Inclusive Use of Indefinite, Definite and Zero Article in English and Arabic Religious Texts

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the inclusive function of the indefinite, definite and zero article in English and Arabic. These articles are used in the two languages for generic reference but each language has certain conditions for this inclusive use. The researchers shed light on the syntactic and pragmatic aspects of the articles in each language because the syntactic structure of the sentence in Arabic determines the inclusive function. As for the pragmatic level, the interpretation of the reader and the context in which the articles are used determines their inclusive reference. The researchers select Five texts from the Holy Bible and Five texts from the Glorious Quran that are regarded as the standard languages. The selected texts are analyzed qualitatively in order to examine the similarities and differences of the inclusive use of articles in English and Arabic. Understanding the use of the articles for generic reference in English and Arabic is hoped to be helpful for translators, teachers and writers.