Translating Adversative Particles in the Glorious Qur'an
Abstract
Speakers of Arabic, as well as English, have at their disposal a system of conjunctions with which they can join simple sentences to make complex or compound sentences. Nevertheless, Arabic seems to adopt different stylistic methods of establishing cohesion by means of employing different types of conjunctions and other cohesive devices. Arab grammarians divide parts of speech into three categories: verbals, nominals, and particles. Arabic cohesive devices fall mainly in the third category. This study explores the translation from Arabic into English of three Arabic cohesive particles namely; "", "" and "" as an under-researched linguistic observable feature, with particular reference to Qur'anic examples. Due to the lack of studies in this area, and because this phenomenon has not been treated sufficiently in Qur'anic discourses, 7 chosen Qur'anic verses illustrating the point are analyzed and discussed so as to uncover the difficulties and to suggest translation solutions. A handful of authentic and authoritative Qur'anic exegeses are consulted, in addition to 9 prominent translations of the Qur'an, in an attempt to investigate the role such interpretations can play in rendering the possible meanings into English