Journal of The Iraqi University

The research deals with the topic,, the temporal adverbs in German and Arabic with the help of the corpus of Quran“ to translate the meanings of the Holy Quran. The research study of the subject is a semantic analytical study. The researchers noted some errors in the translation of the temporal adverbs in the translation of the Quran of the German Orientalist Rudy Barrett and the reason for this is the semantic lack of understanding of some temporal adverbs in Arabic, for example the word(covenant) in verse 86 of Sura Taha: ( So Moses returned to his people in a state of anger and sorrow. He said: “O my people! Did your Lord not make a goodly promise to you? Did the time appointed then appear too long for you? Or did you wish that wrath from your Lord should descend upon you, that you broke your promise to me?). The translation of the word (covenant) into German in return was (commitment) which is not correct based on its close equivalent, therefore the following questions were asked:-
1- What are the grammatical and semantic conditions of the temporal terms in both languages?
2- What is the competence of the temporal word in Arabic in determining of what temporal is and what is it’s equivalent in German?
According to the comparative method of the research, the research addressed the temporal adverbs in German and in Arabic from the grammatical and semantic sides in both languages and the statement of their types and the emphasis on the temporal adverbs. So because of too many words of temporal adverbs in both languages, the researchers only addressed the temporal adverbs for the day and night in both languages, citing the corpus of the holy quran of the german orientalist Rudy Barrett. The most important finding sought by the researchers is that the number of temporal adverbs indicating the hours of the day and night in German is lower than in Arabic, which led to a difference between the temporal adverbs between the two languages in the semantics of the word at the level of the translation equivalent. The researchers recommended that the subject in question be given more research because of variety of temporal words and multiple translations.