Verb Form and Tense in Arabic

This paper discusses tense in Arabic based on three varieties of the language: Classical Arabic (CA), Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and the Taif dialect (TD). We argue against previous analyses that suggest that Arabic is a tenseless language, which assume that tense information is derived from the context. We also argue against the suggestion that Arabic is tensed, but that its tense is relative, rather than absolute. We propose here that CA, MSA, and TD have closely related verb forms, and that these are tensed verbs. Tense in Arabic is absolute in a neutral context and verb forms take the perfective and imperfective aspect. Similar to other languages including English, verb forms in Arabic may take reference from the context instead of the present moment. In this case, we argue that this does not mean that tense in Arabic is relative, because this would also imply that tense in many languages, including English, is relative. Further, we argue that the perfective form indicates only the past tense and the imperfective form, only the present; all other interpretations are derived by implicature. keywords: perfective, imperfective, absolute tense, relative tense

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(3) a. I promise to meet you.
b. I name this boy "David".
c. Renaldo shoots the ball.
The two types of utterance described above are usually rare, and the present tense is used in many languages to describe other types of utterance. The present tense is used to describe many events that last much longer than the present moment, as long as they also include the present moment. In many cases, the present tense is used for processes or states that include the present moment but that began before that point and may continue after it.
The following examples illustrate this idea, in which the state of the book's subject being syntax holds both before the present moment and after it. Similarly, the fact that the student is writing the first chapter includes the present moment, but the process began before the present and continues after it. Although the tense is longer than the present, both examples (and other such sentences) are analyzed as denoting the present tense; this is because they include the present moment.
(4) a. The subject of this book is syntax.
b. The student is writing the first chapter of his thesis.
Aspect is an important feature of a sentence that indicates the length of the event in relation to the tense. For example, in the progressive aspect, the situation occupies a long space of time that encompasses the present moment with other moments in the past and the future. The example in (5a) illustrates progressive English, in which the grammar of this sentence provides a progressive aspect that stretches the period of event's occurrence.
In this example, Mary is at the middle of the action when the speaker utters this sentence, and it indicates that the action began before the present moment and proceeds after this moment.
Additionally, the habitual aspect with the present tense means that the situation does not occur once, but it habitually occupies some moments that may not include the present moment. In example (5b) below, Joe goes to school every day and this situation may occur in times that differ from the time of speech, meaning that the speaker may utter this sentence at night, while Joe goes to school in the morning. However, Comrie (1985) argues that habitual sentences do not refer to situations that recur at different intervals, but rather to a habit, which is a characteristic that holds true at the present and other moments. In example (5b), the property of Joe that he goes to school holds even if he is not on his way to school at the moment of utterance.
b. Joe goes to the school (every day).
We conclude that progressive and habitual aspects are different from the present tense, and we should assume that situations that hold for longer periods of time than the present moment are present because the detail of internal tense is an aspectual issue that does not change the fact that the present tense is used.

Past Tense
In the past tense, the situation is located at a point before the present moment. Similar to the present tense, the past tense shows that the situation occurred before the present moment, without giving further internal details about this tense; that is, it does not show whether the situation ex-tended over time or occurred at a single point. Some deductions about the past tense may be made in individual sentences, which should be assumed to be the result of factors other than the tense. Comrie (1985) analyzes the present perfect as past as long as the situation described by it occurred before the present moment.
The following examples are analyzed as past tense and the difference between their event structures should not change the fact that both situations occurred prior to the present point. In example (6a), the meaning is that in a specific time in the past, which is mutually identified by the speaker and the hearer, David was in London and he has left in other occasion in the past. In contrast, example (6b) means that in some occasion in the past, which is necessarily specified by the speaker and the hearer, the proposition be in London held. The two different interpretations are not contributed by the tense of the two sentences.
(6) a. David was in London.
b. David has been in London.
The past tense locates situations before the present moment, without giving more details on whether the situation continues to the present moment or even the future. Additionally, the situation described can occupy a long stretch of time in the past or habitually recur more than once. The example in (7a) illustrates the past progressive in English. In this example, Sue was writing a letter at a specific time in the past, but the sentence does not indicate whether the situation reaches the present moment. There are some other factors that may add more information to this proposition and change the meaning of the tense. For example, we can add a clause like but she is now sleeping to show that this situation was completed in the past or the influence of the context may lead the hearer to a different interpretation. Thus, all these changes in the meaning of the past tense are not directly related to the past tense. Additionally, the example in (7b) shows the past tense with habitual aspect, in which the recurrence of the situation is understood from the habitual aspect and not from the past tense. Again, other factors in the context or the knowledge of the hearer may affect this tense and convey that the situation lasted longer than the past. We will assume that this is through implicature and does not change the fact that the tense of the form is the past.
(7) a. Sue was writing a letter.
b. Sue used to go to New York every year.

Future Tense
In the future tense, the situation occurs after the present moment; that is, the directionality of events in the future tense is opposite to the past tense. The future tense is also identical to the past tense in occupying the present moment with an implicature. The following example illustrates this point in English, in which the situation be writing holds at the present moment, but this does not mean that the meaning of the future tense includes the present moment; rather, the future tense in this example was extended by some kind of implicature.
(8) Mary will be writing her thesis when you call on her in two minutes.
However, there is a major difference between the past and future tenses. The situation in the past tense is definite and occurred prior to the present moment and thus cannot be changed in the present moment. In contrast, the future is more speculative in that it may be changed by events that are not expected by the speaker. This raises an important question regarding the difference between the future tense and the past: Is it a difference based on mood or tense? In other words, is the difference between the past tense and the future tense the same as the difference between the past and the present tense? If the answer is no, this means that the future should be assumed to be a mood rather than a tense (see Fleischman, 1982;Comrie, 1985).
Languages differ with regard to the future tense, as some may express the future as tense and others as mood. If a language expresses the future by grammatical expressions that are distinct from other tenses, it is analyzed as tense. Additionally, the future should predict some state of affairs that should occur in the future, and it should be different from modal constructions, which refer to possible worlds. The English example in (9a) makes a definite statement about a situation that should hold in a specific time that is subsequent to the present point. In addition, the truth of this statement can be tested in the future by verifying whether the speaker leaves the next day or not. In contrast, Example (9b) makes reference to a possible world where the speaker leaves tomorrow. The truth of this second claim cannot be tested by verifying whether the speaker leaves the next day, because both situations are compatible with this claim. This means that we can assume that in English, there is a future tense that is different from the modal.
(9) a. I will leave tomorrow.
b. I may leave tomorrow. Comrie (1985) states that most languages in Europe distinguish between past and non-past, in which the non-past includes the present and the future. These languages have no grammatical distinction between the future and the present or the future and non-future tenses. However, these languages have some future constructions that are only used if there is a possibility of misunderstanding. Although Comrie (1985) claims that these languages have no future tense, this does not imply that the future tense does not exist in other languages in which there are grammatical distinctions between future and non-future. For example, Haiman (1980) states that Hua, a Papuan language, has a grammatical form for future time reference, and in this case, the future tense does not have modal uses. Additionally, some languages such as Dyirbal and Burmese use real and unreal constructions to distinguish between future and non-future, in which the future is usually expressed as an unreal situation because real ijel.ccsenet.
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