Temporal Interpretation in Standard and Jordanian Arabic

Abstract

This paper addresses temporal interpretation in Arabic in which the distinctive morphological verbal forms are grammaticalized forms of Aspect and not Tense. Therefore, the language adopts other linguistic tools to achieve temporal interpretation. The aspectual viewpoints provide pragmatic cues to temporal location of eventualities. Bounded eventualities are interpreted as past; unbounded ones as present. Furthermore, some pseudo verbs, e.g. ‘aSbaHa ‘be in the morning’ and temporal adverbs, e.g. amsi ‘yesterday’, introduce temporal interpretation lexically, i.e. by their meanings. Their similar lexical contribution is supported by the similar logical forms of them analyzed within the NeoDavidsonian Framework.