Depending on the sources, Arabic verbs are said to be marked for aspect or for tense. The former presents the aspectual distinction perfective versus imperfective, while the latter opposes past and present tense. Ryding offers an explanation of this situation by claiming that “The difference between tense and aspect can be subtle, and
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the two categories may overlap to a significant extent” (Ryding, 2005:440). Maher Bahloul studied this problem in an extensive research (Bahloul, 2008). He classifies all the previous hypotheses throughout Arabic linguistics in four categories:
a. Aspectual hypothesis55 b. Temporal hypothesis56
c. Aspectual-temporal hypothesis57
d. Non-aspectual nor temporal hypothesis58
The temporal hypothesis was first proposed by Sibawayhi (ca. 760, ca. 796), the author of the first Arabic grammar and one of the most influential works in the field, “
بﺎتﻜﻟا”
(“The book)”. This is the reason why the temporal hypothesis has been the most accepted in the Arabic linguistic tradition. Sibawayhi described a basic opposition in the Arabic verbal system of past-present-imperative.Bahloul uses a written corpus to analyze real examples of the language so that he can systematize the semantic values of Arabic verbs in an empirical way. The corpus consists of texts from the news, from the academic field and from literature (13 newspaper articles, 5 academic articles and 5 contemporary short stories)58F
59. Based on
the various examples found in the corpus, Bahloul carries out an analysis of the semantic properties of the Arabic verbal morphology. Thus, he categorizes the
55 The main advocates of the theory are Wright, Jusmanov, Blachère, Cohen, Fleisch, Beeston,
McCarus, and Al-Mansouri.
56 The main advocates of the theory are Sibawayhi, ash-Shirbiinii, Aartun, Benmamoun, Wightwick
and Gaafar, Banat.
57 The main advocates of the theory are Comrie, Messaoudi, Fassi Fehri, Fischer, and Baterson. 58 The main advocates of the theory are Kurylowicz, Schulz.
59 Bahloul does not specify the total number of words in the corpus. The 13 newspaper articles are
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semantic features expressed by the verbs. He states that the perfective can be used in these cases:
a. Past time (without specifying the distance in time) b. Present time
c. Atemporal expressions d. Future time60
As noted by Bahloul, the fact that the perfective may be used for the present, as well as for atemporal expressions, shows that it is not restrictively attached to the past tense. However, it does not mean that all the possible uses of the verb have the same importance (frequency of occurrence), nor are they used freely in any context. It is necessary to distinguish between primary uses and secondary uses. In fact, the more direct use of the perfective is the expression of past tense and, furthermore, all the remaining uses are contextually conditioned.
Consequently, Bahloul concludes that the perfective contains two inherent semantic values:
1. Anteriority, the event occurs before a specific moment.
2. Dimensionality, the event refers to an interval and its dimensions are concrete and defined.
The imperfective includes the following uses61: a. Present time
b. Atemporal expressions
60 For instance, in conditional constructions such as the ones with the particle اذا 61 Note that they are the same as in the perfective.
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c. Future time d. Past time
First of all, it must be noted that the particles of verbal negation, with the exception of ﺎﻣ always need the imperfective to appear. Temporality is marked by the particle itself:
ﻻ for the present,
ﱂ
for the past andﻦﻟ
for the future. This demonstrates that the imperfective is not clearly marked for temporality. On the other hand, the temporal particle to express future,فﻮﺳ
or-س
in its cliticized form, only works with the imperfective, as in the previous examples. In addition, a bare imperfective verb may be used for constructions where the future tense is lexically explicit.Therefore, we must state that the imperfective does not show any restrictions in temporality. In this case, temporality is an inherent property of the linguistic context. Due to this lack of temporal characterization, it is normal to find imperfective verbs in contexts situated in the past. It appears that the perfective is the marked form within the Arabic verbal system, whereas the imperfective is the non-marked form. As a result, the semantic features attached to the perfective are those of anteriority and dimensionality, whereas the imperfective implies all of which the perfective does not cover, i.e. all the features which oppose that. Therefore, the categories are as follows:
a. Perfective + anterior
+ dimensional
b. Imperfective - anterior
- dimensional ± anteriority
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± dimensionality
Formally, The perfective/imperfective opposition is expressed by means of two procedures:
1. the vocalism string: different vowel melodies are related to different tense/aspects.
2. the inflectional paradigm: each conjugation paradigm, i.e. the group of inflectional affixes carrying the information of mood, person, number and gender, is specialized for one of the two aspects. Thus, a perfective stem binds to one set of inflectional affixes and an imperfective stem binds to another set of inflectional affixes, which in turn differentiate indicative, subjunctive and jussive moods.
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Inflec. info perfective
(only suffixes) imperfective indicative imperfective subjunctive imperfective jussive 3SM -a y-u y-a y-
3SF -at t-u t-a t-
3DM -aA y-aAni y-aA y-aA
3DF -ataA t-aAni t-aA t-aA
3PM -uwA y-uwna y-uwA y-uwA
3PF -na y-na y-na y-na
2SM -ta t-u t-a t-
2SF -ti t-u t-a t-
2DN -tumaA t-aAni t-aA t-aA
2PM -tum t-uwna t-uwA t-uwA
2PF -tun~a t-na t-na t-na
1SN -tu Â-u Â-a Â-
1PN -na n-u n-a n-
TABLE 11 Affixes of the inflectional paradigm
The final A of the inflectional form 3PM has an orthographic function, it is not pronounced and has no linguistic content.