[...]... representative sample of actual use of the Arabic language As such, not only do we examine the text, but we also relate the verbal form to its context of use In addition, we pay close attention to the modal dimension, reminiscent of writers’ opinions and attitudes toward the propositional content At the heart of the Arabic verbal system, and most other verbal systems, are the issues of Aspect, Tense, and Modality... representations, on the one hand, and their semantic interpretations, on the other hand 7 VERBAL FORMS, CLAUSES, AND METHODOLOGY This chapter focuses, in particular, on the status and characteristics of these verbal categories, elements of a chief component Its objective is twofold: to reveal, first, the formal/structural properties of the verbal categories, and then to investigate their major inherent... Modality (ATM) These verbal categories appear to have puzzled every single relevant research for a number of reasons at the forefront of which might figure (i) the morphological opacity of the Arabic verb, (ii) the mixing of various historical eras of the Arabic language, and (iii) the absolute lack of authentic texts It is our strong belief that, with the current state of linguistic theory, it is hard... through showing the extent to which semantic structures are mapped into syntactic representations The language and the data The form of Arabic under investigation is Standard Arabic (henceforth Arabic) , also known as Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and Modern Literary Arabic (MLA) It is the uniform variety of Arabic which is used all over the Arabic- speaking world as the usual medium of written communication... investigate the semantic–pragmatic functions of the second member of the opposition within the verbal system, namely the Imperfect These functions are traced out from the perspective of temporality Here, an effort is made to sort out the major contextual variants of this verbal form These variants are then hierarchically classified/organized according to their markedness The basic meaning of the Imperfect... absence of any corpus on the basis of which the verbal system is unveiled and analyzed, undermines to a large extent the degree of accuracy of any conclusions relevant to the meaning and function of Arabic verbal forms This book constitutes a major breakthrough in the history of studies relevant to the verbal system of Arabic Thus, it departs from previous approaches through the use of a corpus from a representative... Frequency of QAD within the Perfect constructions The frequency of WA, FA-, LA-, and Ø in front of QAD Frequency of the compound perfect The distribution and frequency of sawfa/saThe frequency of QAD, laʕalla, and rubbamaa The contextual variants of the Imperfect The contextual meanings of the Imperfect The Imperfect constructions The structure of negators xi 34 37 37 43 45 62 64 79 79 80 80 81 82 86 95... endorsing Bahloul’s summation that “ the overall results show that while Tense is certainly present within the Arabic clause, the value of this category is less likely to take part in the values of the invariant of both the Perfect and the Imperfect” (p 185) There can be little doubt that Structure and Function of the Arabic Verb provides numerous innovative analyses and much food for thought for future... ILLUSTRATIONS 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 6.12 The frequency of negators: laa, lam, lan, and maa Semantic values of the Perfect and the Imperfect Frequency of the Perfect/Imperfect in sentence initial clauses (newspaper articles) The frequency of the Perfect/Imperfect in sentence initial clauses (scholarly articles) The frequency of the Perfect and the Imperfect The frequency of the Perfect/Compound Perfect in sentence... the earliest and most seminal authority on the grammar of Classical Arabic, Alkitaab The Book” by the Persian grammarian Sibawayhi in the eighth century, and until some of the latest and most comprehensive works on Arabic (Fassi Fehri 1993; Badawi et al 2004; Holes 2004; Ryding 2005; Versteegh 2006 – the general editor of the mammoth Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics EALL), studies of . h0" alt="" STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE ARABIC VERB Structure and Function of the Arabic Verb is a corpus-based study that unveils the morpho-syntax and the semantics of the Arabic verb. Approaches. Imperfect and future time 121 The Imperfect and past time 126 Summary and proposal 131 Variation and invariance 132 The Imperfect within the ATM system 135 The Imperfect and negation 137 The Imperfect. Imperfect 133 6.4 The contextual meanings of the Imperfect 133 6.5 The Imperfect constructions 136 6.6 The structure of negators 138 ILLUSTRATIONS xii 6.7 The frequency of negators: laa, lam, lan, and