Riflessioni sulla genesi e sull’uso dell’articolo determinativo proclitico ’al- in arabo classico in relazione alle conseguenti implicazioni sintattiche

Classical Arabic has one definite article in comparison to the Indo-European languages which possess two morphemes stressing the opposition between the definite article and the indefinite one; in Arabic a noun becomes defined only if this article is employed. The oldest Semitic languages did not use the article but when it began to be employed, languages as Arabic changed own morphosyntax from the point of view of the so-called ‘presupposition’. On the one hand the article ’al- permitted the defined nouns to develop the caseendings in the declension, on the other hand it relegated the tanwīn to the position of indefinite morpheme. The capacity of the article to adapt to all syntactic situations, when it is required, generated in Classical Arabic syntactic implications and consequently the ancient definite pronoun of nota relationis and nota genitivi ceased to be used and the Status Constructus became synthetic; in addition, the capacity of the article to stand also before a modifier following a defined noun triggered an alteration of the ancient Semitic nominal sentence. Therefore, the employment of the definite article is considered as a linguistic innovation conversely to the other Semitic languages which do not have it or possess it in enclitic position.