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This article offers a typologically-driven and corpus-based analysis of the historical present (HP) "active participle" qatel in Biblical Aramaic. The authors argue that qatel instantiates the HP category quite neatly and provide three main arguments. First, qatel complies with the definition of a progredient/propulsive HP that emerges from crosslinguistic literature: while, in its prototypical use, qatel expresses some type(s) of present, it may also be employed in narrative to introduce past perfective events. Second, when used as an HP, qatel exhibits functions that are consistent with tendencies attested across languages: stylistically, the HP qatel is often associated with expressivity, mirativity, and dramatism, while discourse-pragmatically, it is predominantly related to the progression (rarely, the climax) and atomization of the plot. Third, most other properties exhibited by the HP qatel also harmonize with the behavior of HPs observed in linguistic typology; these concern types of clauses in which the HP qatel appears, and subjects and verbs used. Overall, the HP qatel can be viewed as a highlighting narrative device-subjective although linguistically constrained.
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l.introduction
The present article is dedicated to one of the most controversial aspects of the verbal systems of Biblical Aramaic (BA) and North-West Semitic (NWS) languages, namely the phenomenon of historical present (HP). Specifically, we aim to determine whether the BA "active participle," henceforth referred to as the qatel form, 1 instantiates an HP category and, if this is the case, what functions and properties the HP qatel exhibits. To answer this research question, we will follow a typological approach to the category of HP-our original synthesis of the most relevant works dedicated to HPs in the languages of the world.
We will begin our article by familiarizing the reader with the previous studies on the HP qatel in BA (as well as its cognates in closely related languages) and by designing our typological framework. Subsequently, we will introduce BA evidence-the product of an empirical study during which the entire BA corpus has been examined. After that, we will evaluate the results of this evidence within the adopted framework and answer our research question. In the end, we will draw our main conclusions and suggest possible avenues for future research.
2.previous studies
Studies dedicated to the HP qatel...