Referential Gaps between Arabic and Spanish

Abstract

This article aims at investigating the phenomenon of referential gaps (RGs) between Arabic and Spanish languages. The authors refer to the use of certain words or structures that express two or more different meanings, deliberately as such by the author within the same context. The analysis of this phenomenon reveals that the RGs are divided into two types: first, lexical RGs which are formed with a single word without a need to a context to deduce its different meanings: second, structural RGs which need a context to deduce their multiple meanings. The latter type is also divided into two types. The first one is known as abstract ambiguity dissimulation), which contains two distinct meanings in the same context with or without any indication that shows which of the two meanings is intended. The second is called double entendre or adianoeta in which a word has two senses which are both equally effective referentially and pragmatically in order to confuse the interlocutor