Articolul definit în limba română şi în limba arabă modernă standard – o abordare contrastivă
The Definite Article in Romanian and Modern Standard Arabic – A Contrastine Approach
This paper aims to present contrastively a set of functional aspects of some common structures that imply the presence or absence of the definite article in Romanian in comparison with their corresponding structures in Modern Standard Arabic. After some general considerations about the functions of the definite article inside the category of definiteness in Romanian and Modern Standard Arabic, we will present the major similarities regarding the occurrence and the absence of the definite article in both languages. Some of these similarities are partial and many times misleading, as the presence of the definite article in both languages doesn’t imply a total equivalence of the corresponding patterns in the two languages. The second part of this approach will focus on these significant differences, analyzing some common cases in which the definite article is present in Romanian language and absent in Modern Standard Arabic and vice versa. In conclusion, this contrastive analysis of the use of the definite article in Romanian and in Modern Standard Arabic reveals some similarities and differences between the definiteness patterns in the two languages, which can be integrated in the teaching process, in order to enhance the metalinguistic awareness of Arab students in learning Romanian as a second language.
Keywords: definite article, contrastive analysis, error analysis, Romanian as second language, Modern Standard Arabic
