Problems of Translating Definiteness and Indefiniteness from Russian Into English and Arabic

Abstract

This research paper is devoted to studying of the definiteness and indefiniteness phenomenon in three genetically and structurally unrelated languages, namely: Russian, English and Arabic. No doubt, definiteness and indefiniteness have been studied by different grammarians in different languages. It is well-known that a noun phrase may contain an element to show definiteness and indefiniteness. This element is represented differently according to the language used. It can be lexical such as “the” or “a, an” in English, while in Arabic, a prefix “al” which expresses definiteness and a prefix (-n) expresses indefiniteness. This study aims at: (1) translating the definiteness and indefiniteness phenomenon from Russian into English and Arabic to find out the areas of similarity and difference between the languages in question, (2) attempting to arriving at solutions for the problems of translating the articles in question from Russian into the languages under discussion in case of existing differences.

The present study hypothesizes that definiteness and indefiniteness in Russian, English and Arabic languages are language-universal, but in very few cases, are language-specific, definite and indefinite articles exist in Russian and English languages, whereas definite article exists, but the indefinite article is represented by (nunation) "التنوين" in Arabic