...Well, Vadim, I am not an expert on Arabic, but this is what I have heard. But as with Hebrew there may be some distinctions between older and modern Arabic. However, Chinese and Burmese are well known to be tenseless languages. Of course all of them have ways of specifying past and future time where really necessary, but not as part of the grammar of the language.
Nonsense, Peter, nonsense. Arabic perfect is in no way--absolutely no
way--different from the past tense. To say, "he was doing smth and stopped
the action, though not completed it" you would use perfect, though the
action is imperfect. So it is past tense.
Arabic has standard instrument for the future tense, sa- prefix. In other
words, Arabic has past (perfect), present (perfect), and future (sa-)
tenses.
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