Conditionals in Moroccan Arabic

Abstract

This study describes conditional constructions in Moroccan Arabic (henceforth MA) using a cognitive approach. Adopting the tripartite classification of conditionals namely factual, hypothetical, and counterfactual by Comrie (1986), this study examines conditional constructions that are introduced by the particles ila (لاإ) and kun (نوك). The analysis shows that there are two basic types of conditional constructions in MA depending on whether the ‘if-clause’ represents a possible condition (real conditional) as in: ila ilǝcbu mǝzyan, irǝbḥu ‘If they play well, they will win’; or a contrary-tofact/impossible condition (unreal conditional) as in kun ğa, nǝmšiw kamlin ‘If he came, we would go’. In real conditional constructions, Abdelhakim Boubekri Ph.D. candidate in Second Language Acquisition Studies, Department of English, Faculty of Education Sciences, Mohamed V University-Rabat, Morocco Email: boubekri755@gmail.com Received 28 June, 2018; Revised 2 Septmber, 2018; Accepted 1 October, 2018 Copyright © 2019 Language Research Institute, Sejong University Journal of Universal Language is an Open Access Journal. All articles are distributed online under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 2 Conditionals in Moroccan Arabic the particle ila is used in conditional constructions to signal the condition and the future. Ila allows two verb forms in both the protasis and the apodosis, namely, the perfective as in ila ğit, rani ğit ‘If you came, I came’, and the imperfective form as in ila kan ḫǝddam, nḫǝlsu ‘If he is working, I will pay him’. However, each form is used in a special and different way. In unreal conditionals, the various particles are used to signal solely the condition. There are three types of unreal conditionals. The first one refers to the present, the second refers to the future, and the third refers to the past. Concerning verb forms, there are three possible patterns. The first one is that the verb in both the protasis and the apodosis is in the perfective form as in kun ğa, kun lcǝb ‘If he had come, he would have played’. The second one is that the verb in both the protasis and the apodosis is in the imperfective form as in kun iği, ilcǝb ‘If he comes, he will play’. The third one is that the verb in the protasis is in the perfective form, while the verb in the apodosis is in the imperfective form as in kun ğa, ilcǝb ‘If he came/had come, he would play/would have played’. The meanings of the verb form whether it is in the perfective or the imperfective, depend on their use in the protasis and the apodosis.