Arabic Idioms

Idioms represent a fascinating linguistic phenomenon that has captured the attention of many linguists for decades. This book provides a corpus-based study of idioms in Modern Standard Arabic. Examining the data with regard to their semantic, discursive, lexical and grammatical properties, the author sheds light on their intricate nature, establishes the major patterns of their linguistic behaviour, and provides explanations for these patterns.

Ashraf Abdou is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language at the American University in Cairo and Lecturer of Linguistics at Cairo University. His research focuses on Arabic phraseology, Arabic corpus linguistics, spoken discourse analysis, Arabic lexicography and English-Arabic contrastive phraseology.

1. Introduction  2. Methodology and Data  3. The Semantic Structure of Arabic Idioms  4. The Discursive Behaviour of Arabic Idioms  5. The Lexical and Grammatical Behaviour of Arabic Idioms  6. Conclusions