Abstract

This thesis examines the difference between conditional phrases in Egyptian Colloquial (EC) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It focuses on two different conditional particles 'iḏa and law. Verb tenses featured after the conditional particle determine the difference between EC and MSA usage. Grammars for EC and MSA provide a prescriptive approach for a comparison with empirical data from Arabic corpora. The study uses data from the ArabiCorpus along with a corpus of Egyptian Colloquial that were compiled specifically for this study. The results of this study demonstrate that each particle (‘iḏa and law) and register (EC and MSA) favors a certain tense. Also, the data contrast with rules prescribed by grammars for MSA. Present tense verbs appear in the proposed condition for particle law a total of 22 out of 400 tokens (5.5%). Verb tense also plays an important role in determining the connecting particle for MSA sentences. The results demonstrate that the selection of connecting particles for law does not occur by chance but is instead systematic in nature. An apodosis containing a past tense verb strongly favors the connecter la, while one with a non-past tense verb strongly favors the connector fa.

Degree

College and Department

Humanities; Linguistics and English Language

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