The Syntactic Structure of the Relative Clauses in Arabic

Arabic, like other languages, has various types of subordinate clauses. This paper focuses on one type — the relative clauses. Every subordinate clause is introduced by specific conjunctions, while the subordinate clause has its unique syntactic structure; for example, the particles ʾinna and its sisters are followed by the subject in the accusative and not in the nominative case. This paper aims to provide a detailed description of the syntactic structure of the relative clause and its syntactic elements, based on the descriptions of traditional Arab grammarians and Western grammarians. Thus, the paper is divided into five sections in accordance with the issues discussed in the grammatical descriptions: 1 The conjunctive nouns 2 The function of the conjunctive/relative clause 3 The pronoun referring to the qualified noun (al-ʿāʾid) 4 What can function as ṣila 5 The position of syntactic elements in the conjunctive/relative clause