Weeks 8 and 9: Compound adjectives and nouns

1. Comparative Constructions 1 Weeks 8 and 9:Compound adjectives and nouns

2. Objectives of the chapter • To study adjectives, compound adjectives, and compound nouns in Arabic and English, addressing similarities and differences between both languages; • To study similarities and differences between Arabic and English adjectives, compound adjectives, and compound nouns in terms of what meanings they have; • To study the implications of these language facts for writing and translating in Arabic and English.

3. Attributive and predicative adjectives in English • Adjectives are used to qualify or modify nouns as representing objects and abstractions in the “real world”; • They can either precede nouns or follow them; when they precede nouns in English, adjectives are known as attributive; • Some adjectives (e.g. former, hard, late, occasional, etc.) can function attributively only: (e.g. She was the former Prime Minister); such adjectives convey more permanent meanings; • When they follow verb “to be”, adjectives are known as predicative (e.g. The party is wonderful); such adjectives convey a temporary reference.

4. Postpositive adjectives in English • Some adjectives can be used after a noun or a pronoun without verb “to be” (e.g. body politic, somebody intelligent); • Such adjectives are said to be in postposition or postpositive (e.g. president elect, vice-chancellor designate, etc.); • Such uses of adjectives can be considered as reductions of relative clauses (the president elect the president that has been elected; the vice-chancellor designate the vice-chancellor that has been designated)

5. Adjectives in Arabic

6. Comparing adjectives in English and Arabic

7. Adjective complementation in English and Arabic • Adjectives can take different types of complements in English: •  a PP: I feel very sorry for her; • a that-clause: Everybody is pleased that she is making such good progress; • to-inf clause: My students are difficult to teach; • In Arabic, adjectives are often followed by •  a wh-clause beginning with (for what: lima): (أنا آسف لما حصل لها); •  a that-clause beginning with (?an) or a prepositional phrase headed by adeverbal noun: (كل مسرور أنها أحرزت مثل هذا التقدم – بإحرازها لمثل هذا التقدم ) •  a clause consisting of a prepositional phrase headed by • adeverbal noun (إنه من الصعب علي تدريس طلابي).

8. Compound adjectives • In English, compound adjectives are not necessarily made up of adjectives only; they are compound adjectives because they function as adjectives, i.e. they occur before a noun to premodify it as in I wrote a five-page essay in three hours; • In Arabic, there is nothing like an English compound adjective but constructions that say how a noun is described such as (كتبت مقالا (مكونا) من خمس صفحات في ثلاث ساعات); • Arabic uses verbs such as (يحتوي –يتكون - يشتمل) and (ذو - ذي) to describe nouns (اشتريت منزلا يحتوي على – ذي ثلاث طوابق) (I bought a three-storey house);

9. Compound nouns • English compound nouns fill a great lexical gap in referring and naming in disciplines such as computer science (e.g., word processor, word processing application), telecommunications (e.g., radio positioning, radio position finding), acoustics (e.g., sound power, sound pressure level), electronics (e.g., valence bond, valence bond method), mechanics (e.g., friction clutch, gear lever handle); • It is a productive class, building on one noun as a head to create new meanings by widening the range of combinatorial possibilities: • bath • bathroom • bathroom towel • bathroom towel rack • bathroom towel rack designer • bathroom towel rack designer training • bathroom towel rack designer training program

10. Two-word compounds (N1 + N2) • Scenario 1: N2 is a non-adeverbal noun • The compound is rendered as two nouns annexed (مضاف ومضاف إليه), with N1, which comes second in Arabic, receiving the diacritic feature related to annexation as in I attended a/the dinner party last week (حضرتحفل عشاء - حفل العشاء في الأسبوع المنقضي); • Scenario 2: N2 is adeverbal noun • The criterion that seems to be governing the translation of this subclass is whether N1 is adjectivalizeable as in I obtained a bank discount(حصلت على خصم بنكي). • If N1 is not adjectivalizeable and not abstract, N1 is pluralized, taking a definite article, and N2 translates as a verbal noun ("maSdar") as in He is a specialist in letter writing (إنه مختص في كتابة الرسائل).

11. Annexation (الإضافة) and compounding • Are every two annexed nouns (مضاف ومضاف إليه) in Arabic to be expressed and/or translated as compound nouns in English? • Not always, because two annexed nouns may not have a conventionally recognized compound in English (e.g. قراءة القرآن may not be *Koran reading but reading the Koran, which is not a compound in English but a gerundive construction); • Sometimes, two annexed nouns may be expressed and/or translated as a genitive construction (e.g. سيارة أبي: my father’s car;نظارات المعلم: the teacher’s glasses); • Thus, for two annexed nouns in Arabic to be expressed and/or translated as compound nouns in English they must have a certain degree of acceptability as compounds in English. For example,تدريب المعلمين(teacher training);كتاب النحو (grammar book)

12. Multi-word compounds • We consider a stretch of language as a multi-word compound if the sequence is N1 + N2 + N3, where the medial noun may be a deverbal noun or an adjective (or any equivalent prenominal modifier). • This type of compound has been divided into two major classes depending on whether their medial constituent is a deverbal noun or an adjectival passive participle. • The former will be called “multi-word deverbal compounds” and the latter “multi-word passive compounds.”

13. Multi-word deverbal compounds • Given the sequence N1 + N2 + N3, where N2 is a deverbal noun in -ing, -ion, -ment, or -er: • If N1 is uncountable in Arabic, N3 is expressed and/or translated first in Arabic as a noun, following it with N2 as a verbal noun (or "maSdar"), prefixing it with [li] of purpose, and finishing with N1 as a noun after selecting the preposition that fits N2. For example, Mobil is an oil prospection firm (موبيل شركة للتنقيب عن النفط); • If N1 is countable in Arabic, N3 is expressed and/or translated first in Arabic as a noun, following it with N2 as a verbal noun (or "maSdar") prefixing it with the right preposition, and finishing by pluralizing N1, looking for the right preposition, if need be, that works with N2, as in: An American cancer specialist discovered tumor killing cells(اكتشف الأمريكي المتخصص في أمراض السرطان الخلايا المسؤولة عن القضاء على الأورام ).

14. Multi-word deverbal compounds in English and Arabic

15. Enriching multi-word deverbal compounds in English and Arabic • The structure of compounds may be optionally made more complex by the addition of premodifiers as in automatic picture (N1) transmission (N2) system (N3) (نظام أوتوماتيكي لإرسال الصور) • automatic data (N1) processing (N2) auxiliary equipment (N3) ( أجهزة مساعدة للمعالجة الأوتوماتيكية للمعلومات)

16. Multi-word passive compounds • Multi-word passive compounds include N1 + Adj (or an equivalent passive participle) + N2, where the adjective derives from a verb, and where, semantically, N1 is an instrumental agent, and N2 is affected by the action

17. Types of multi-word passive compounds • If N1 is uncountable, N2 is expressed and/or translated first in Arabic as a noun, followed by the verb corresponding to the ed- adjective and conjugated in the passive participle form, finishing with N1 as a noun, using the right instrumental preposition as in The gas-cooled reactor has been replaced by a pressurized water reactor in France (أبدلت فرنسا المفاعل النووي المبرد بالغاز بمفاعل يعتمد على الماء المضغوط); • In case N1 is adjectivalizable, given the passive adjective is in -able, N2 is expressed and/or translated first in Arabic as a noun, followed by the verb corresponding to the passive adjective in –able in the passive voice in Arabic, finishing with N1 either as a verbal noun (or "maSdar“) or as a noun preceded by an instrumental preposition as with: Many countries began to issue machine-readable passports (بدأت دول كثيرة اصدار جوازات سفر تقرأ آليا).

18. Multi-word passive compounds in English and Arabic

19. Conclusion • The factors governing the expression and/or translation of compounds into Arabic are the transitivity of verbs, and countability , definiteness, abstractness, adjectivalizability, and deverbativity of nouns. • It goes without saying that since compounds are essentially noun-based, the factors relevant to their expression and/or translation have been those related to the semantics of nouns in language.

20. Practice 1

21. References • Maalej, Z. (2003). Guidelines for the translation of English nominal compounds into Arabic: A computational discourse model. TheTunisian Review of Modern Languages 11, 139-167.