Arabic Verbs 2

Arabic Verbs  2

Perfective Structures (continued)

 

Conjugation of Irregular Verbs

 

For description of irregular verb types, you may go here

1) Doubled Verbs

Doubled verbs are triliteral verbs that have identical second and third root-letters; or any verb that ends with a shadda(t) (doubled consonants with no vowel in between). The short vowel that is lacking from between the two final letters is the green short vowel of verbs.

Theshadda(t)of the doubled verbs must be “untied” when adding certain pronominal suffixes to them. Untying means inserting a short vowel between the two identical letters under theshadda(t) (-CC → -CvC). For perfective verbs, the inserted vowel will be always a, regardless of what the original green vowel was.

Example, the verb:

مَرَّ

marr(a)

(He) passed

 

 

The omitted green vowel from this verb is a, but we would have inserted a anyway and without needing to know that.

 

Untying will happen with all pronominal suffixes that start with a consonant (the 1st & 2nd person conjugations plus the 3rd person feminine plural). The reason behind this change is to prevent the formation of a three-consonant-cluster (CCC). In Arabic terms, to prevent two still letters form directly following each other (the two r‘s). This is an important law in the Arabic language (“stills don’t meet”).

The full conjugation of the verb:

 

 

The omitted green vowel of most perfective doubled verbs is a; very few doubled verbs have an omitted i or u vowels. Examples of these are:

 

 

However, these verbs will untie just like verbs with omitted a .

Examples:

 

 

►Form IV, X & QIV

Although conjugating most of the verb forms will take only untying theshadda(t),the forms with a displaced-back vowel, namely forms IV, X & QIV, will require another step in addition to that, which is to remove the short A preceding the doubled consonant.

 

 

Examples:

 

 

 

 

Note

It is very common for form X and form QIV doubled verbs to be conjugated in the following manner by modern speakers of Arabic:

 

This way of conjugation is extremely common among modern speakers of Arabic, thanks to influence from the modern spoken dialects. If you asked 100 native speakers to conjugate these verbs for you, probably more than 95 of them will conjugate in this last way.

 

2) Mithaal Verbs

Mithaalverbs are verbs whose first original letter is a weak letter. Perfective Mithaalverbs conjugate regularly, except that in form VIII, the first original letter will become a t as explained in this page.

 

3) Hollow Verbs

Hollow verbs are verbs whose second original letter is a weak letter.

For transformed hollow verbs whose weak letter is ا(a fake‘alif), the middle long vowel aa will be replaced by a short vowel when adding any pronominal suffix that starts with a consonant, that is, any suffix other than the 3rd person suffixes, not counting the 3rd person feminine plural declension.

 

►Form I

Example:

قَاْلَ

qaal(a)

 

(He) said

The root is : ق و لQ W L

 

 

The reason behind this change is to prevent the formation of a three-consonant-cluster (alt). In Arabic terms, to prevent two still letters form directly following each other (the اand the ل). This is the important rule of “stills don’t meet.”

The middle long A of hollow verbs is composed of a weak ‘alif a preceded by a short vowel a (aa). The weak ‘alif here was deleted and the a was changed to u . A simpler way of saying this is that the middle long A (aa) was replaced by a short vowel u.

The full conjugation:

 

The a was changed to u because the original weak letter of the verb (the middle root-letter) is w . The short vowel u corresponds to w . Similarly, if the original weak letter were y, the preceding short vowel a would be changed to i , the corresponding short vowel.

 

Example:

 

بَاْعَ

baa“(a)

 

(He) sold

 

The root is: B Y “ بي ع

 

 

The full conjugation:

 

However, it is quite important to note that there is an exception to what have been mentioned so far. If the hollow verb were stative, that is to say, if the original, unseen, weak letter of the verb were followed by a short vowel i instead of a, the middle long A of the hollow verb will be always replaced by an i regardless of the original weak letter of the verb.

 

Example:

مَاْتَ

maat(a)

(He) died

 

The original form is:

مَوِتَ

mawit(a)

(He) died

 

The root is: M W T م و ت

 

 

The a was changed to i even though the middle root-letter wasw, because the verb is of the stative structure fa“il(a). Other verbs of this kind include:

 

 

 

Here is a general rule for form I hollow verbs:

 

 

Of course, this information will not be much useful in real life. The more practical thing for learning the conjugation of these verbs is to simply familiarize oneself with them.

 

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Extra Note

The mentioned information regards the standard, formal, Arabic, which was primarily derived from the dialect of ancient western Arabia (Hijaaz). However, the conjugation of fawil(a) verbs appears to be different in other classical dialects:

fawil(a)→ (he) faal(a) → (I) fult(u)

For example, the verb mitt(u)= “(I) died” becomes mutt(u) in those dialects. This way of conjugation appears today in several spoken dialects of Arabic (e.g. spoken Egyptian Arabic).

 

It is possible that they conjugated the verb this way because there were two original versions of the verb:

mawit(a)/ mawat(a)

 

These two original versions gave rise to the two later versions mitt(u) & mutt(u). This may also explain why there are two different conjugations in the imperfective as well. However, these varieties occur only in Classical Arabic but not in the Modern Standard Arabic, which follows exactly the above mentioned rules.

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►Forms IV, X & QIV

 

The verb forms other than form I have a simpler rule; the middle long A will be always replaced by a short vowel a.

 

Example, a form IV hollow verb:

 

أَرَاْدَ

 

‘araad(a)

(He) wanted

 

The root is : ر و دR W DI

 

 

 

The full conjugation:

 

 

 

aa→ u
دَاْخَ	خَاْنَ	جَاْلَ	ثَاْرَ	تَاْقَ	تَاْبَ
رَاْحَ	ذَاْقَ	ذَاْبَ	دَاْمَ	دَاْسَ	دَاْرَ
سَاْقَ	سَاْدَ	سَاْءَ	زَاْلَ	زَاْرَ	رَاْمَ
غَاْرَ	عَاْدَ	طَاْلَ	طَاْفَ	صَاْنَ	صَاْمَ
قَاْدَ	فَاْقَ	فَاْزَ	فَاْرَ	فَاْتَ	غَاْصَ
مَاْتَ	لامَ	لاذَ	لاحَ	قَاْمَ	قَاْلَ
			هَاْنَ	نَاْحَ	نَاْبَ

 

 

aa→ i
خَاْفَ	حَاْرَ	جَاْءَ	تَاْهَ	بَاْتَ
سَاْلَ	سَاْرَ	سَاْحَ	زَاْنَ	ذَاْعَ
صَاْحَ	شَاْعَ	شَاْخَ	شَاْبَ	شَاْءَ
طَاْبَ	ضَاْقَ	ضَاْعَ	صَاْرَ	صَاْدَ
غَاْرَ	غَاْبَ	عَاْشَ	عَاْبَ	طَاْرَ
نَاْلَ	مَاْلَ	مَاْعَ	كَاْدَ	فَاْضَ
			هَاْجَ	هَاْبَ

 

Verbs

Perfective Structures

 

Conjugation of Irregular Verbs (continued)