Imperfective Verbs in Sūrat Al-Kahf Within the Framework of Generative Grammar and Arabic Grammar

Abstract

This thesis investigates the debatable hypothesis that Arabic verbs are more Aspect-oriented than Tense-oriented. In all her research on the Arabic language, whether Qur’anic Arabic, Diriyah Arabic, or Cairene Arabic, H. Ghaly (1994-) has always advocated that the Arabic verb, whether Perfective or Imperfective, is Aspect-oriented. Hence, in this thesis, the researcher focuses on studying various Imperfective verb forms in Qur’anic Arabic, mainly from Sūrat al-Kahf [The Cave], to provide further evidence on the hypothesis and verify that such verbs are solely ‘timeless’ and denote no accurate time reference. In this regard, the study mainly relies on analysing different syntactic Imperfective constructions, within the framework of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (MP) as well as the scope of traditional Arabic grammar. Following a descriptive and an analytical approach, the researcher reached a conclusion that there are three main basics that shall collaborate in order to indicate the actual timing upon which an Imperfective verb takes place: the first is to understand the context of the utterance, both linguistically and situationally; the second is to interpret the speaker’s approach regarding an utterance and his actual intended speech act, and the third is to express that ‘approach’ through morpho-syntactic devices in order to complement the meaning intended by the speaker. Thus, we can evidently say that Arabic Imperfective verbs have Aspect and not Tense nor Time, in the sense that an Imperfective verb is temporally ambiguous and has in itself no absolute indication of time. Accordingly, Imperfective verbs can denote both complete and incomplete acts, depending on the context and/or the speaker’s intended meaning behind an utterance.