This paper is an attempt to offer a theme-rheme typology of English and Arabic clauses with exclamatives in focus. This is done by investigating the theme-rheme organization of all clause types in English and Arabic and showing that a three-feature system can help provide two different typologies of clauses in both languages. It is shown that a [theme-initial, rheme-initial] feature system is not enough a system and that a third feature i.e. [transition-initial] is needed for such a task. It is also shown that in English, the features [trans-final, theme-final] are needed to distinguish between two theme-initial types of clauses. It is also shown that in Arabic the same two features, i.e. [trans-final, theme-final], are needed to make a distinction between two different types of clauses. The analysis reflects the differences and similarities between clause types (if any) between the two languages in question.
Mohamed S. Al-Seghayar