THE EXPRESSION OF FUTURE TENSE IN ARABIC: A CONTRASTIVE MORPHOSYNTACTIC STUDYEXPRESSION OF FUTURE TENSE IN ARABIC: A CONTRASTIVE MORPHOSYNTACTIC STUDY

This study aims to investigate the nature of the future tense in the Arabic language in contrast to English and Italian. A fundamental question to be answered is whether Arabic, like English and Italian, possesses a true future tense. The methodology used is based on the theory of contrastive linguistics, which includes a comprehensive description of the expression of the future tense in the languages under study, followed by a morphosyntactic analysis of the forms used to express this tense. Data were obtained from three different but nature-adjacent sources. These sources include prime ministers' parliamentary speeches for the Italian and Arabic languages (along with a description, frequency, and percentages of the future forms used in the Quran) and a three-hour recording of an American series translated into Arabic. The results show that, despite belonging to different language families, there are similarities and differences among these languages in terms of expressing the future tense. Furthermore, they demonstrate that both Italian and Arabic are morphologically marked for future tense, unlike English, which lacks morphologically marked forms to express the future tense.