Arabic verbal forms
Submitted by infojunkie on Sat, 2007-05-05 14:10.
NOTE: Please excuse the poor quality of Arabic typography. It is not trivial in the open source world.
By verbal forms I mean syntactic variations on the 3-letter roots that generate both new verbs and new nouns. These variations are used by convention among Arabic speakers.
Such forms qualify the root verb, its primary actors (the subject and the object), and how they relate to the web of facts. In Arabic, "verb" translates as فـﹺـعل literally the "deed" or "action". The relationships between the actors and the facts (places, things, states) are altered in each verbal form. In other words, each form can be thought of as a semantic transformation on the original root.
It is interesting to note a few facts about these forms:
- Although most forms are used across the Arab world, some of them are only found in local dialects.
- Semantic transformations are independent of the root itself. For example, foreign words can be also transformed in the same manner as Arabic roots. Assuming the recipient understands the foreign word in question, he will understand the intended meaning of the speaker. This shows a very powerful meaning generating mechanism.
Verb forms
| # | Form | Literal meaning | Generic semantic structure |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | فـﹶـعـﹶـلﹶ | Did | Subject carries out action. |
| 2 | فـﹶـعـﹼـلﹶ | ||
| 3 | فــاعـﹶــلﹶ | ||
| 4 | أفـعـﹶـلﹶ | ||
| 5 | تـﹶـفـﹶـعـﹼـلﹶ | ||
| 6 | تـﹶـفـاعـﹶـلﹶ | Reacted with | Action is carried out by more than one subject, together. Usually implies the impossibility of each subject to accomplish the deed on its own. Also implies that the action is performed on the subject(s). |
| 7 | إنـفـﹶـعـﹶـلﹶ | Reacted | Subject carries out action on itself. |
| 8 | إفـتـﹶـعـﹶـلﹶ | Pretended | |
| 9 | إفــعـﹶـلﹼ | ||
| 10 | إسـتـﹶـفـعـﹶـلﹶ | ||
| 11 | إفــعـالﹼ | | | |
| 12 | إفـعـَـوعـَـل | | | |
| 13 | إفـعَـوﹼ لَ | | | |
| 14 | إفـعـَـنـْـلـَـلَ | | | |
| 15 | إفعـَـنـْـلا | | |
Noun forms
Most noun forms are derived from the verb forms above. Here is just a sample that I will organize eventually.| Form | Literal meaning | Generic semantic transformation |
|---|---|---|
| فاعـﹺــل | ||
| أفـــعـﹶــــل | ||
| فـﹶـعـول | ||
| فـﹶـعـيل | ||
| فـﹶـعـﹼـال | ||
| فـﹶـعـﹺـل | ||
| فـﹸــعــول | ||
| مـﹶـفـعـول | ||
| مُـفـتـﹶـعـﹶــل | ||
| مُـفـتـﹶـعـﹺـل | ||
| مـﹺــفــعـﹺــل | ||
| مُــســتـﹶـفـعـﹶـل | ||
| مُـسـتـﹶـفـعـﹺـل | ||
| تـﹶـفـاعُــل | ||
| مُــفــاعـﹺـل | ||
| مُــتـﹶــفـاعـﹺـل | ||
| مُــتـﹶــفــعـﱢـل | ||
| مُـنـفـﹶـعـﹺـل | ||
| فـــاعــول | ||
| فـﹶــعـــلان | ||
| فـﹺــعـــلاﹰ |
NOTE: I'm not including the feminine, dual and plural forms. These are semantically clear.
awzan
I can't think of examples on the wazn افعنلا. It doesn't look like familiar to me. IS there a type here?
you're missing the wazn افعلَّلَ
My perception of the wazn افتعل is not "pretending" but rather "initiate" or "devise", probably with no prior substance, and to a lesser degree without having been required or obliged to. For example: اقتتل, افتتن, اتّجر, اختبر
Also note that all of the awzan above are spelled in hamzat wasl همزة وصل and as such must be written without the hamza mark on the alif.
Pondering about the meanings of awzan and discovering them on your own is a great joy indeed, and is a step on refining one's taste for language in a first hand way. However all of this has been the subject of centuries old research and is all recorded. This is not to say at all that all there's to know is already known.
Wouldn't be much more convinient to converse about this subject in arabic?
In the literature
In the linguistics literature, such verbal forms are called morphological templates. The notion of form is present in the discourse as well. Refer for example to this paper where the form فـعـﹼـلﹶ is analyzed semantically to show the meaning of force augmentation on the original verb.
I'd also like to read the volume The Semantics of Form in Arabic: In the mirror of European languages.
Further details