LF Representations and the Interpretation of Some Collocations from the Glorious Quran with Reference to Chomskys (1995) Minimalist Views: Thematic Relations

The research aims at explicating, for the first time, the crucial roles played by the thematic relations in deciding the grammaticality of structures and determining the meaning of certain collocations found in the first ten verses (Ayas) of Surat Al-Shams from the Glorious Qur’an translated by Al-Hilali (1417, h). Although theta roles are abstract notions that appear at the spell-out level, they are maintained at the logical form because their omission defects not only the structure but also the translated meaning at all levels. Intuitively, collocations are idiosyncratic in nature and may convey meanings in segregation; however, in this work, they are to be studied in structures in relation to a predicate as they constitute arguments, namely, N”, T”, C” and P” that carry theta roles. It is argued that each argument is assigned a semantic role and each semantic role is assigned to each collocation to avoid confusion of interpretation at LF. The researcher also argues that theta roles are essential to determine the intended meaning in translation; therefore, they cannot be deleted at any level of syntax.