Time Indication of Nouns in Arabic: Present Participle, Past Participle and Gerund, as Models

Abstract

This study is designed to shed light on an illusion that many learners of Arabic could have when studying the concept of tense in Arabic. This illusion manifests itself in two ways: the first way is that Arabic has limited approaches to indicate tense, only by using the three verbal constructions, namely the past verb, the present verb and order of command verbs. However, the fact is that Arabic has many approaches which can be used to indicate time. For example, time can be inferred through: abstract verbs, augmented verbs, gerund, present participle and past participle. The second way goes to the idea that says time is related only to verbs, not to nouns while, in fact, nouns can indicate tense in many contexts. Strictly speaking, this study aims to clarify how nouns like: gerund, present participle and past participle can indicate time in different contexts. Accordingly, this study implemented the descriptive method through which some standard Arabic passages can be investigated in order to find out concrete examples that show how nouns can indicate tense. This study has limited its scope for examining some nouns (gerund, present participle and past participle), while verbs can be used where necessary.