Tense and Text in Classical Arabic

Front matter

‘Tense and Text in Classical Arabic

A DIsCOUBRSE-ORAIENTED STUDY- OF HE -GhASSIGAL AK ABI. I-EINSE-S YS TEM

MICHAL MARMORSTEIN

Contents

Acknowledgements 1x

1 Introduction 1 1.1 TheProblem 1 1.2 Autonomous or Contextual Meaning(s) of the Verb 13 TheMethod 8 1.3.1 Methodological Principles 8 1.3.2 An Outline of the Analytical Procedure u 1.44 Language and Corpus Definition 13 1.41 Classical Arabic 13 1.4.2 Classical Arabic Prose 14 1.5 TheStructure and Scope ofthe Study 18 1.6 TechnicalRemarks 19

2 The Verb in Arabic Grammatical Tradition 20 2.1 Two Frames of Discussion 20 2.2 The Semantological Frame 20 2.3 TheGrammatical Frame 24 2.3.1 "raband bina 24 2.3.2 The Term al-mudari! 27 2.4 Summary 32

Introduction

This is a discourse-oriented study of the indicative tenses of Classical Arabic. The pivot of the analysis is the verbal form yaf‘alu and the functional paradigms associated with it. The study is based on a large and varied corpus of Classical Arabic prose, composed or compiled by the end of the tenth century CE.

11 The Problem

The syntactic analysis of the verbal system in Classical Arabic is considered by many to be a difficult endeavor.! Grammars of Classical Arabic present a relatively compact system, consisting of only two main tenses or states: a ‘perfect’ and an ‘imperfect’; then a list, specifying a great number of uses of both tenses, is usually appended.” The beginner student is puzzled: how should the perfect and imperfect be understood? Under which conditions is the perfect ‘past’ or ‘perfect’, or something entirely different such as ‘gnomic’ or ‘optative’? When is the imperfect used as an ‘imperfect’ and when does it serve to indicate ‘present-future’? The advanced student, on the other hand, is intrigued: how is it that all these functions are carried out by only two forms? What is the ultimate meaning of these forms? How should one formulate the logic underlying the system as a whole?

Indeed, these types of questions have been the focal interest of generations of Arabists for the past two hundred years. When it comes to the tense system, Western scholars have departed to a great extent from their Arab predecessors, whose views of the problem were considered to be too simplistic in terms of their semantic analysis, and too obscure as far as their terminology was concerned. The insights offered by the Arab grammatical tradition were for the most part disregarded.

Many suggestions have been raised to resolve the intricate problem of the Classical Arabic tense system. However different the analyses may be, they all

1 Thus Reckendorf, Syntaktischen Verhältnisse, 1, 52, in a much-quoted passage, says: Wenn man die Schwierigkeit syntaktischer Probleme nach dem Grad der Schwierigkeit, die syntaktischen Formen nachzufühlen, bemessen will, so ist die Tempuslehre das schwierigste Kapitel der semit. Syntax.

2 E.g. Wright, Grammar, 2, 1ff.

© MICHAL MARMORSTEIN, 2016 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004310483 002 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms ofthe Creative Commons

Attribution-Noncommercial-Non-Derivative 3.0 Unported (CC-Bv-NC-ND) License start out from the basic premise that the tense system of Classical Arabic is based on an opposition between two forms: the suffixed fa‘al-a and the circumfixed y-af'al-u. The problem which these analyses set out to resolve is defining the real essence of the semantic opposition marked by fa'ala and yaf‘alu. Indeed, they aim to identify the temporal/aspectual/modal/other meaning which these forms are designed to convey.

In the present study I wish to take a different path. The problem, as I see it, is not semantic, but rather theoretical and methodological. It resides in the premise that the Classical Arabic tense system has a binary structure and that this structure corresponds to an asymmetrical opposition at the content level. This premise is clearly refuted when considering the following facts:

(a) The opposition between fa‘ala and yaf'alu is not found in every syntactic or textual environment. In fact, there are quite a few clausal and textual environments where these forms do not form part of the same substitution class. For instance, in conditional clauses fa'ala commutes with the jussive, whereas in setting and circumstantial clauses yaf'alu commutes with the participle (see below 8.4.1). Or considering, for example, narrative texts: fa'ala, as is well known, is the narrative, plot-carrying, form. It does not interchange with yaf'alu in this environment the same way as, say, the passé simple and imparfait in French may interchange. In fact, yaf alu is never a free form in the narrative, but always dependent upon a previous fa'ala form. Thus, the opposition between yaf'alu and fa'ala is not only constrained to certain types of clauses, but also cannot always be accounted for at the same level of syntactic analysis.

(b) The tense system consists of forms other than fa'ala and yaf'alu. Although the verbal system is not rich in forms, Arabic is known for its productive mechanism of modification and augmentation of the simple forms. In fact, not only fa'ala and yaf alu, but also the participle, the modified qad fa'ala and sa-yaf alu, and the compounds kana fa'ala and kana yaf alu, among other combinations, are part of the system of oppositions constituting the indicative tenses in Classical Arabic.?

(c) The meaning of fa'ala and yaf'alu is not a single, basic, and fixed one. This point, which is perhaps the most important one, is supported by a more general argument, namely, that the meaning of a verb, or to be more precise, its function or value, is not equivalent toa plain notion or idea. The ‘basic’, ‘general’, or ‘absolute’ meaning of a form is only found

3 Cfalso Goldenberg, Semitic Languages, 205 ff.

at a very abstract level of semantic analysis. In practice, the meanings of a form are always determined with respect to a given opposition in a given context of communication. Obviously, there may be an historical and/or associative links between various meanings of a form; however, these do not necessarily boil down to a single notion, nor can they always be reconciled by means of logical derivation. Rather than a single, basic, and fixed meaning, what we do find in practice is a cluster of meanings emerging from the interaction of the form with various lexical, syntactic, textual, and pragmatic elements of the context.

An empiric investigation and a careful analysis of the data shows that the functional opposition between fa'ala and yaf'alu is not as pervasive as taken to be, and that both forms are used to indicate a number of meanings. Overlooking these facts or undermining them, we are at risk of moving too far from the linguistic reality we set out to describe in the first place. What is the merit of a neat and elegant analysis if it is only half-true or if it only works sometimes? How would it help the puzzled student in understanding the text? Surely, as the history of Arabic linguistics has shown, yet another analysis of this kind will not put an end to the controversy over the basic meaning of the forms, which by now has become a notorious characteristic of the Tempuslehre in Arabic grammar.

If indeed we acknowledge that there is not one, basic, and fixed meaning to pursue, but rather a cluster of meanings, and that the system is not built upon a binary opposition between fa'ala and yaf'alu, then a whole new set of questions opens up. What is the syntactic distribution of fa‘ala and yaf'alu? What are the verbal paradigms they are associated with? In which syntactic and textual environments are these paradigms found? What types of meanings are expressed by the verbal forms and how are these affected by the context? Whatare the syntactic and semantic relations between the various paradigms? Notice that this last question calls for a synthesis ofthe more local or contextdependent findings; the goal, however, is not to reduce these into a clear-cut, absolute resolution—i.e., to identify the meaning of fa'ala and yaf‘alu—but to identify the mechanism, the system of functional relations underlying the use of the tenses in Classical Arabic.

In the present study I wish, then, to reframe the discussion of the Classical Arabic tense system as follows:

(a) Rather than focusing on the presumed dichotomy between fa‘ala and yaf alu, I aim to define the relations between all the forms constituting the ensemble of the indicative tenses.

(b) Ido not treat fa'ala as the semantic pivot or marked element, in respect to which the unmarked or neutral yaf alu is defined (e.g., perfect : imperfect, past : non-past, certain : uncertain). Rather, I take yaf'alu as the starting point of my investigation, precisely because of its indefinite semantic character, which calls for an inspection of the extended pattern in which the verbal form is realized.

(c) The unit under examination is not the plain verbal form, but the verbal form within a well-defined syntactic or textual context. My basic assumption is that language always occurs in context, thus, rather than an absolute meaning, I aim to define the functions of the verbal form as they emerge in different contexts.

(d) The shift of focus, from the invariant meaning of the verbal form to its contextual meanings, should not be taken as a fragmentation of the discussion. The system as a whole is coherent and displays a certain logic; however, this logic is not to be sought in some autonomous meaning of its parts, but in the regularities of their distribution and paradigmatic relations with each other.

1.2 Autonomous or Contextual Meaning(s) of the Verb

Theories of language position themselves quite differently with respect to the following question: is there an exclusive, isomorphic relation between grammatical forms and their meanings? Does each form have a single invariant— general or basic—meaning, common to all of its uses in specific contexts? Although this question bears on nearly every grammatical element in the language, linguists in the twentieth century have been contemplating and debating it most often in connection to the semantic analysis of the verb.

In traditional linguistics, a positive answer to the question of semantic invariance was considered as self-evident: ‘the search for the Gesamtbedeutung of each tense’, as Binnick points out, ‘was the assumed task of the traditional grammarian’.* This general meaning was understood as an absolute concept (e.g. ‘past’), controlling all of the normal or typical uses of the verb, i.e., all of the uses that could be logically reconciled with that concept. According to this view, atypical uses of the verb proceed from the context and do not form part of its core meaning.

4 Binnick, Time and the Verb, 104.

This position does not seem to have gone out of fashion also in modern times. Comrie, for instance, advocates the view that ‘tenses have meanings definable independently of particular contexts:5 While admitting that tenses may well ‘receive particular interpretations in particular contexts, Comrie holds that 'these are always explainable in terms of the interaction of contextindependent meaning and context, and do not therefore form part of the meaning of the tense category in question’. For Comrie, then, the problem is resolved by assuming the existence of an autonomous grammatical system which, though coming to interact with the context or discourse (in whatever sense he ascribes to these concepts), is not affected by them.

As a theoretical construct, the concept of Gesamtbedeutung was elaborated to the utmost by Jakobson, in his influential works on the verb and other grammatical categories in Russian." Semantic invariance, according to Jakobson, is inherent to the structure of language as a communicative system: the proper production and adequate interpretation of grammatical forms would not be possible if they were not associated with semantic constants.? Jakobson did not only advance the theoretical postulate of semantic invariance, but also proposed a methodological framework to account for it. According to this framework, the invariant meaning of a form is not absolute, but relational and oppositional: it is determined in contrast to the meaning of another form, constituting its binary pair. In a given syntactic environment, one member of the pair is semantically ‘marked’ (i.e., more specific and delimited), while the other is ‘unmarked’. The concept of markedness also explains the relationship between the invariant meaning of the form—as defined in respect to its mutual opposite—and its distribution and use within specific contexts.?

While it is indisputable that language, as a vehicle of communication, consists of some content that is equally shared by the communicating parties, the exact semantic nature ofthis content and the ways in which it is organized and

5 Comrie, Tense, 28.

6 Ibid.

7 Eg. Jakobson, Shifters; Cf. also the introduction of Waugh to the volume Invariance and Variation, reviewing the main theoretical issues brought up in Jakobson's work on the topic.

8 García, Grasping the Nettle, 33-34, provides a logical explanation to the phenomenon of invariance, arguing that '[...] open-ended communication among human beings presupposes the infinite [...] exploitation of finite sources. The fundamental reason, then, for assuming that any linguistic unit must make a constant and invariant contribution to communication are (cognitive) considerations of economy: the principle of invariance can be viewed as a particular instantiation of that distinctness on which all of language depends’.

9 Foran elaborate definition of the concept of markedness, see Waugh, Marked and Unmarked.

processed, specifically in relation to the context of interaction, remain hard to determine. As is often pointed out, the difficulty in positing semantic invariance is to find formulations that are neither too narrow and specific to cover all of the uses of the form, nor too general and abstract to account for its uses in actual practice. While there may be competing analyses of invariant meanings, there are no clear and obvious criteria to decide which is more pertinent and correct. Another intricate issue has to do with the postulation of binary oppositions and the concept of markedness. In many cases, grammatical systems involve more than just two members, and the semantic oppositions marked by these are far more delicate than a simple dichotomy can capture. Moreover, the identification of a certain form as semantically marked (e.g., ‘past’ or ‘perfective’ vs. ‘non-past’ or ‘imperfective’) relies ultimately on its high distribution in a specific context where it is pragmatically unmarked (e.g. ‘narrative’). It is hard to tell, therefore, which part of the meaning ofa form consists of its semantic core and which is imparted by the context (the fact that the terms ‘past’ and ‘narrative form’ are often used interchangeably attests, inter alia, to this reality).

Invariant meanings of grammatical forms are generally assigned to the referential or ideational level of the functional-semantic system.!° In the traditional—and still most prevalent—view, the grammatical category of the verb is essentially associated with the concept of time, as defined in logical terms: verbal forms are designed to indicate temporal relevance (or its absence), the explicit or external location in time, or the implicit or internal unfolding of time.!2 Some modern linguists, though coming to acknowledge the great many functions which verbs fulfill in actual discourse, still consider time reference as the primary meaning of the verb.? This meaning interacts with various elements at the higher, textual or expressive levels, so that more specific meanings ofthe verbal form are produced in particular contexts.“ Only a few suggestions

10 For an exception, see Waugh, Tense-Aspect, who regards also the verb's pragmatic and textual meanings as invariants.

11 For a basic and straightforward outline of this view, see Comrie, Tense, 2 ff.

12 Cf. Guillaume, [mmanence et transcendance; Comrie, Aspect, 5.

13 X Eg, Monville-Burston and Waugh, Multiple Meanings, in discussing the contextual meanings of the present tense in Modern French, start out by saying that 'as a general rule, one can say that the French tense system is dominated by considerations of deictic placement in time' (183).

14 Halliday and Hasan, Cohesion, 26ff., present an hierarchical model of the functional-semantic system, in which tense is located at the 'ideational' level and not assigned any ‘interpersonal’ or ‘textual’ roles; Fleischman, Theory of Tense-Aspect, departs to some have been made to invert the hierarchy and identify the textual or discursive functions of the verb as constitutive components of its meaning. Hopper, for instance, maintains that the essential role of tense-aspect morphology is to mark the fundamental and universal distinction between foreground and background." A yet more radical approach, notably advanced by Weinrich, suggests to ‘forget all about time and aspect.!6 According to Weinrich, the primary function of the verb is pragmatic in nature: the verb is designed to mark the discursive or narrative ‘speech-situation’ in which the interlocutors are engaged (see also below 10.1).

The variety of opinions and analyses presented above evidences a real theoretical and methodological difficulty to deal with the multi-functionality of the category of the verb. Evidently, different assumptions regarding the question of autonomous meaning vs. contextual meanings of the verb underlie each analysis. At yet a deeper level, these assumptions derive from the linguist’s conceptualization of that part of the language which consists of its system, i.e., that part which in Saussurean terms is designated as /a langue. In this work, a rather broad understanding of this concept is implemented: in my view, the goal is not to reach a definition of the general meaning of the verb, but rather to analyze all that is generalizable and thus systematic in a context where a verbal form occurs, at the syntactic, lexical, semantic, and pragmatic levels. Temporal distinctions are one component in the overall meaning of the verb; however, as will be further shown in this work, they are neither the only component, nor a privileged one. A close inspection of the text shows that there are symbiotic relations between the verbal forms and the contexts of their use, so that the meaning of a form is also determined by the extended syntactic unit in which it is realized, the lexical content realized by it, and the discursive conditions of its realization.

extent from this view by acknowledging that ‘the functions of tense-aspect categories in narrative are not limited to these basic referential meanings; rather, tense and aspect do as much ifnot more of their work in the two pragmatic components (textual and expressive) and in the metalinguistic component (78).

15 Hopper, Aspect and Foregrounding.

16 Weinrich, Tense and Time, 32.

8 CHAPTER 1 1.3 The Method

1341 Methodological Principles

The present work is a descriptive and synchronic study of the system of the indicative tenses, as this emerges from an empirical examination of a well-defined corpus of Classical Arabic prose.

The methodology used in this study is interdisciplinary in nature, influenced by several schools of linguistic theory. It fundamentally draws on concepts developed in early (European) Structuralism, specifically as presented in de Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale, and further shaped by the Prague school and other linguistic circles, such as the Copenhagen school.!” Furthermore, this study draws on applications and elaboration of this theory in descriptions of specific, Semitic and other, languages.!? In these works, analytical problems not fully addressed by early structural linguists, specifically problems of syntactic analysis above the clause unit, are dealt with. Indeed, supra-clausal structures, cohesion, and texture have become the focus of interest of later linguists, working in the frameworks of Text-Linguistics and Discourse Analysis. It is important to note that these labels, as with Structuralism, have come to subsume different, even contrasting, approaches to the study of language or discourse. These various approaches are often grouped into two main paradigms, conventionally designated as ‘formal’ and ‘functional’. At a rather general level of abstraction, one may say that in a formal perspective, language is studied as a self-contained system of rules, while in a functional perspective, language is studied as an instrument shaped by and used for communicative purposes.!9

17 See de Saussure, Cours; Vachek, The Linguistic School; Hjelmslev, Prolegomena.

18 Notably Shisha-Halevy, Coptic Grammatical Categories, Structural Sketches and Topics. Further solidification of structural analysis methodology is found in Cohen, Modal System and Syntax of Neo-Aramaic.

19 For a detailed discussion of the distinction between the ‘formal’ and the ‘functional’ paradigms, see Dik, Functional Grammar, 21f., and Schiffrin, Approaches, 20ff. It is important to note that Structuralism, specifically in its later American manifestations, is often taken to be synonymous with formal linguistics. Yet, it should be reminded that in its earlier continental manifestations, and specifically as shaped by the Prague school, structural linguistics was oriented toward the functional aspects of language. As Vachek, The Linguistic School, 6-7, points out: ‘[...] the Prague movement claimed for its approach not only the epithet "structuralist" (pointing out that no element of language can be duly evaluated if considered in isolation from the other elements of that same language) but the epithet “functionalist” as well [...] according to the Prague conception language is not a self-contained whole, hermetically separated from the extra-lingual reality, but, in fact, its main function is to react to and refer to this reality’.

As the title of this work suggests, the analysis proposed here follows the latter paradigm: it is not concerned with the construction of an abstract semantosyntactic system, but with discovering and describing regularities in language as used in actual communications.”°

In this study, I describe syntactic units of various size and order, at the clause level and above it. Since larger units are not just accumulations of smaller units but exhibit a distinct internal organization, they have been regarded as structural units in their own right. I did not decide a-priori which units to describe, but sought for any unit which is systematic, i.e., which is regular, consistent, and common enough to form part of the system represented in Classical Arabic prose. In this frame, not only simple clauses or constituents of clauses were included (e.g., declarative or predicative clauses), but also whole textual units, such as narratives. To be sure, there are considerable differences between the analysis of micro-syntactic and macro-syntactic units, specifically as far as the import of the extra-linguistic and meta-linguistic components are concerned. Nevertheless, rather than excluding each other, these two practices were taken here as complementary, each dealing with questions of a different scope.

In the following, I will shortly present the main concepts and principles which make up the approach implemented in this study:

The sign—Language is a semiotic system. The linguistic sign consists of a relation between form (signifier) and function (signified). Signs range from simple morphemes to complex syntactic structures. The analysis of signs is commensurate with their degree of complexity, so that a complex sign, e.g., a clausal pattern, can be described at a number of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic levels. Simple signs constituting a more complex sign are referred to as ‘elements’ or ‘components’.

The syntagm and the paradigm— The systemic coordinates by which the linguistic sign is defined.

The syntagm is a phrasal, clausal, or textual sequence in which a given sign is located in speech. The syntagmatic relation is realized through the compati-

20 Cf. Brown and Yule, Discourse Analysis, 22—23, discussion of ‘rules’ vs. ‘regularities’. The authors define regularity as ‘a linguistic feature which occurs in a definable environment with a significant frequency’; the discourse analyst, like the descriptive linguist, ‘will attempt to describe the linguistic forms which occur in his data, relative to the environments in which they occur.

bility and inter-dependence of the adjacent constituents in the sequence. The distribution of a sign amounts to all the syntagms in which it can occur, i.e., to its syntagmatic identity.

The paradigm is a functional slot in a sequence (syntagm) in which a class of signs figures. The paradigmatic relation is realized through the commutability of the signs which occur in the same functional slot. The signs may pertain to different formal classes (e.g., nouns and verbs), or to be of different order (e.g., noun-phrases and clauses). For example, in the syntagm ga’a Zaydun rakiban ‘Zayd came riding’ the participle rakiban functions as a circumstantial expression. The verbal form yaf‘alu may occupy the same position as the participle in this syntagm and function as a circumstantial clause, e.g., gaa Zaydun yarkabu ‘Zayd came riding’. Since the participle and the verb fulfill the same function in the given sequence, they are considered to be paradigmatic.

The function— The value of a sign (i.e., the signifier-signified entity) is relative: it is determined with respect to its paradigm, i.e., by opposition to other signs which may occupy the same functional slot in the sequence. In this technical sense, ‘function’ may refer to both the semantic content of a form and its pragmatic use. A function is distinct from a ‘notion, which is an abstract category definable in positive terms. The term ‘meaning’ is used here in a more general and less technical fashion, to refer to both functions and notions.

Paradigmatic opposition and featural opposition—The function of a sign is determined with respect to an opposition, paradigmatic and/or featural. The first was explained above as the substitution of a class of signs in a given location in the sequence. However, some complex signs do not form part of a substitution class in the conventional sense. I refer specifically to complex-clause constructions (e.g., setting-presentative constructions, see below 8.4.1) or to text units (e.g., narrative chains, see below 10.2) which do not simply commute with other complex signs. Rather, they can be defined in contrast to other signs of the same order, using a selection of pertinent features. Featural opposition is useful, though not necessary, in defining signs of whatever size; however, in the case of complex signs like text types, it is the only analytical procedure by which these can be evaluated.

Text—Text is any type of record of verbal communication. I use the technical term text type to refer to the cohesive structure underlying a certain segment of text. A detailed discussion of the concept of text types is found below in 4.3.

Context—The term ‘context’ may designate various aspects of the communicative situation in respect to which a certain text is interpreted. Context may refer to extra-linguistic aspects such as the general knowledge of the interlocutors or the nature of the social interaction, or to linguistic elements such as the immediate sequence of the text or its overall structure. Given that in this work a corpus of classical literature is studied, it is the latter textual and structural features that are viewed as the most accessible and relevant to the analysis. In chapter 4, a model of context as a structural construct is outlined. This model accounts for the referential (deictic), textural, syntactic, and lexical parameters which factor in the actualization and interpretation of a certain segment of text. Occasionally, I may use the terms surrounding context, to refer to the adjacent stretch of text (also known as co-text), and context of situation, to refer to extra-linguistic aspects of the communication.

13.2. An Outline of the Analytical Procedure

This study is based on data gathered from a relatively large corpus of Classical Arabic prose (around 2000 printed pages). The database, organized in Access Forms, records over 5500 examples extracted from the corpus. The examples were sorted into four groups according to the minimal verbal form they cite: yafalu, fa'ala, qad fa'ala and the participle. qad fa‘ala, though formally a modification of fa‘ala, was considered as a minimal form due to its distinct functional identity vis-à-vis fa‘ala (see below 5.2.2.1). Each group also comprises the compound formations of the minimal forms.

Below, two records (henceforth m and n2) are presented as an illustration of the analytical procedure applied in this study. Each record has an 1D number. The Reference slot indicates the textual source and the page number from which the example was extracted. Both records cite examples from the same page in the Kitab al-Magazi text:

ID í „Reference _ 7 4|Maghazi 413

Example 'LÉÁL

dos

DN G 12 3 Aff-Indep Aux Akt Mot Per Other Conj no-Conj Neg res-Neg sub-Neg wa Fol v v v qad la sa Q No

Record (1)

ID Reference 1|Maghazi 413

Example lie. J jel cuis ul

D IN |G 12 3 Aff-Indep Aux Akt Mot Per Other Conj no-Conj Neg res-Neg sub-Neg wa Fol v v qad la sa Q No

Record (2)

The Example slot cites (in the Arabic script) the shortest stretch of text relevant for the analysis. Thus, Ri cites the one word clause na‘zilu ‘we will abstain’ (lit. ‘separate ourselves’), while R2 cites a larger unit comprising the compound kuntu 'ailu ‘I was abstaining’ in which the targeted yaf‘alu is realized. The rest of the Form contains a checklist of features in respect to which the verbal form is profiled. The boxes D, N and G, abbreviating ‘dialogue’, ‘narrative’ and ‘generic’ respectively, refer to the overall text type. In R1, D is checked since the example is a dialogue clause; in R2, none of the text types boxes are checked since the targeted form is embedded, thus not relating directly (but only through its matrix clause) to the text level. The boxes 1, 2, 3, refer to the person of the targeted form. The box Aff-Indep, abbreviating ‘affirmative-independent, is mutually exclusive with Neg, res-Neg, sub-Neg and Q, abbreviating ‘negation, ‘restricted negation’ (e.g. "i/la-clauses), ‘subordinate negation’ and ‘question, and also with Aux, Akt, Mot, Per, Other, representing types of matrix verbs initiating verbal complexes, viz., ‘auxiliary’, ‘aktionsart’ (modification), ‘motion, ‘perception’ or other verb. In Ri, the Aff-Indep box is checked, whereas in R2 the Aux box is checked. Also incompatible with Aff-Indep are the boxes referring to various types of explicit and implicit operators initiating non-independent clauses, viz., Conj(unction) and no-Conj(unction), the connective wa (wa-) and a Following location in the sequence. The last three boxes are specific to yaf‘alu and refer to possible modifications of the form, via qad, la ([a-) or sa (sa-, sawfa). Special remarks are occasionally inserted in the Notes slot.

The features presented above were worked out in the course of my examination and analysis of the data. They reflect my understanding of the pertinent elements in the discursive, textual, and syntactic context which interact with the grammatical form of the verb. They do not exhaust all the pertinent elements. For instance, lexical classes were sorted manually, after the data was gathered and processed. Also in regard to some syntactic features, a further classification of the tokens needed to be carried out (e.g., the breaking down of the ‘conjunction’ category to substantival, adjectival, and adverbial clauses). To be sure, in every segment of speech, far more features are involved in the dynamic construction and interpretation of its meaning. The static procedure presented above is inevitably selective and approximative, focusing on those features which are taken to lie at the heart of a structural analysis of the text.