Translating English Existential ‘there’ Sentences into Arabic: A Text-based Analysis

English existential 'there' lacks equivalent in many languages, yet it has attracted the
attention of linguists working within contrastive linguistics and translation studies. The
aim of the present paper is to investigate how translators deal with English 'there'
sentences in two translated Arabic texts. The method adopted in the study is a descriptiveanalytic one. In Arabic the words 'hunaaka' and 'tammata' are usually used to render
English 'there' ; however, the data of the study show that in many cases translators avoid
using these two words. The flexibility of word order in Arabic , in addition to the use of
full lexical verbs , more frequently than English does in 'there' sentences , help to translate
these sentences adequately into Arabic. It is also found that syntactic restrictions are not
the only reason for the fact that many 'there' sentences are not translated using 'hunaaka'
and ' tammata'; the discourse and stylistic levels, play a role in the translator's decision to
use other means. In some cases, the use of 'hunaaka /tammata' is shown to be optional and
in other cases to be obligatory, unless an alternative construction is produced. Major
translational changes affecting the information structure of the texts, are not found in the
target language.