Perception Verbs, Light Verbs, and Aspect in Modern Standard Arabic

This paper investigates the interaction between lexical aspect and viewpoint aspect in perception verbs in Modern Standard Arabic, with a particular focus on the role of light verb constructions in shaping aspectual interpretation. Adopting Viberg’s (1983) typology and a two‑component model of aspect (Comrie 1976; Smith 1997), the study classifies core perception verbs as activity, experiential stative, or copulative stative and examines how their situation types combine with perfective and imperfective morphology. The data consist of constructed Modern Standard Arabic examples checked with native speakers. The analysis shows that activity perception verbs are generally dynamic, durative, and atelic, while experiential perception verbs behave as atelic states whose access to continuous readings depends on their lexical (perceptual vs. epistemic) meaning. Constructions with kaan-(a), dhall-(a), maa zaal-(a)/laa (ya)-zaalu form monoclausal light‑verb predicates that contribute continuative or habitual viewpoint aspect without changing the lexical aspectual class of the perception verb.