Manifestations of syntactic extension in using nominal sentences in the media language of Twitter "General WAS account on Corona virus"

Abstract

The present study addressed a number of concepts in the introduction including extension, journalistic language, Twitter, and Corona virus. The first part of the paper dealt with syntactic extension exemplified by the use of indefinite nouns in the initial position in a sentence and omitting the sentence subject (theme) based on criteria approved by syntacticians. The second part addressed the different forms of syntactic extension manifested in using verbal clauses and quasi-proposition as sentence rheme, relating these forms to the syntactic rules approved by early syntacticians. By examining these phenomena, and adopting Aljorjani’s Theory of Construction, the paper sought to investigate the relationship between using this kind of language and the intended meanings, and to highlight the rhetorical purposes the WAS account seeks to achieve. The study was applied to a sample of 606 tweets based on syntactic and organizational criteria approved by the account. The study confirmed that syntactic extension in the study sample produced a number of linguistic constructions because languages are subject of changes over time. These constructions need to be examined so as to accept or reject them based on the approved grammatical rules.