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EMERGENCE OF TENSE AND AGREEMENT
quadriconsonantal roots and also a limited number of biconsonantal roots.
A variation in shade of meaning is obtained first by varying the voweling
of the simple root, and secondly by the addition of the prefixes, suffixes,
and infixes. By the combination of the root + vowel pattern a stem is
attained which make up word classes (Bakall 1979; Erwin 1963; Jensen
1990; Lyovin 1997; Mitchelle 1962; Owens 1997). Various words with the
same root share same meaning through their association with that root
(Bakalla 1979). For example, daras ‘he studied’, madrasa ‘school’,
modarris ‘male teacher’ etc, are related to the triliteral root drs which
means ‘studying’.
Erwin (1963) categorizes triliteral roots into two types. The first type
is the strong root (CCC; C stands for a consonant) which includes sound
roots (second and third radical are not identical), e.g. ktb ‘write’ and
double roots (second and third radical are identical such as skk ‘close’).
The second type is the weak root where one or more radical element is
unstable with either ", w or y or it may be represented by vowel length.
Examples of the second type are "kl ‘eat’, rwV ‘show’ and yVV ‘come’
(the V stands for the weak radical). It is important to emphasize that the
root and pattern are “theoretical abstractions” and not pronounceable in
their own realization (Beeston 1970; Jensen 1990).
2.1 The Verb
Arabic has its own system of derived stems into which triliteral verbs fall
into and most Arabic dialects maintained. MECAS (1965:110) describes
the verb derivation: “the system of derived or increased forms is one by
which modification to the First Form of a verb are accompanied by
modification in the meaning”. Within that system there are 10 derivational
Classes (Template or Forms) (Erwin 1963; Kaye & Rosenhouse 1997;
MECAS 1965). For the purpose of this paper, the main focus is on three
Classes only.
1. Class 1: Mostly simple verbs belong to this Class like taa! ‘fall’. Both
transitive and intransitive verbs belong to this Class which has no
particular meaning.
2. Class II: is the class to make transitive verbs from other forms and the
most frequent meaning of the verbs in this Class is causative. Verbs in
this Class are characterized by a double middle radical. The conjugation
of the Class I verb taa! ‘fell’ is tayya! ‘fell/drop’ intransitive causative
verb since verb taa! ‘fell’ is a weak middle root tV!, the y in the
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