Analysis of the Translation of Past Tense Forms between Arabic and Spanish in Narrative Texts

Abstract

This study investigates the translation of past tense forms between Arabic and Spanish in literary texts, focusing on the structural and aspectual differences between the two verbal systems. Using a descriptive, analytical, and comparative approach, the research examines examples from Naguib Mahfuz’s Miramar and William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in their Arabic-Spanish and Spanish-Arabic translations. The findings reveal a relatively stable correspondence between the Spanish preterite and the Arabic simple past, as well as between the Arabic construction kāna + imperfect and the Spanish imperfect tense. However, the most significant translation challenge arises from the lack of a precise Arabic equivalent for the Spanish present perfect, resulting in semantic losses related to the connection between past events and present relevance. The analysis also shows that translations into Spanish frequently introduce greater temporal and aspectual precision through the use of the imperfect, pluperfect, and conditional forms. The study concludes that translating past tense forms between Arabic and Spanish requires contextual interpretation in order to reconstruct the temporal and narrative relationships of the source text effectively.