Arabic Second Language Acquisition of Morphosyntax

by Mohammad T. Alhawary

While the demand for Arabic classes and preparation programs for Arabic language teachers has increased, there is a notable gap in the field of linguistic research on learning Arabic as a second language.  Arabic Second Language Acquisition of Morphosyntax presents a data-driven and systematic analysis of Arabic language acquisition that responds to this growing need.

Based on large data samples collected from longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, this book explores a broad range of structures and acquisition issues. It also introduces new and comprehensive research, and it documents the successes and problems that native speakers of other languages, including English, Spanish, French, and Japanese, are likely to encounter in learning Arabic.

By integrating previously published findings with new research, the author has created a unified and streamlined resource for teachers, teachers-in-training, linguists, Arabic textbook authors, and second-language acquisition experts.

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 2009

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In his book Arabic Second Language Acquisition of Morphosyntax, Mohammad Alhawary explores a few common error-prone morphosyntactic structures in the second language acquisition (SLA) of Modern Standard Arabic (hereinafter referred to as Arabic) by L1 interlocutors of non-Semitic languages. Specifically, he researches the acquisition of gender agreement in nominal, verbal, and demonstrative agreement; tense/aspect; null subjects; and negation, mood, and case. As the author states, Arabic SLA is not only a scarcely researched topic, but the existing works have constraints that Alhawary seeks to overcome in his research (2009: xv). The topics discussed in this book are useful for a variety of different people including but not limited to Arabic SLA researchers, textbook authors, instructors, and proficiency exam creators.