Abstract This paper argues that Arabic function words (FWs) vary in usage between old and modern Arabic, thus prompting an experimental investigation into their changeability. This investigation is carried out by testing classical Arabic (CA) in Arabic heritage language (AHL) texts – those labeled as archistratum – and the modern standard Arabic (MSA) of Arabic newspaper texts (ANT), each group of which contains randomly collected 5 million (M) word texts. The linguistic theory of the grammar of Arabic FWs is explained through the differences between CA and MSA, despite Arabic FW changes and the unlearnability and/or unusability of some FW constructions between in these two eras of Arabic usage. The dispersion/distribution of the construction grammar (CxG) of FWs and the number (n) of word attractions/repulsions between the two distinct eras is explored using the very latest and most sophisticated Arabic corpus processing tools, and Sketch Engine’s SkeEn gramrels operators. The analysis of a 5 M word corpus from each era of Arabic serves to prove the non-existence of rigorous Arabic CxG. The approach in this study adopts a technique which, by contrasting AHL with ANT, relies on analyzing the frequency distributions of FWs, the co-occurrences of FWs in a span of 2n-grams collocational patterning, and some cases of FW usage changes in terms of lexical cognition (FW grammatical relationships). The results show that the frequencies of FWs, in addition to the case studies, are not the same, and this implies that FWs and their associations with the main part of speech class in a fusion language like Arabic have grammatically changed in MSA. Their constructional changes are neglected in Arabic grammar.

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新旧书面阿拉伯语之间功能词的语法构造：基于语料库的分析

摘要本文认为，阿拉伯语功能词（FW）在古代和现代阿拉伯语中的用法有所不同，从而促使人们对其变化性进行实验研究。这项调查是通过测试用阿拉伯文传统语言（AHL）文本（标有Archistratum）的古典阿拉伯语（CA）和阿拉伯语报纸文本（ANT）的现代标准阿拉伯语（MSA）进行的，每组均随机收集5百万（M）个文字。尽管阿拉伯语FW发生了变化，并且在这两个阿拉伯语使用时代之间某些FW结构无法学习和/或无法使用，但阿拉伯语FW语法的语言理论还是通过CA和MSA之间的差异来解释的。使用最新，最复杂的阿拉伯语语料库处理工具和Sketch Engine的SkeEn gramrels运算符，探索了FW的构造语法（CxG）的分散/分布以及两个不同时代之间的单词吸引/排斥的数量（n）。对来自每个阿拉伯时代的5 M单词语料库的分析有助于证明不存在严格的阿拉伯CxG。本研究中的方法采用了一种技术，通过将AHL与ANT进行对比，该技术依赖于分析FW的频率分布，在2n克搭配模式中FW的共现以及某些情况下FW使用情况的变化词汇认知（FW语法关系）。结果表明，除了案例研究，FW的频率也不相同，这意味着FW及其与诸如阿拉伯语之类的融合语言中语音班主要部分的联系在MSA中已在语法上发生了变化。它们的结构变化在阿拉伯文语法中被忽略。