The Arabic Language in Contrast to English and Italian: Future Tense Revisited

Abstract

This study investigates the nature of the future tense in Arabic language in contrast to English and Italian languages. A major question to be answered is whether Arabic language as well as English and Italian have a real future tense.

The methodology employed is based on contrastive linguistics theory which includes a full description of the expression of futurity in the languages under investigation, followed by a morpho-syntactic analysis of the forms used to express futurity. The data were obtained from three different, but rather similar in nature, sources. These include the prime ministers' speeches to the house of parliament in the case of Italian and Arabic languages (along with a description, frequency and percentages of the future forms used in the holy Quran) ; and a three hour recording of an American series ( Acapulco bay) translated into Arabic.

The results show that there are similarities ( though belonging to different language families) and differences among these languages in terms of their expression of futurity. Further, they show that Italian and Arabic languages do have real future tense unlike English which does not have a morphologically marked forms to express futurity.