Noun Formation in Standard English and Modern Standard Arabic: A Contrastive Study

Abstract

Abstract—This paper focuses on analyzing and contrasting the processes of noun-formation in both Standard English (English) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), in order to reveal the similarities and differences between them and their potential productivity for pedagogical purposes. The data for the present study has been collected from different sources, compiled and analyzed in terms of morphology, productivity and semantic indications of the different processes of noun-formation in both languages. It is found that both English and MSA reveal a common linguistic phenomenon in noun-formation processes as well as their exploitation of the language by forming productive rules and patterns. The similarities are found in some general universals, such as affixation, compounding, blending, onomatopoeia, borrowing, diminutives, conversion and acronyms. Every language has regular rules for noun-formation, but some irregular forms may also exist in both of them. Index Terms— word-formation, noun-formation, contrastive linguistics, morphology