Workshop on Formal Arabic Linguistics

Peter Hallman (Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence)

Mood and Aspect in Standard and Syrian Arabic
Benmamoun (2000) claims that the imperfective verb form in Arabic is non-finite. In Hallman 2015, I show that bare subjunctive imperfective verbs cannot have progressive or habitual interpretations in Standard Arabic, which is characteristic of non-finite verbs. This supports Benmamoun’s claim, but only for subjunctive verbs. Indicative verbs have a strong affinity for progressive or habitual interpretations, which is unlike bare infinitives and more like imperfectives in other languages (e.g. Spanish; see Cipria and Roberts 2000). However, I claim this apparent disparity between indicative and subjunctive in Arabic arises as an epiphenomenal interaction of two factors, the first Arabic-specific and the second universal: 1) indicative mood is the default verb form when subjunctive (or jussive) is not selected, and 2) root contexts semantically require a stative predicate. Therefore, in order for an eventive verb to occur in a root context it must first be combined with a covert progressive or habitual operator, since these derive state descriptions from event descriptions (Stowell 2007 and others). The indicative’s apparent affinity for progressive or habitual interpretations arises because root contexts require a stative predicate, triggering a progressive or habitual construal of eventive verbs, but also do not select a verb form, triggering default indicative. According to this analysis, the indicative has no meaning of its own, like the subjunctive, in particular it is not inherently progressive or habitual. If it is true that root contexts require a state description, then perfective verbs, which express the past tense in root contexts, must also be state descriptions. This is reasonable on the assumption that perfective verbs describe a state holding at the utterance time, as one preceded by an event falling under the VP description. I show that these conclusions carry over to contemporary Syrian Arabic, which marks an indicative/non-indicative contrast in the imperfective. The former has the distribution and interpretation of the Standard Arabic indicative and the latter the distribution and interpretation of a non-finite verb form, as witnessed by their interaction with modal verbs. But in contrast to Standard Arabic, the progressive is marked overtly in Syrian (as is the habitual in certain other dialects). The ordering of these elements in Syrian Arabic supports the analysis presented here.

References:
Benmamoun, Elabbas. 2000. The feature structure of functional categories. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cipria, Alicia, and Craige Roberts. 2000. Spanish imperfecto and pretérito: Truth conditions and aktionsart effects in a situation semantics. Natural Language Semantics 8: 297–347.
Hallman, Peter. 2015. The Arabic Imperfective. Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 7:103-131.
Stowell, Tim. 2007. Sequence of perfect. In Recent advances in the syntax and semantics of tense, mood and aspect, ed. by Louis de Saussure, Jacque Moeschler, and Genoveva
Puskas, 123–146. Mouton de Gruyter.