Category of Indeterminedness in Arabic Language

Formal and Functional-Semantic Features

Abstract

Category of indeterminedness is specific feature of Arabic syntax which hasn’t been treated separately in the arabic linguistic sources, neither in the orientalist grammars. The knowledge of indefinitive names is accumulated in stages and through the teachings of the Arabic syntax. The reason for this is the traditional approach of the Arab grammarians to category of definitive and indefinitive names, which are due to their formal and semantic interference, and thus the impossibility of separating precise definite and indefinite, mainly based on definitive names. Indeterminedness is a key segment of the predicate relations in nominal sentences, its nature is abstract and it is dictated by distribution of names and contextual environment. Formal signs of this category do not mean an article as the prototype sign of indeterminedness, but certain language re­sources whose semantics requires the use of names exclusively undetermined. Its semantics refers to the general meaning, type and entity of some sort, an un­specified number and amount, and the unknown in relation to the interlocutor.