A Contrastive Analysis of English and Arabic Phrasal Verbs: Difficulties and Alternatives

The present paper aims at investigating how the phrasal verb system of Arabic differs from that of English in an attempt to discover some factors, intrinsic or extrinsic, that may explain why native speakers of Arabic find it difficult to acquire the English system. It may be very fruitful, at least from a pedagogical/TESLO point of view, to understand the rationale of the two systems, so as to predict areas of transfer and interference. In addition, as some phrasal verbs become highly idiomatic in the course of time, understanding the other language system may help shed light upon the way nonnative speakers should be instructed in the target language as far as the phrasal verb system is concerned.