Sentence structure and aspect in Arabic

This paper addresses how the Standard Arabic (SA) imperfective verb is interpreted in the so-called ‘verbal sentence’ (VSO) and ‘nominal sentence’ (SVO). The perfective and future forms convey simple tense in both orders, and resort to SVO for topicalization. While also using the SVO order for topicalization, the imperfective form seems to also use the word order alternation to mark aspectual differences. The surveyed data indicate that the imperfective verb conveys a habitual interpretation when it is in the VSO order, and a progressive interpretation when it is in the SVO order, in which case the agent is not a topic, but a true subject. The paper, which provides a descriptive account of this difference, presents authentic data from different sources as well as some arguments to the effect that this aspectual difference is marked in SA via word order alternation.