identifies two structures of close appositive in Hausa namely:

1. Simple Close Appositive Structure

2. Complex Close Appositive Structure

Type I: Apposition of identical items;

In a construction of this type, both terms of apposition are either definite or indefinite nouns:
Definite

Kenawy (1982: 445) Ya yi nazarin tagwaitaka a Larabci, ya kuma gano cewa yana ɗauke ne da

sigogi kamar haka:

(44) a. YSn + YSn

[`Aqsam bi allah-i [[Ab-u][HafSin] [Umar-u.]]

Fassara marar `yanci: Ya rantse tare Allah Abu Hafsin Umaru

Fassara mai `yanci: Baban Hafsa, Umaru ya rantse da Allah.

T
YSn1 = YSn2
b. YSn + YSn + WSn

`Aalaja al- Ţabib-u [[al-][walad-a]] [yad-a-][h-u]].

Fassara marar `yanci: Magani likita yaron hannunsa.

Fassara mai `yanci: Likita ya yi wa hannun yaron magani.

T
YSn1 YSn2 + WSnɗ

c. YSn + YSn + YSn + YSn

Yarji`una `ila [`uSulin thalathatin]: [rabi`ata] wa [muḑara] wa [al-yaman.]

 Fassara marar `yanci: Suna komawa zuwa asali uku: Rabi`ata da Mudara da

Yaman.

Fassara mai `yanci: Asalin Larabawa yana komawa ne zuwa ga gida uku: Rabi`ata

da Mudara da Yaman.

T
YSn1 YSn2
YSn1 YSn2 YSn3

d. YSn + YSn + Mhɗ + YSn

Rajulaani rajulun mutanassikun wa aalimun mutahattik
Mutane biyu, mutum mai yawan ibada da malami mai yawan ɓarna
T
YSn1 YSn2
YSn2 Mhɗ YSn3

Abin da Kanewy ya kawo na sigogi ya kusan yin daidai da abin da wannan bincike ya gano

dangane da sigogin tagwaitaka a Hausa. A Hausa babu siga ta (44b). Irin wannan siga ta keɓanta

ne kawai ga harshen Larabci.

Shi kuwa Kim (2014:88) ya riwaito Keizer (2005), inda ya kawo sigogi guda biyar da rufaffiyar

tagwaitaka (mai ƙaidi) take zuwa da su a harshen Ingilishi:

(45) a. Det + N + Prop-N

The actor John Austin
Jarumin nan John Austin

b. Det + N + CN
The word love
Kalmar nan soyayya

c. PosDet + N + Det + CN
My friend the president
 Abokina shugaban ƙasa

d. Prop-N + Det + CN
Chuck Norris the actor
Chuck Norris

e. Title-N + Prop-N
actor James Franco
Jarumi James Franco

Kusan duk sigogin da Keizer (2005) a riwayar Kim (2014:88), ana samunsu a harshen Hausa.

Arabic is a member of the Semitic languages, a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic

language family (see Ruhlen, 1987). Arabic is the major language of the Semitic languages.

It is spoken in over 20 countries that cover an area that spans from Oman in the Middle East

to Mauritania on the eastern border of the Atlantic Ocean. The number of its speakers as of

2013 is estimated to be 223,010,130 (Paul, Simons, & Fennig, 2013).

Arabic, nevertheless, is composed of many dialects that have been developing and

changing to the extent that some of them are not mutually intelligible anymore. The hub of

this thesis is not going to be any of these spoken dialects. Rather, it is going to be Modern

Standard Arabic (MSA), a variety that no one speaks at home as the regular medium of

communication. Chentir, Guerti, and Hirst (2008) point out that MSA is the “Unified Modern

Arabic or the Standard Arabic. It is the language which is taught in the schools, and written

and spoken in the official contexts.”

Speakers of mutually unintelligible dialects of Arabic tend to use MSA as a lingua

franca. MSA is also the main subject of inquiry for many linguists, though dialects have been
investigated. MSA offers an abundance of unexplained phenomena and other, possibly

misunderstood, ones.

Apposition is a construction in which two elements are

placed consequently as explanatory expressions. These elements

appear with simple and complex structures represented by single

words, phrases and clauses. Concerning the major types of

apposition, there is a significant distinction between full and partial,

strict and weak, and restrictive and non-restrictive apposition.