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Arabic Verbs in Time: Tense and Aspect in Cairene Arabic, by John C. Eisele. (Semitica Viva Band 20) 264 pages, bibliography, index, tables. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1999. (Paper) ISBN 3-447-04062-9
Modern Arabic. Vol. 1: The Arab-European Encounter, by Samar Attar. 639 pages; Vol. 2:
Grammar in Context, 269 pages. Beirut: Librairie du Liban Publishers, 1998 (Paper).
These volumes are all concerned with the Arabic language, but they function at different ends of the spectrum that separates theory from practice.
Eisele’s volume is a theoretically based and rigorous investigation of tense in the Arab world's most widely understood colloquial dialect, that of Cairo; Attar's work is a textbook, designed to fill a gap in that most difficult of phases in language acquisition (and particularly Arabic language acquisition), that is, the advanced level.
Eisele’s excellent study of the expression to time in Cairene Arabic (CA) opens with a survey of general linguistic studies devoted to the topic and their repertoire of technical terminology, before turning in the next two chapters to a consideration of the ways in which they have been applied in the analysis of tense and aspect in the English language. In the fourth chapter he begins his study of CA itself, dealing first with the basic morphological verb forms indicating the various complete and incomplete time-frames (thus including the unmarked
“imperfect”—for example, yiktib―and the uses of the same pattern with
“bi-” and “ha-” prefixes). The following chapter considers the structure of present-time sentences in CA and the function of predicates within it, using an analytical approach to explain some of the apparent anomalies encountered in habitual dialect usage as reflected in the corpus that the author has collected. The sixth chapter expands the discussion to compound tense and other expressions of time, thus involving continuous and habitual actions (including the usages of kana) and such expressions as volition, hope, initiation, and so on. Appended to the discussion is a section (pp. 185ff.) on the functions and effects of adverbs of time in conjunction with these verbal usages. In the final chapter Eisele analyzes the lexical aspect of the verbal roots themselves, adopting a classification scheme developed by David Dowty (pp. 215ff.). Having applied the principles involved to CA, Eisele concludes that
“the most interesting fact which falls out from the application of this system of classification to CA is the fact that there are no clear boundaries between the
classes” (p. 251).
The application of modern linguistic theory to the Arabic language in its various periods and different levels is still in its infancy, relatively speaking. There is an enormous amount of research to be done, and carefully researched and theoretically based publications are a welcome addition to our knowledge about how language actually functions (as opposed to the all too-frequent resort to an assessment of how people like to imagine that it functions).
Eisele’s work is clearly such an addition, and it comes in a well-presented and excellently printed edition.
Samar Attar’s two-volume syllabus is intended for use in Arabic language classes at the advanced level (the term ‘advanced’ here having no implied linkage to the similarly named stage on the ACTFL rating-scale). The first volume, Al-`Arabiyyah al-h adithah: al-liqa' al-`arabi al-urubi, is carefully planned to focus on a single theme, that of the encounter between the Arab world and Europe (although, given that the work was constructed while the author was on leave at Harvard University and contains a number of pictures of, and references to, that institution, one needs to extend the notion of ‘Europe’ to include a broader frame of reference). Using authentic Arabic texts, the course begins with the Crusades (and Usamah ibn Munqidh), and makes its way via Sicily, Spain, and the Slavic region to the beginnings of the ‘modern’ era with the encounter with Napoleon and the travels to Europe of such figures as al-Tahtawi, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, and (still later) al-Tayyib Salih and Fadwa Tuqan. Each chapter consists of a text (which is heavily, perhaps too heavily, glossed), a set of activities offered for application in either oral or written form, and a further group of drills that focuses on discrete points of grammar and/or syntax. These are followed in turn by a number of reading texts for comprehension, once again culled from authentic sources, and texts in English for discussion in Arabic or translation (or adaptation) into written Arabic form. Each chapter is copiously illustrated with photographs (including several of the author herself), maps, and book-covers. The entire production reflects an admirable desire to encourage the learner to make use of every medium in the process of internalizing the vocabulary, syntax, and cultural enrichment that the subject-matter of the texts makes available. The second volume, Al-Qawa`id al-`Arabiyyah, is, as its title implies, a survey of the major features of Arabic morphology and syntax. The presentation of the materials is quite traditional, as the author readily admits―including comprehensive charts of verb forms and so on—but she goes on to point out, firstly that many of the examples she provides are taken directly from the texts of the first volume, thus providing a useful linkage between the two; and secondly, that all the examples not so derived are intended to reflect the patterns of modern standard Arabic and thus to be applicable in contexts other than the limited one that she has established for her selection of readings in the first volume.
There is no need to emphasize the complexities that face the language-teaching profession when it confronts the questions of effective methodology at the post-intermediate level. In the case of Arabic, students find themselves confronted with the realities of the enormous wealth of vocabulary and usage that reflect the varieties and differences within the large region that identifies itself as the Arab world. It is the role of the teacher (now assuming even more of a role as a coordinator of learning) to help learners master the language-system and expand their vocabulary base and to steer them towards their preferred topic areas in order to be able to negotiate effectively with not only the Arabic texts of that field but also the statements and writings of those within the region itself who specialize in the same field. That is a large set of agenda, and within such a complex context,
Attar’s choice of the theme of cultural linkage is clearly an effective one as a mode of transition from the carefully sanitized environment of beginning-level syllabi to the necessarily more open approaches of more advanced-level materials. While her approach tends towards the more traditional in terms of the role of and emphasis on grammar within the overall goals of courses at this level, there is no denying that the sheer attractiveness and excellent organization of this set of two volumes make it an useful addition to the increasing repertoire of teaching and learning materials to which Arabic teachers now have access.
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