--- title: "A Phrase Structure Grammar of the Arabic Language (1990)" description: "The paper therefore builds phrase structure rules for Arabic directly rather than adapting English ones. 4 references." authors: ["Ayman Elnaggar"] year: 1990 venue: "COLING 1990 Volume 3: Papers presented to the 13th International Conference on Computational Linguistics" source: "https://aclanthology.org/C90-3067/" licence: "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/elnaggar-1990-phrase-structure-grammar-arabic-language/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/elnaggar-1990-phrase-structure-grammar-arabic-language/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [1990](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/1990/) / A Phrase Structure Grammar of the Arabic Language # A Phrase Structure Grammar of the Arabic Language **Authors:** Ayman Elnaggar · **Year:** 1990 · **Venue:** [COLING 1990 Volume 3: Papers presented to the 13th International Conference on Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/coling/) ([COLING 1990](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/coling/1990/)) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/C90-3067/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/C90-3067.pdf) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W1980371883) **Citations:** 4 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) ## Summary Elnaggar argues that Arabic NLP has fallen behind English, even though earlier work applied methods such as DCG and ATN. The main reason, in his view, is that Arabic grammar lacks a modern linguistic model built for computation. Arabic is richly inflected, has categories with no English counterpart (for example 'MAFOOL MOTLAK'), and orders constituents differently (adjectives come after the noun they modify). The paper therefore builds phrase structure rules for Arabic directly rather than adapting English ones. The central move is to split noun phrase modifiers into two groups: - **Post-modifiers** that follow the head noun in a fixed, meaningful order: noun complement, adjective, apposition and correlation. - **VP-type modifiers**, such as adverbs. From the ordered post-modifiers the author derives eight NP structures and presents five of them. Each structure is tied to the grammatical category it realizes. A verbal sentence serves as the worked example. The paper reports no quantitative evaluation. Its contribution is a compact grammar intended as groundwork for later semantic analysis and machine translation of Arabic. ## Key points - NP post-modifiers are NC (noun complement), ADJ, APP (apposition) and COR (correlation). Their order is the key that defines the NP structures. - The notation marks four kinds of slot: ( ) optional, *( ) repeatable, [ ] required at least once, and *[ ] repeatable but required at least once. Rules are written in Chomsky Normal Form and read right to left. - The five published structures are: - NP1 = (COR)(APP)(ADJ)(NC) N, for objects - NP2 = (NC) N, for adjectives - NP3 = N, for 'MAFOOL MOTLAK' case 1 - NP4 = [ADJ] N, for 'MAFOOL MOTLAK' case 2 - NP5 = [NC] N, for correlation - An earlier finite-state version [5] gave 'MAFOOL MOTLAK' a single rule allowing both NC and ADJ. The author then found that these two cannot co-occur and split the rule into separate structures. - The worked example is a sentence in which a student meets Dr. M. Salama himself, the newly appointed head of Cairo University. In it, the object fills every NP1 slot, and some modifiers contain their own nested NP structures. ## Interesting ideas - Treat the fixed linear order of noun post-modifiers as the backbone of NP templates, rather than listing free combinations of modifiers. - Let the set of allowed modifiers depend on the grammatical role or category the NP fills, so that an object NP permits more slots than an NP inside a special construction. - Refine a grammar by noticing that two optional slots never appear together, then splitting one rule into several mutually exclusive ones. - Use a compact slot notation (optional, repeatable, required, required-and-repeatable) to state phrase templates declaratively. - Allow modifiers to carry their own embedded NP structure, so that templates apply recursively inside a larger phrase. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (tree): A canonical order of nominal dependents (compound, amod, appos, nmod) could serve as a cheap sanity check that flags parser output whose noun-dependent order breaks the expected sequence. - **I2** (frames): Role-specific constraints on argument NPs could help rank competing role assignments by how well each NP's internal shape fits the role. - **I3** (learn): Silver data agreed by several witness parsers could be mined for dependent types that never co-occur, producing self-induced constraints or repair rules that can be tested against negative controls. - **I4** (back): Generation could use such templates to order and license modifiers around a head noun when turning the meaning graph back into text. - **I5** (back): Recursive ordering templates would let the text → graph → text compressor rebuild nested noun phrases in a predictable, explainable way. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* 📚 Shelves (4): [🖥️ Computer Science](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · 18,614 works · [🤖 Artificial Intelligence](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · 17,965 works · [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 17,450 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 17,296 works 🧭 Topics (2): [Semitic languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semitic-languages/) · 3,066 works · [📐 Syntax & grammar formalisms](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/syntax-grammar/) · 221 works ## Cite Cite as: Ayman Elnaggar. 1990. A Phrase Structure Grammar of the Arabic Language. COLING 1990 Volume 3: Papers presented to the 13th International Conference on Computational Linguistics. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{elnaggar1990phrase, title = {{A Phrase Structure Grammar of the Arabic Language}}, author = {Ayman Elnaggar}, booktitle = {COLING 1990 Volume 3: Papers presented to the 13th International Conference on Computational Linguistics}, year = {1990}, doi = {10.3115/991146.991213}, url = {https://doi.org/10.3115/991146.991213} } ``` - [← previous Normal State Implicature](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/green-1990-normal-state-implicature/) - [next → Computational Linguistics, Volume 16, Number 1, March 1990](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/anon-1990-computational-linguistics-volume-16-number/) - [↑ back to papers of 1990](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/1990/) ## References 4 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. [i] 'TWO ARABIC SYNTACTIC ANALYZERS', HISHAM EL-SHISHINY & AYMAN ELNAGGAR, PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND CONFERENCE ON ARABIC COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS, KUWAIT , NOV., 1989 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%5Bi%5D+%27TWO+ARABIC+SYNTACTIC+ANALYZERS%27%2C+HISHAM+EL%2DSHISHINY+%26+AYMAN+ELNAGGAR%2C+PROCEEDINGS+OF+THE+SECOND+CONFERENCE+ON+ARABIC+COMPUTATIONAL+LINGUISTICS%2C+KUWAIT+%2C+NOV%2E%2C+1989) 2. [2] 'AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR UNDERSTANDING ARABIC SENTENCES', M A H E R S. AHMED, M.Sc. THESIS, CAIRO UNIVERSITY, 1988. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%5B2%5D+%27AN+EXPERT+SYSTEM+FOR+UNDERSTANDING+ARABIC+SENTENCES%27%2C+M+A+H+E+R+S%2E+AHMED%2C+M%2ESc%2E+THESIS%2C+CAIRO+UNIVERSITY%2C+1988%2E) 3. [3] ' AL-NAHO A L - M O S A F F A ', Dr. M O H A M M E D EID, CAIRO U N I V E R S I T Y [4] 'NATURAL LANGUAGE PARSING AND LINGUISTIC THEORIES', U. REYLE & C° ROHRER, D. REIDEL PUBLISIIING COMPANY, 1988 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%5B3%5D+%27+AL%2DNAHO+A+L+%2D+M+O+S+A+F+F+A+%27%2C+Dr%2E+M+O+H+A+M+M+E+D+EID%2C+CAIRO+U+N+I+V+E+R+S+I+T+Y+%5B4%5D+%27NATURAL+LANGUAGE+PARSING+AND+LINGUISTIC+THEORIES%27%2C+U%2E+REYLE+%26+C%C2%B0+ROHRER%2C+D%2E+REIDEL+PUBLISIIING+COMPANY%2C+198) 4. [5] ' A FINITE STATE A U T O M A T A OF THE ARABIC GRAMMAR', AYMAN ELNAGGAR, PROCEEDINGS OF THE 'IEEE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON TOOLS FOR [5] AI', GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY, OCT., 1989. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%5B5%5D+%27+A+FINITE+STATE+A+U+T+O+M+A+T+A+OF+THE+ARABIC+GRAMMAR%27%2C+AYMAN+ELNAGGAR%2C+PROCEEDINGS+OF+THE+%27IEEE+INTERNATIONAL+WORKSHOP+ON+TOOLS+FOR+%5B5%5D+AI%27%2C+GEORGE+MASON+UNIVERSITY%2C+OCT%2E%2C+1989%2E) *Updated 2 November 2026*