The Morphological Adaptations of English Loanwords Used in Modern Standard Arabic.

Abstract

This study investigates the morphological modification of words in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) borrowed from English. Loanwords are used as if they are Arabic words. In the previous studies, it was found that proper nouns enter Arabic more than common nouns, but in this study, the researcher interested to cover 'the common nouns', because 'they were found to be Arabicized. They do have the plural forms and follow the principles of derivational morphology of Arabic that is root-based’, Al-Saqqa(2001:ix). The analysis of the data indicates that the most important changes in the morphological aspects of the loanwords occur in gender, number, and word-formation. The study suggests further research for loanwords recently entered MSA through communication and technology.