Most studies on Arabic have dealt exclusively with either regional dialects of the language found in classic texts such as the Holy Quran. In A Transformational Grammar of Modern Literary Arabic, Mohammad Ziad Kebbe provides the most thorough syntactic analysis available of the language used by modern writers and journalists. Drawing on Chomsky's model of linguistic theory, Kebbe provides an in-depth generative account of three major types of Arabic sentences: the coordinate, the negative, and the interrogative. He also focuses on significant transformations frequently found in modern Arabic, such as pronominalization, clitic movement, and dative movement.

Introduction, Phonological and Morphological Hints, Inflections, Transliteration, Notation, Chapter One: Phrase Structure Rules, List of Arabic PS Rules, General Notes, VERB Time and Aspect, NP (Noun Phrase), Adj P (Adjective Phrase), PP (prepositional Phrase), INTENS (Intensifier), ADV (Adverbials), REASON Chapter Two: Major Transformations, I- Pronominalization, II- Clitic Movement, III- Dative Movement, IV- Focus Transformation, Chapter Three: Coordination, The Conjunction Schemata, A - The transformational schema, B - The phrasal schema, Reciprocal Verbs and Adverbs The Conjunction La:kin, Deletion Rules, Some Conditions Governing Conjoined Structures, Chapter Four: Negation, 1- Negation with laua, ll- Negation with La:, Idiomatic Phrases with La:,The Jussive La:;La: in Embedded Sentences, Lam, Chapter Five: Interrogative Clauses, Indirect Questions, nacamlla: Questions, The Interrogative Morphs ?a- and hal, The Question Tag, WH-Questions, Conditions and Remarks on WH-Movement