The classification of the Maltese verb

Abstract

In the Arabic morphology the classification of the verb has been one of the topics which, owing to different linguistic shades and peculiarities in the various dialects, has given to grammarians the opportunity to express a variety of views which differ in some particular details from the classical standard system of the classification of the verb. Such a variety in the methods of classification is also noticed in some grammars and treatises on the Maltese Language of which the morphological verbal forms are, in a general sense, identical to the Arabic, and in some peculiarities widely differing from the classical Arabic, in the same way as the dialects of the latter, from the Syrian territories along the coast-land of North Africa as far as Morocco, seem also to differ a good deal. In order to appreciate these discrepancies it would be necessary to make a comparative analysis of the various methods of the classification of the verb of Arabic dialects which are akin to the Maltese Language in their morphological aspects as the offshoots of the standard classification of the verb in classical Arabic.