A text-based model for the disambiguation of the temporal inerpretation of the verb in modern standard Arabic

This thesis begins by showing the important part that the text plays in disambiguating the temporal interpretaions of the verb forms in Modern Standard Arabic. Proceeding from this point, it shows how, in translation, depending solely on the morphologically-based temporal interpretations of the verb forms or the semantic classifications of the situations represented by the clauses is misleading and cripples the cohesion and coherence of the target text (Chapter One). In order to show the need for this work, the views on the subject of determining the temporal interpretation of the verb-form held by traditional Arab grammarians, Arabists and modern Arab linguists are critically reviewed (Chapter Two). In the body of the thesis (Chapter Three) a method of dealing with this problem is proposed, based on an examination of the text viewed as a whole, not as a combination of decontextualized clauses or forms. Also in this part of the thesis (Chapter Three) a description of the texts analyzed is provided in order to show the authenticity of our data. The approach suggested in chapter three is then given a realistic test by applying it to a fairly large corpus of short news reports produced by and for native speakers of Arabic (Chapter Four). The motivation for this research is the felt need for translators of Arabic and English texts to be made aware of this problem in order to improve the quality of the work they are involved in. The approach that is proposed should also be of benefit to those interested in studying and teaching translation as a process (Chapter Five)