Perfective Form, Temporal Function: The Grammaticalization of Kān in Saudi Arabic

This paper argues, on semantic grounds, that the Saudi Arabic auxiliary kān has grammaticalized from an aspectual position (Asp°) to a tense position (T°). The diagnostic is the interpretation of stative predicates. Bare perfective statives in Saudi Arabic reliably yield inceptive readings, consistent with the cross‐linguistic generalization that [PFV] in Asp° forces a boundary on a stative complement. The same statives under kān yield no inceptive reading, indicating that kān 's perfective morphology does not realize [PFV] in Asp°. Perfective morphological form must therefore be distinguished from the [PFV] feature itself. Kān bears the former without realizing the latter. Experimental evidence from 12 Saudi Arabic speakers (auxiliary stacking, adverbial compatibility, and paraphrase verification) supports the analysis. The “perfective inceptive” generalization is structural rather than universal.