So it’s been another long break since I last updated the blog but hopefully you’ll appreciate the depth of this one. Before we start, in post three we looked at the sentence: دَخَلَ زَيْدٌ فِيْ الدّارِ which some you correctly worked out the states for (sister Hamidah – well done!). The past tense verb دَخَلَ does not have a state (rather it has a form and structure) – we will be looking at verbs in much detail in this post. ‘زَيْدٌ’ is in the رفع case and ‘فِيْ الدّارِ’ are in the جرّ case.
In the English Language morphology is the study of morphemes which are the smallest units in a language. Morphemes are broken down into free morphemes (words which can make sense on their own e.g. the word ‘study’) and bound morphemes (units which cannot make sense on their own e.g. ‘-ed’ ‘-s’).
In Arabic, morphology is also concerned with the structures and forms of words; with the main focus being on verbs and some nouns. The word صرف means to change and تسريف more specifically refers to inflections (prefixes, affixes, suffixes). Where نحو focuses on the relationship between words in phrases and sentences; صرف concentrates more on individual words. It looks at what form a verb is and also the structures it adopts to denote a specific meaning.
The word صرف can also be called etymology because it looks at the origin of words by analysing their root letters. Each word in Arabic has root letters. This system of root letters is extremely important. Most of the Arabic language consists of words made up from 3 root letters. This three letter root systems falls into two further categories (2) مجرّد – when the structure of the word takes no additional letters (other than the 3 main root letters) to possess meaning; and (2) مزيدٌ فيه – when the structure takes on additional letters (in addition to the 3 radicals) to possess meaning. The Arabic language also consists of words with 4 root letters الرباعي and 5 root letters الخماسي but are less common.
Verbs in Arabic can be sound and weak depending on the letters which make up the root letters. As mentioned in a previous post Arabic has weak letters and these are ا ي and و. Weak letters are not sound (الصّحيح) and if one of the root letters in a word has a weak letter then the word is regarded defective المعتل. In a 3 root letter word if the weak letter occupies the 1st root letter position then it is referred to as مثال e.g. وَجَدَ. If the weak letter occupies the second position then it is referred to as hollow اجوف e.g. قال. It the weak letter occupies the last position then it is referred to as ناقص e.g. دَعا. Sometimes verbs can have more than one weak letter and in that case they are كفيف e.g. روى. Verbs can also have a ء on a weak letter as one of the root letters and these hamzated verbs are called مهموز e.g. قَرَأَ. Verbs can have doubled letters such as ضَلَّ or دَلَّ these are called مضاعف.
Three root letter words form the vast majority of Arabic verbs. The word can take many structures to denote things such as tense. If we remember back to the week 4 post we identified the important role that diacritics play in expressing the intended meaning. So how do we know what diacritics to put in these words? Well, verbs in Arabic can be expressed in the active voice and in the passive voice (will go into detail shortly). Verbs in the active voice belong to one or more of 6 particular categories. These categories are in essence a combination of diacritics for the past and present/future tense verb. The following is a breakdown of the six chapters of the triliteral without any additions الثُلاثيُّ المُجَرَّدُ. In the triliteral construct of no additions we have 3 radical root letters which we used to form a pattern; these are ف, ع and ل. The ف is the first letter, the ع the second and the ل the third. It is the ع kalimah (letter) that is subject to change and indicates which chapter a particular word belongs to therefore focus on the ع kalimah. The 6 categories are as follows:
| Category | Frequency of usage |
| نَصَرَ يَنْصُرُ | Highest |
| ضَرَبَ يَضْرِبُ | High |
| فَتَحَ يَفْتَحُ | Mid-level |
| سَمِعَ يَسْمَعُ | Mid-level |
| كَرُمَ يَكْرُمُ | Less used |
| حَسِبَ يَحْسِبُ | Least used |
To find out which combination a word falls into, you use an Arabic dictionary until you’ve memorised it with its diacritics. I (and the pretty much the whole class) use the Hans Wehr dictionary but can also use Jane’s Lexicon. The dictionary is organised alphabetically per root letter, e.g. the word مَكْتَبٌ follows the form مَفْعَلٌ and the root letters of this word are therefore ك ت and ب. Some like to use the online version of the dictionary but one of the benefits of using a hardcopy is being able to see other expressions of the word. After locating these three letters you will see the Arabic letters followed by a transliteration (English phonetic spelling of an Arabic word) and a letter: either an ‘a’, ‘i’ or ‘u’. The transliteration spells out what the ماضي form of the word is and the letter indicates the change in the ع kalimah of the word: a=َ, i=ِ and u=ُ. In summary, every مُجَرَّد will belong to one of the six categories. To know which one you need the diacritic of the 2nd root letter of the ماضي and مُضارع.
So that’s root letters. In both my صرف and نحو classes we have begun constructing sentences.
Sentences are split into two main types: (1) nominal sentence الجملة الاسميةand (2) verbal sentence الجملة الفعلية. The former is identified through starting with a noun (this is further explored in the next نحو post). The verbal sentence will be focused on in صرف and is identified through starting with a verb. In English, sentences consist of a subject, verb and object and this is the predominant pattern for example ‘The man read a book’. ‘The man’ is the subject’, ‘read’ is the verb and ‘a book’ is the object. The subject is the one doing the action of the verb hence it is also referred to as the doer.
Similarly, Arabic also consists of the same components, however, the pattern changes slightly to the verb coming first: verb subject and object. Not all of the sentences require an object and this depends on the nature of the verb. Sentences can take additional information through the use of prepositional phrases e.g. ‘The man read the book in the house’.
Verbs can also come in the passive voice following the pattern فُعِلَ يُفْعَلُ (notice there is only 1 category/combination of diacritics to follow for the passive form in contrast to the 6 combinations for the active form). This is used when the doer is omitted.
As mentioned verb sentences in Arabic consist of three main components. The doer/subject is called the فاعِلٌ which is always in the state of رَفَعٌand therefore ‘مَرْفُوْعٌ. The done to/object is called the مَفْعُوْلٌ بِهِwhich is always in the نَصْبٌ case and therefore مَنْصُوْبٌ. The verb has to agree with the doer in gender always. If there is an apparent outside doer then the verb always remains singular. However, if there is no outside doer apparent then the verb itself has to reflect the number of the doer. For example Khalid praised Bilal مَدَحَ خالدٌ بلالً
There’s more but we’ll finish here for now. Until next time – ma’salaam!
Arabic gem: Feminine names do not take tanween or kasra!
Logicalwayfarer 