scholarly journals Verb Form and Tense in Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 284
Author(s):  
Yasir Alotaibi

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.

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-152
Author(s):  
Xinyue Yao

This paper deals with the “hot news” use of the English present perfect. Previous research has suggested that this use marks the end point of the perfect category, paving the way for further grammaticalisation to a perfective or past tense. To examine its historical development in Modern English, verb forms in the leads of hard news reports in the New York Times and the Sydney Morning Herald were examined, with comparison made between two time periods, 1851–1900 and 1951–2000. Attention was given to contextual influence on the choice between the present perfect and the past tense for expressing hot news meanings. The quantitative findings show that the hot news perfect has not taken over the ground of other tense forms, but has become increasingly associated with unspecified, recent past time. The evolution of the English present perfect in general is characterised by register-mediated functional specialisation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-96
Author(s):  
E.V. Shved

The article researches the semantic meanings of the Crimean Tatar Future-Past Tense ending in джакъ эди, as well as determines the English language verb forms that carry equivalent meanings. The research is based on the analysis of literature written by seventy-five Crimean Tatar authors. The research allows to make a conclusion that the tense ending in -джакъ эди has three main semantic meanings: unrealized intent, relaying of information about a past intention without clarifying whether it was completed, past agreement or plan to carry out an action, and also a separate case involving the construction with аз къалды. It is determined, that similar meanings are carried respectively by the English constructions of Future Perfect in the Past, constructions with was/were going to with an infinitive, constructions with Future Indefinite in the Past, and also constructions with was/were about to with an infinitive, as well as constructions involving Past Simple Tense together with the words almost and barely.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 167-192
Author(s):  
Lea Sawicki

The article deals with the use of simplex and compound (prefixed) verbs in narrative text. Main clauses comprising finite verb forms in the past and in the past habitual tense are examined in an attempt to establish to what extent simplex and compound verbs exhibit aspect oppositions, and whether a correlation exists between the occurrence of simplex vs. compound verbs and distinct textual units. The investigation shows that although simple and compound verbs in Lithuanian are not in direct aspect opposition to each other, in the background text portions most of the verbs are prefixless past tense forms or habitual forms, whereas in the plot-advancing text portions, the vast majority of verbs are compound verbs in the simple past tense.  


Author(s):  
З.И. Годизова ◽  
Д.В. Габисова

Актуальность предпринятого исследования обусловлена тем, что причастие в современном осетинском языке не привлекало активного внимания ученых, имеются лишь общие описания причастий, а специальные исследования, посвященные причастиям, практически отсутствуют. Представляется интересным и актуальным сравнение системы причастий и их грамматических особенностей в осетинском и русском языках. Этот интерес обусловлен принадлежностью сопоставляемых языков к общей индоевропейской семье языков, а также тесным их взаимодействием в условиях двуязычия, что, очевидно, может отразиться и на системе причастий. Научная новизна данной статьи заключается в том, что в ней исследуются грамматические особенности всех разрядов причастий в осетинском языке в сопоставлении с русским языком. На основании проведенного анализа установлено, что в современном осетинском языке система причастий включает пять разрядов, разнообразных в своих грамматических проявлениях, в степени регулярности, в склонности переходить в состав других частей речи. Выявлены наиболее значительные отличия осетинских причастий от русских: существование причастий будущего времени в системе осетинского языка, отсутствие у причастий показателей времени и залога, а также именных грамматических категорий (падежа, числа, рода). Установлено также, что в осетинском языке категория вида в большей степени управляет категорией времени, в силу чего несовершенный вид причастий предполагает только настоящее время, а совершенный только прошедшее отсутствует четкая залоговая оппозиция причастий в осетинском языке. Определено также, что осетинские причастия не имеют членных (полных) форм, но функционируют в роли и сказуемого, и определения, хотя в большей степени тяготеют к предикативной роли. В осетинском языке причастия гораздо менее употребительны сравнительно с причастиями в русском языке и чаще вступают в отношения грамматической омонимии с другими частями речи. The relevance of the undertaken study is determined by the fact that participles in the modern Ossetian language are still insufficiently studied. There are only the most general descriptions of grammar features of participles. The comparison of the system of participles and their grammar features seems interesting and actual, especially considering the fact that the Ossetian and Russian languages belong to different groups of the Indo-European language family. Furthermore, in the context of bilingualism the Russian and Ossetian languages interact actively and that can affect the system of participles. The scientific novelty of the article is determined by the fact that it examines the grammatical features of all categories of participles in the Ossetian language in comparison with the Russian language. The conducted research allowed to elicit five categories in the system of participles in the modern Ossetian language. The analysis of the results showed the participles are diverse in their grammatical characteristics, in the degree of regularity, and in the tendency to transition into other parts of speech. The research defined the most significant differences between Ossetian and Russian participles: existence of future participles in the system of the Ossetian language absence of adjectival grammar categories of gender, number and case as well as formal markers of tense and voice in Ossetian participles. The tense category in Ossetian subordinates to the aspect category to a far greater extent therefore the imperfective aspect of participles accepts the present tense forms only, while perfective acts in the past tense forms Ossetian participles lack explicit voice opposition. Ossetian participles do not have full forms, but they can have syntactic functions of both the predicate and the attribute in a sentence, although the predicative function is more typical for them. Participles in the Ossetian language are much less common compared to participles in Russian and are more disposed to conversion (transition to the category of nouns, verbal adverbs, adjectives, words of the state category).


2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-88
Author(s):  
Marcin Michalski

Abstract In Modern Standard Arabic constructions with cardinal numerals over ten in which the noun denoting the counted object follows the numeral, e.g. al-ḫamsūna ǧundiyyan ‘the fifty soldiers’ (as opposed to al-ǧunūdu l-ḫamsūna ‘idem’), the noun is indefinite singular. When a property of the object counted is to be expressed by means of an attribute: an adjective, participle, or a relative clause, it agrees with the noun in gender, but agreement in the three remaining categories, i.e. number, case and definiteness, may be distributed between the noun and the numeral. The present study analyzes examples of such constructions found in contemporary journalistic texts. Four agreement configurations are distinguished, out of which three were described by Classical Arabic grammarians, while one is non-classical. In some instances, due to the syncretism of declension forms, agreement in case is indeterminate. The analysis of the examples shows that apart from variation in agreement that can be observed with some types of the qualifier, the choice of a particular agreement configuration depends on phraseology and/or the lexico-syntactic properties of the qualifier: whether it is a proper adjective, a nisba adjective, a participle, or a relative clause.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Marina Akimova

The author explores various compositional levels of the Russian modernist author Mikhail Kuzmin’s long poem “The Trout Breaks the Ice”. The levels are: (1) the grammatical tenses vs. the astronomical time (non-finite verb forms (imperative) are also assumed to indicate time); (2) the meters of this polymetric poem; (3) realistic vs. symbolic and (4) static vs. dynamic narrative modes. The analysis is done by the chapter, and the data are summarized in five tables. It turned out that certain features regularly co-occur, thus supporting the complex composition of the poem. In particular, the present tense and time regularly mark the realistic and static chapters written in various meters, whereas the past tense and time are specific to the realistic and dynamic chapters written in iambic pentameter. The article sheds new light on the compositional structure of Kuzmin’s poem and the general principles of poetic composition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-253
Author(s):  
Anahita Hoose

Abstract Up to three verbal categories are available for encoding past tense in Middle Indic: inherited finite pasts (lost in younger languages), old past passive participles, and morphological presents. I explore aspectual factors governing the choice of one verb form in preference to another in four texts in Pāli and Jaina-Māhārāṣṭrī, showing that finite pasts (where present) are compatible with multiple aspectual readings, participles almost always have perfective or anterior aspect, and presents have an association with imperfective aspect (exceptionless in Pāli but not in Jaina-Māhārāṣṭrī).


1979 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. K. Sprigg
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  

Tibetan orthography looks phonetically challenging, to say the least; and one may well wonder whether such tongue-twisting combinations as the brj of brjes, the blt- of bltas, or the bst- of bstan ever did twist a Tibetan tongue, or whether the significance of these and other such orthographic forms might not have been morphophonemic in origin, with the letters r, l, and s in the syllable initial of forms such as these serving to associate these past-tense forms lexically with their corresponding present-tense forms; e.g. Viewed in relation to Tibetan orthography the past-tense forms of a class of verbs in the Golok dialect seem to support this hypothesis. Table 1, below, contains a number of examples of Golok verbs in their past-tense and present-tense forms to illustrate a type of phonological analysis suited to that view of the r syllable-initial unit in the Golok examples, and, indirectly, in the WT examples too (the symbols b and b will be accounted for in section (B) below).


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-296
Author(s):  
Sultan Almujaiwel

AbstractThis paper argues that Arabic function words (FWs) vary in usage between old and modern Arabic, thus prompting an experimental investigation into their changeability. This investigation is carried out by testing classical Arabic (CA) in Arabic heritage language (AHL) texts – those labeled as archistratum – and the modern standard Arabic (MSA) of Arabic newspaper texts (ANT), each group of which contains randomly collected 5 million (M) word texts. The linguistic theory of the grammar of Arabic FWs is explained through the differences between CA and MSA, despite Arabic FW changes and the unlearnability and/or unusability of some FW constructions between in these two eras of Arabic usage. The dispersion/distribution of the construction grammar (CxG) of FWs and the number (n) of word attractions/repulsions between the two distinct eras is explored using the very latest and most sophisticated Arabic corpus processing tools, and Sketch Engine’sSkeEn gramrelsoperators. The analysis of a 5 M word corpus from each era of Arabic serves to prove the non-existence of rigorous Arabic CxG. The approach in this study adopts a technique which, by contrasting AHL with ANT, relies on analyzing the frequency distributions of FWs, the co-occurrences of FWs in a span of 2n-grams collocational patterning, and some cases of FW usage changes in terms of lexical cognition (FW grammatical relationships). The results show that the frequencies of FWs, in addition to the case studies, are not the same, and this implies that FWs and their associations with the main part of speech class in a fusion language like Arabic have grammatically changed in MSA. Their constructional changes are neglected in Arabic grammar.


2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Sampson

Nonstandard dialects often use the same form for the past tense and past participle of irregular verbs for which the standard language has distinct forms. One possible reason would be that some speakers have a nonstandard system of verb qualifiers (tense, mood, and aspect markers) in which the past tense/past participle distinction is functionally redundant. Data on spontaneous speech in Britain in the 1990s partly supports this by showing marked regional variation in the use of the Perfect construction. However, some nonstandard past tenses cannot be explained in terms of a nonstandard qualifier system.


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