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There are three tenses in Arabic: the past tense (اَلْمَاضِي al-māḍī), the present tense (اَلْمُضَارِع al-muḍāriʿ) and the future tense.The future tense in Classical Arabic is formed by adding either the prefix سَـ sa-or the separate word سَوْفَ sawfa onto the beginning of the present tense verb, e.g. سَيَكْتُبُ sa-yaktubu or ...
The Levantine verb has only two tenses: past (perfect) and present (also called imperfect, b-imperfect, or bi-imperfect). The future tense is an extension of the present tense. The negative imperative is the same as the negative present with helping verb (imperfect).
Since Arabic lacks a verb meaning "to have", constructions using li-, ‘inda, and ma‘a with the pronominal suffixes are used to describe possession. For example: عنده بيت (ʿindahu bayt) – literally: At him (is) a house. → He has a house. For the negation of Arabic verbs, see Negation in Arabic.
In literary Arabic (الْفُصْحَى al-fuṣḥā) the verb has two aspect-tenses: perfective (past), and imperfective (non-past). There is some disagreement among grammarians whether to view the distinction as a distinction in aspect, or tense, or both.
In Modern Standard Arabic, the main way to negate past-tense verbs is to add the negative particle لَمْ lam "not" before the verb, and to put the verb in the jussive mood. [3] In more colloquial usage, it is possible to give the verb in the present indicative mood (which is largely identical in form to the jussive). [4]
The past tense is used in the case of verbs as it is more distinctive and has been traditionally used in Arabic lexicons. Canonically, these verbs are pronounced with the final 'a' (marker of the past tense in Classical Arabic). This notation is preserved the table below. However, the relation between Libyan and Classical Arabic verbs can be ...
The so-called 3rd edition was printed by Otto Harrassowitz in Wiesbaden, Hesse, in 1961 (reprinted in 1966, 1971) under the title A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic: Arabic–English, as well as by Spoken Language Services, Inc. of Ithaca, New York, in 1976, under the somewhat different title Arabic–English Dictionary: The Hans Wehr ...
A way of emphasizing the past tense is by adding the verbs قام /gaːm/ ('he stood') or راح /raːħ/ ('went') and its derivatives before the past verbs which is similar to the English usage of "went", as in قام جري له /gaːm d͡ʒiriːlu/ ('he went and ran to him') and راح كتب عنه /raːħ katab ʕanːu/ ('he went and wrote ...