لخّصلي

The difference between the two languages, Arabic and English, in express- ing futurity is significant.Nevertheless, thiscan- not be taken as an argument against an Arabic future tense since nowadays we are talking about MSA and that the use of the present form to express futurity is a universal phenomenon (Comrie, 1985, pp. 44-45; Declerck, 1991, p. 10; for further discussion, see Al-Khawalda, 1998).For instance, it is contended that will indicates a gen- eral tendency, probability, willingness, etc., rather than future time, e.g., "Boys will be boys" (Pennington, 1988, p. 71). The data demonstrate that such usages typical of English (the nontemporal reference of the future mor- pheme) are not found either in CA or MSJA. Furthermore, /sayaf9alu/, ("he will do") has one and only one usage: locating the situation sometime after the moment of speech.It scores 91.7% in the speech of the Jordanian Prime Minister and 97.7% in the translation of Acapulco Bay, whereas /sawfa yaf9alu/ and /yaf9alu/ are used marginally in both.To sum up, according to our data and the above discussion, the future in Arabic is a true tense that is expressed primarily by the verb form /sayaf9alu/.The data indicate that futurity in MSJA is expressed basically by the future verb form /sayaf9alu/.In other words, the arguments that are used to show that English lacks a future tense are not applicable to Arabic.The dispute over whether the future is a tense in English, mentioned above, cannot be applied to Arabic.That is, it truly expresses future temporal reference.Another argument against treating the future as a tense and that will is the future morpheme is that there are many ways to express futurity in English.Table 4 shows the five general ways to express futurity in English, and none of them could be considered marginal.The situation in Arabic and in particular MSJA, which is the focus of this paper, is different.The data support this argument.

The difference between the two languages, Arabic and English, in express- ing futurity is significant. The dispute over whether the future is a tense in English, mentioned above, cannot be applied to Arabic. In other words, the arguments that are used to show that English lacks a future tense are not applicable to Arabic. For instance, it is contended that will indicates a gen- eral tendency, probability, willingness, etc., rather than future time, e.g., "Boys will be boys" (Pennington, 1988, p. 71). The data demonstrate that such usages typical of English (the nontemporal reference of the future mor- pheme) are not found either in CA or MSJA. Furthermore, /sayaf9alu/, ("he will do") has one and only one usage: locating the situation sometime after the moment of speech. That is, it truly expresses future temporal reference.
Another argument against treating the future as a tense and that will is the future morpheme is that there are many ways to express futurity in English. The data support this argument. Table 4 shows the five general ways to express futurity in English, and none of them could be considered marginal. The situation in Arabic and in particular MSJA, which is the focus of this paper, is different. The data indicate that futurity in MSJA is expressed basically by the future verb form /sayaf9alu/. It scores 91.7% in the speech of the Jordanian Prime Minister and 97.7% in the translation of Acapulco Bay, whereas /sawfa yaf9alu/ and /yaf9alu/ are used marginally in both.
The other important argument is that the use of "will" "be going to" the present form, the present progressive form, or modals is not arbitrary. Each of them has its own semantic meaning in addition to futurity. In other words, the differences among them is significant. For example:
•It will rain (general future)
•It is going to rain (there is an evidence for that)
•*It is raining (ungrammatical for expressing the future since the pro-
gressive indicates arrangement)
•I will visit him (sudden decision)

The Expression of Futurity In the Arabic and English Languages 75
•I am going to visit him (the decision has already been made ) •I am visiting him tomorrow (arrangement)
In Arabic, such distinctions are not found. It seems that the selection of/sawfa yaf9alu/ and /sayaf9alu/ is arbitrary, since as mentioned above it is difficult to find any semantic or syntactic reason for selecting one expression over the other to express futurity. Moreover, unlike the simple present and past forms, future in English is expressed in a periphrastic way, that is, will is not an inflection (Quirk el al., 1985; Palmer, 1988) The future (i.e., /sayaf9alu/) in Arabic is not periphrastic. It is an orthographic whole and must be considered a morphological whole.
In spite of these arguments against treating the future as a tense, many scholars argue that the future in English is a tense and that will is the future morpheme. They state that it is possible for a given morpheme to have more than one reading, and it is possible for will to express modal mean- ing in addition to the temporal one (for the discussion of this issue and why will is treated as a future morpheme, see Comrie, 1985; Hornstein, 1991; Declerck, 1991). Consequently, there is no reason to explain why futurity in Arabic is ignored. It is clear that the number of occurrences of /sawfa yaf9alu/ ("he will do") and the present form /yaf9alu/ ("he does") to express futurity is higher in CA than in MSJA. Nevertheless, thiscan- not be taken as an argument against an Arabic future tense since nowadays we are talking about MSA and that the use of the present form to express futurity is a universal phenomenon (Comrie, 1985, pp. 44-45; Declerck, 1991, p. 10; for further discussion, see Al-Khawalda, 1998).
To sum up, according to our data and the above discussion, the future in Arabic is a true tense that is expressed primarily by the verb form /sayaf9alu/.