130 



G. Hughes — Are there Tenses in Arahic? [July & August, 



grammars distinguisli iii Arabic two primary tenses, the madi and the 

 muddri'. The chissification is taken from the native grammarians, and the 

 only question that can arise is whether it has been adopted in the sense in 

 which it was put forth. The account given is that the madi is, in meaning 

 and applications, ec^mYnXentio prefer ite^ mudari' meaning " analogical " and 

 being so called because it partakes of the nature of the substantive. This 

 division is clearly illogical, and therefore suspicious, and suggests a belief 

 that the full sense of the terms may not have been apprehended. The 

 suspicion is confirmed when we find that while the madi is primarily 

 assigned to the denotation of the past, there are numerous cases where it 

 must be used for present and future, while the mudari', appropriated to 

 present and future, is of constant use in reference to the past. 



The verb mada means, inter alia, and according to the conventional 

 system of rendering, praeteriit, ahiit res, but this would make mad^'^ 

 mean not praeteritiis but praeteriens. It also means penetravit, perrexU 

 in re. In the Muntaha-1-Arab, which resumes the bulk of Arabian dic- 

 tionaries, the renderings of mad"^ into Persian are giizarindah o qati'-i 

 har chih bashad o sher-i-besha o shamshir o mard-i-rasa dar umur, i. e., 

 effective, trenchant, lion of the jungle, sword, capable in affairs. 



If, then, the madi be taken to be the effective, actual, form of the 

 verb, while the mudari' is negatively defined as not effective, not actual, 

 and quasi substantive, we have a clear provisional account of the matter, 

 but one which excludes any immediate recognition of tense. 



The result stands thus : — 



English Present 

 English Past 

 English Future 



I write 

 I wrote 

 I shall write 



The Arabic madi 

 cutis' katabtu 



I am writing 

 I was writing 

 I shall be writing 



The Arabic mudari' 

 aktubu v^* 



The system of syntax, not the system of inflexion, provides the re- 

 quisite adjustments of the Arabic verb to express relations of time. 



This account of the matter is confirmed by the alternative technical 

 terms for the madi and mudari,' viz., 'abir and ghabir, (= overt and 

 covert), and is not contradicted by anything but the practice of European 

 grammarians, which, in consequence, is terribly involved and embarrassing 

 to the student, I may say embarrassing to themselves. There have been 

 no more consummate masters of grammatical science than De Sacy and Mr. 

 Howell. Yet they differ in their normal translation of the simplest type 

 of an Arabic sentence. I«>^ oi*i \'dS K^ixijj De Sacy habitually renders 

 ■= " If you were to do so and so, I should do so and so " ; Mr. Howell, 



