ABSTRACT

The Arabic verb is an amalgam of two semantic elements, a pronoun theme and a predicate. A verb can in consequence function if need be as a complete sentence: miitat 'she died'. Each of its two elements has a morphological expression differing from that of the corresponding element in a non-verbal predicate structure. The predicate element in a verb is either event-stating or classificatory. In ancient Arabic there were some verbs which conveyed a locatory predicate, but this phenomenon no longer appears in SA, though it forms the basis on which several of the modifying verbs (p. 80) have evolved.