The Identification of Case Types in Some Selected Iraqi Arabic Quatrains“Abuthiyat”

Abstract

Case is a universal grammatical concept that can be found in all languages, but it is realized differently. In English,it is the structural position of the noun phrase (NP) that determines the case, whereas in Modern Standard  Arabic case is realized morphologically. This paper deals with the identification of the three types of cases, including Nominative, Accusative, and Genitive in Arabic NPs in some selected Iraqi quatrains, depending on the position of each noun within a sentence. Furthermore, the current investigation aims at presenting theoretical information about Filmore's Case theory and showing how the case can be assigned to NPs of  Arabic language structures represented by some Iraqi quatrains "Abuthiyat". To achieve the aims above, it is hypothesized that despite the difficulties of reading the Quatrains  "Abuthiyat" in the Iraqi dialect regarding the disappearance of case markers "harakat" on which case theory depends and word order, the three types of cases (nominative, causative, and genitive) can be identified depending on parsing strategy and even the meaning of Arabic words and sentences. Finally, the investigation ends with a conclusion that all types of cases can be found in the selected Iraqi quatrains. Each case type is identified according to the function of the noun phrase within each line of the quatrain.