ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A Comparative Study of English and Arabic Use of Prepositions Amongst Arab Native Speakers Findings The researcher reveals the three results as follows: 1-Three (3) Students passed the exam (20%), and the others twelve (12) students (80%) failed the exam. 2- Arab students may tend unconsciously to impose their patterns and structures on English particularly when they express themselves orally or in writing.

What we are concerned here is the influence of Arabic prepositions on English, which make them commit these errors. 3-The major reasons for these mistakes are, problems relating to the dominance of mother tongue, imposing Arabic syntactic structure on English and imposing Arabic meaning usage on English. In the light of the results of this study, it is noticed that these specific words in English language, which are called prepositions, cause difficulties for Arab students.

The misunderstanding of some of these words used in the test caused Arab students to commit errors. Arab learners are expected to find similar difficulties in the use of English prepositions because although Arabic and English prepositions have some characteristics in common, they differ in both number and usage. There are only six Arabic prepositions while in English there are more than thirty prepositions.

The main problem for Arab learners lies firstly in the fact that not every Arabic preposition has an exact equivalent in English and vice versa, secondly, not every English or Arabic preposition has a definite usage and meaning, indicating only time or space or following/ preceding a certain word. For example, the Arabic Preposition fi is used as (in*, into, at, on,* and inside etc.).

This particular preposition has therefore great semantic power in both standard and colloquial language use; it is the filter through which all these English equivalents must pass. It is used to denote time and place and occurs with many different Arabic words in abstract and metaphorical usages. Therefore fi as well as other Arabic prepositions, interferes in the selection and usage of English ones.

Another problem in this area is caused by the English language, which in certain places allows a reasonable degree of freedom of choice with regard to certain prepositions and prepositional phrases.