Arabic verbs


Arabic verbs, like the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those languages, are based on a set of two to five consonants called a root. The root communicates the basic meaning of the verb, e.g. ك-ت-ب ' 'write', ق-ر-ء ' 'read', ء-ك-ل ' 'eat'. Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with prefixes or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as person, gender, number, tense, mood, and voice.
Various categories are marked on verbs:
Weakness is an inherent property of a given verb determined by the particular consonants of the verb root, with five main types of weakness and two or three subtypes of each type.
Arabic grammarians typically use the root ف-ع-ل ' to indicate the particular shape of any given element of a verbal paradigm. As an example, the form يتكاتب ' 'he is corresponded ' would be listed generically as يتفاعل ', specifying the generic shape of a strong Form VI passive verb, third-person masculine singular present indicative.
The maximum possible total number of verb forms derivable from a root — not counting participles and verbal nouns — is approximately 13 person/number/gender forms; times 9 tense/mood combinations, counting the س- future ; times 17 form/voice combinations, for a total of 1,989. Each of these has its own stem form, and each of these stem forms itself comes in numerous varieties, according to the weakness of the underlying root.

Inflectional categories

Each particular lexical verb is specified by four stems, two each for the active and passive voices. In a particular voice, one stem is usually used for the past tense, and the other is usually used for the present and future tenses, along with non-indicative moods, e.g. subjunctive and imperative. Though there is still some disagreement about the interpretation of the stems as tense or aspect, the dominant current view is that the stems represent aspect, sometimes of a relative rather than absolute nature. In this system of classification, the ostensibly "past" and "non-past" stems are called the perfective stem and imperfective stem.
To the past stem, suffixes are added to mark the verb for person, number and gender, while to the non-past stem, a combination of prefixes and suffixes are added. A total of 13 forms exist for each of the two stems, specifying person ; number ; and gender.
There are six separate moods in the non-past: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, jussive, short energetic and long energetic. The moods are generally marked by suffixes. When no number suffix is present, the endings are ' for indicative, ' for subjunctive, no ending for imperative and jussive, ـَنْ ' for shorter energetic, ـَنَّ ' for longer energetic. When number suffixes are present, the moods are either distinguished by different forms of the suffixes, or not distinguished at all. The imperative exists only in the second person and is distinguished from the jussive by the lack of the normal second-person prefix ـت '.
The third person masculine singular past tense form serves as the "dictionary form" used to identify a verb, similar to the infinitive in English. For example, the verb meaning 'write' is often specified as كَتَبَ ', which actually means 'he wrote'. This indicates that the past-tense stem is كَتَبْـ '; the corresponding non-past stem is ـكْتُبْـ ', as in يَكْتُبُ 'he writes'. Using the third person masculine singular as the dictionary citation form is more useful in that the vowels that appear in the remaining present tense forms are evident. Especially in form I verbs, without prior knowledge, these vowels are often not evident based purely on the past-tense forms.

Tense

There are three tenses in Arabic: the past tense, the present tense and the future tense. The future tense in Classical Arabic is formed by adding either the prefix ' or the separate word ' onto the beginning of the present tense verb, e.g. سَيَكْتُبُ or سَوْفَ يَكْتُبُ 'he will write'.
In some contexts, the tenses represent aspectual distinctions rather than tense distinctions. The usage of Arabic tenses is as follows:
  • The past tense often specifically has the meaning of a past perfective, i.e. it expresses the concept of 'he did' as opposed to 'he was doing'. The latter can be expressed using the combination of the past tense of the verb كَانَ ' 'to be' with the present tense or active participle, e.g. كَانَ يَكْتُبُ ' or كَانَ كَاتِبٌ ' 'he was writing'. There are some special verbs known as "compound verbs" that can express many grammatical aspects such as Inchoative, Durative etc., for example بَدَأ يُلْفِتُ النَظرَ ' means "he started to attract attention" which badaʾa conveys the meaning of "to start doing something "
  • The two tenses can be used to express relative tense when following other verbs in a serial verb construction. In such a construction, the present tense indicates time simultaneous with the main verb, while the past tense indicates time prior to the main verb.
In all but Form I, there is only one possible shape for each of the past and non-past stems for a given root. In Form I, however, different verbs have different shapes. Examples:
  • كَتَبَ يَكْتُبُ ' 'write'
  • كَسَبَ يَكْسِبُ ' 'earn'
  • قَرَأَ يَقْرَأُ ' 'read'
  • قَدِمَ يَقْدَمُ ' 'turn'
  • كَبُرَ يَكْبُرُ ' 'become big, grow up'
Notice that the second vowel can be any of ' in both past and non-past stems. The vowel ' occurs in most past stems, while ' occurs in some and ' occurs only in a few stative verbs. The most common patterns are:
  • past: '; non-past: ' or '
  • past: ', non-past: '
  • past: '; non-past: '
  • past: ; non-past: ''''

    Mood

There are three moods, whose forms are derived from the imperfective stem: the indicative mood, usually ending in '; the subjunctive, usually ending in '; and the jussive, with no ending. In less formal Arabic and in spoken dialects, the subjunctive mood is used as the only imperfective tense and the final ḥarakah vowel is not pronounced.
The imperative is formed by dropping the verbal prefix from the imperfective jussive stem, e.g. قَدِّم ' 'present!'. If the result starts with two consonants followed by a vowel, an elidible is added to the beginning of the word, usually pronounced as "", e.g. اِغْسِلْ ' 'wash!' or اِفْعَل ' 'do!' if the present form vowel is ', then the alif is also pronounced as ', e.g. أُكْتُب ' 'write!'. Negative imperatives are formed from the jussive.
The exception to the above rule is the form IV verbs. In these verbs a non-elidible alif ا pronounced as ' is always prefixed to the imperfect jussive form, e.g. أرسل ' "send!", أضف ' 'add!'.
The subjunctive is used in subordinate clauses after certain conjunctions. The jussive is used in negation, in negative imperatives, and in the hortative '+jussive. For example: 2. m.:
  • imperfect indicative تفعلُ ' 'you are doing'
  • subjunctive أن تفعلَ ' 'that you do'
  • jussive لا تفعلْ ' its meaning is dependent upon the prefix which attaches to it; in this case, it means 'may you do not do!'
  • short energetic تفعلنْ ' its meaning is dependent upon the prefix which attaches to it; if the prefix is "la" it means 'you should do'
  • long energetic تفعلنَّ ' it has more emphasis than the short energetic, its meaning is dependent upon the prefix which attaches to it; if the prefix is "la" it means 'you must do'
  • imperative افعل ' 'do!'.

    Voice

Arabic has two verbal voices, active, and passive. The passive voice is expressed by a change in vocalization. For example:
  • active فَعَلَ ' 'he did', يَفْعَلُ ' 'he is doing'
  • passive فُعِلَ ' 'it was done', يُفْعَلُ ' 'it is being done'
Thus, the active and passive forms are spelled identically in Arabic; only their vowel markings differ. There are some exceptions to this in the case of weak roots.

Participle

Every verb has a corresponding active participle, and most have passive participles. E.g. معلم ' 'teacher' is the active participle to stem II. of the root ع-ل-م '.
  • The active participle to Stem I is فاعل ', and the passive participle is مفعول '.
  • Stems II–X take prefix مـ ' and nominal endings for both the participles, active and passive. The difference between the two participles is only in the vowel between the last two root letters, which is ' for active and for passive.

    Verbal noun (maṣdar)

In addition to a participle, there is a verbal noun, sometimes called a gerund, which is similar to English gerunds and verb-derived nouns of various sorts. As shown by the English examples, its meaning refers both to the act of doing something and to its result. One of its syntactic functions is as a verbal complement of another verb, and this usage it corresponds to the English gerund or infinitive.
  • verbal noun formation to stem I is irregular.
  • the verbal noun to stem II is تفعيل '. For example: تحضير ' 'preparation' is the verbal noun to stem II. of ح-ض-ر .
  • stem III often forms its verbal noun with the feminine form of the passive participle, so for ساعد ', 'he helped', produces the verbal noun مساعدة '. There are also some verbal nouns of the form فعال ': جاهد ', 'he strove', yields ' جهاد 'striving'.
Some well-known examples of verbal nouns are فتح ' , تنظيم Tanzim|, جهاد Jihad|, إسلام Islām|, انتفاضة :wikt:intifada|, and استقلال istiqlal |.