ABSTRACT
Any adequate grammar of Arabic has to account for a vast array of linguistic facts exhibited by the language. In this book these facts will be handled in two different ways: some will be accounted for in a straightforward method (i.e. by base rules) (1). Others will be handled by transformations (%). It should be noted, however, that the PS rules that I am sug~esting for Arabic make two major predictions: first, that Arabic is a VSO language 3), and second, that the traditionally labelled nominal sentences are in fact the outcome of some verbal deletion, which entails that all Arabic sentences have a deep structure verbal element. In this section, I will
demonstrate that what is commonly referred to as nominal equative sentences have the copula ka:na (4) (roughly equivalent to English be) in deep structure, and that the copula is dominated by VERB and should be treated as other main verbs (5) Such assumptions are corroborated by several arguments. In the following discussion I intend to show that ka:na behaves as a main verb (6), and explain the reasons why it should be introduced as a compulsory element in the base. Consider the following examples:
1-almataru gazi:r the rain heavy (It is raining heavily)
2-ka: na lmataru gazi: ra: was the rain heavy (It rained heavily)
The copula ka:na (was) in 2 clearly serves as tense exponent which makes it comparable to main verbs as can be seen in 2a:
2a-S
~ VERB NP Adj P
I +Copula +Past
I ka:na Imataru gazi:ra: was the rain heavy
The absence of ka:na, however, may denote the imperfective or the present tense. Compare the following (7):
3-alwuru:du jami:lah the flowers beautiful (The flowers are beautiful)
4-ka:nati lwuru:du jami:lah were the flowers beautiful (The flowers were beautiful)
5-azzawa: riqu sari: cab the boats fast (The boats are fast)
6-ka: nati zzawa: riqu sari: cah were the boats fast (The boats were fast)
The absence of the copula from 1, 3, 5 above denotes the present tense, and this means that the imperfective form of the copula (i.e. yaku:n (is, are) is not needed to mark the present tense. Thus sentences like 7 and 8 are deviant:
7-* taku:nu Iwuru:du jami:lah are the flowers beautiful
8-* yaku: nu zzawraqu sari: ca: is the boat fast
This is in contrast with examples 2,4,6 where the sentences are marked for the past tense.
