Maher Bahloul

Structure and Function of the Arabic Verb is a corpus-based study that unveils the morpho-syntax and the semantics of the Arabic verb. Approaches to verbal grammatical categories - the constituents of verbal systems - often rely on either semantic-pragmatic or syntactic analyses. This research bridges the gap between these two distinct approaches through a detailed analysis of Taxis, Aspect, Tense and Modality in Standard Arabic. This is accomplished by showing, firstly, some basic theoretical concerns shared by both schools of thought, and, secondly, the extent to which semantic structures and invariant meanings mirror syntactic representations. Maher Bahloul’s findings also indicate that the basic constituents of the verbal system in Arabic, namely the Perfect and the Imperfect, are systematically differentiated through their invariant semantic features in a markedness relation. Finally, this study suggests that the syntactic derivation of verbal and nominal clauses are sensitive to whether or not verbal categories are specified for their feature values, providing therefore a principled explanation to a long-standing debate. This reader friendly book will appeal to both specialists and students of Arabic linguistics, language and syntax.

Structure and Function of the Arabic Verb

Carolyn Graham

Lights! Camera! Action and the brain: The Use of Film in Education is about an innovative pedagogy whereby performing arts and digital production play a key role in teaching and learning. The book combines theory and practice; as such, it lays solid neurological foundations for film and media literacy, and provides several relevant practical applications from worldwide scholars. The book contains thirteen chapters three of which address a number of theoretical issues related to the camera and the brain while the remaining ten are practical illustrations of the extent to which film and video are used as pedagogical tools. In the book preface, Nikos Theodosakis, author of ‘The Director in the Classroom’, writes that the book contributors ‘have built a wonderful bridge for us to travel over’. In fact, the book chapters transcend age restrictions to include diverse age groups, children and young adults. The topics range from learning language and philosophy to learning about one’s self, one’s environment, and one’s cultural identity. Much more importantly, the book addresses the needs of regular and special needs learners. Arts in general, and films in particular, are shown to display salient and dynamic roles in appealing to a wide variety of regular and special needs learners. In short, the book is highly beneficial to educators and to education managers; it ‘will have the power to change teaching and the way the curriculum is perceived’ for several generations to come.

Maher Bahloul

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