The grammaticalization of future in Classical Arabic: a hypothesis

Abstract

In Classical Arabic, future tense can be expressed through the particle sawfa (or its shortened and bounded variant sa-) placed before the prefixed stem of the indicative conjugation. While the relation between sawfa and sa- has been extensively discussed in literature, few studies focused on the diachronic process leading to these morphemes. This study aims at taking into account the existing hypothesis about the origin of sawfa, in order to reconstruct a plausible path of grammaticalization. In particular, the hypothesis tracing sawfa back to a reconstructed adverb meaning ‘in the end’ is considered and supported through the analysis of some of the main mechanisms of the grammaticalization process: phonetic erosion, decategorialization and semantic bleaching. The comparison with other Semitic languages proves crucial for the hypothesis: on the one hand, the reconstruction of the temporal adverb ‘in the end’ is based on the comparison with Hebrew and Aramaic; on the other, the origin of the future marker in a word expressing the notion of ‘end’ is supported by a parallel case in Hebrew. On a typological perspective, this reconstruction enlarges the number of languages having future tense markers developed out of temporal adverbs.