Word order in German, English, MSA and SA

In fact, MSA allows for all six variations of the basic sentence elements:
Subject, Verb and Object (see table below), it also allows the fronting of
complements.
One of the characteristics of MSA is the relative fluidity of its word
order. Arabic seems to permit almost as many ways of ordering
the constituents of the sentence as possible Abdul-Raof
(2013:43)
Yet, classical Arab grammarians regard verb-initial sentences as displaying
the normal syntactic word order in Arabic. All other six sentence formulations,
according to Abdul-Raof (2013:43) are allowed in Arabic but considered marked
and therefore have to be motivated. In SA, on the other hand, all six possible
permutations of subject, verb and object as well as the fronting of complements
are allowed and DO NOT need to be motivated.
Arabic as in modern Hebrew, according to Berman (1978:136)
Other reorderings apply for rhetorical purposes such as
emphasis, topicalization, etc.
This observation is also confirmed by the very first Arab grammarian:
"They [the Arabs] tend to front the information they deem most
important and informative " (Sybawaih 1988:34).
.(34 1988 ) " "
Schreiber and Anshen (1974:21) go as far as claiming that Arabic is at any
underlying level is in fact a Verb-initial language and that NP- first sentences in
Arabic are transformationally derived from V-initial structure. Therefore, Noun
initial construction in Arabic is derived structures.


Table by David C. Ford

Impact of SA syntactic flexibility on MSA translations

Compared with Arabic, English is a rigid SVO language, states Tomlin
(1986:34). In German, the verb comes at a medial position in main clauses and
in the final position in subordinate clauses.
Translating German subordinate clauses into Arabic is a problematic area
because the Arab translators follow more or less the organization of the
German structure, misusing thereby the flexibility of MSA by fronting
complements or objects, i.e. using marked structures in MSA without being
motivated. The reason why Arabic translators wrongly produce such
unmotivated marked structures, according to a private interview with Dr. MD
Tomas Goucha

from Max-Planck-Institut fr Kognitions- und

Neurowissenschaften, is linked to the fact that such structures are acceptable

in SA, which is the real mother tongue of Arabs. This means that, in the brain
of the Arab translator, these structures are normal.
In order to avoid such mistakes, the translator must be made aware of this
difference and start with the verb first when translating a subordinate German

clause because using too many unmotivated marked structures in MSA keep
sending unnecessary alert messages to the brain of the reader. Having to keep
up for a long time with unmotivated marked structures could lead, I suppose, to
mental exhaustion on the part of the reader because of the constant deviation
from the VSO structure, which is considered the favoured sentence type in
Arabic Schereiber and Anshen (1974:21).