Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2007
The verbal form known as the active participle (= AP)is an integral part of the Mehri verbal system,functioning mainly – but not exclusively – as afuture tense.1 Yet despite its frequency,recent synopses of the language have given this formvery little attention. For example, in the veryimportant sketch of the Modern South Arabianlanguages by Johnstone (1975), discussion of the APis limited to less than one sentence (p. 119). Inthe very useful set of observations by Lonnet(1994a), the AP receives only a little moreconsideration, about ten lines. In the more recentoutline by Simeone-Senelle (1997), the AP also getsabout ten lines. All of this is in contrast to thegrammar of Jahn (1905), in which the AP (or future,as Jahn calls it) is treated as a basic verbal tenseand is included in all paradigmsets.2