This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Arabic verbs" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR(June 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
Arabic verbs (فِعْلfiʿl; pl. أَفْعَالafʿāl), like the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those languages, are based on a set of two to five (but usually three) consonants called a root (triliteral or quadriliteral according to the number of consonants). The root communicates the basic meaning of the verb, e.g. ك-ت-بk-t-b 'write', ق-ر-ءq-r-ʾ 'read', ء-ك-لʾ-k-l '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:
Three tenses (present, past; future tense is indicated by the prefix sa- or the particle sawfa and the present tense).
Two voices (active, passive)
Two genders (masculine, feminine)
Three persons (first, second, third)
Three numbers (singular, dual, plural)
Six moods in the non-past only (indicative, subjunctive, jussive, imperative, and short and long energetics)
Nineteen forms, the derivational systems indicating derivative concepts such as intensive, causative, reciprocal, reflexive, frequentative etc. For each form, there is also an active and a passive participle (both adjectives, declined through the full paradigm of gender, number, case and state) and a verbal noun (declined for case; also, when lexicalized, may be declined for number).
Weakness is an inherent property of a given verb determined by the particular consonants of the verb root (corresponding to a verb conjugation in Classical Latin and other European languages), with five main types of weakness and two or three subtypes of each type.
Arabic grammarians typically use the root ف-ع-لf-ʿ-l to indicate the particular shape of any given element of a verbal paradigm. As an example, the form يتكاتب (root: ك-ت-ب) yutakātabu 'he is corresponded (with)' would be listed generically as يتفاعلyutafāʿalu (yuta1ā2a3u), 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- sa- future (since the moods are active only in the present tense, and the imperative has only 5 of the 13 paradigmatic forms); times 17 form/voice combinations (since forms IX, XI–XV exist only for a small number of stative roots, and form VII cannot normally form a passive), 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 (or lack thereof) of the underlying root.
Arabicverbs (فِعْل fiʿl; pl. أَفْعَال afʿāl), like the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those languages, are based on a...
singular verbs in Maghrebi Arabic begin with a n- (ن). This phenomenon can also be found in the Maltese language, which itself emerged from Sicilian Arabic. The...
"continue". Assimilated verbs have W or Y as the first root consonant. Most of these verbs have been regularized in Egyptian Arabic, e.g. wázan/yíwzin "to...
both the second and third consonants. In Moroccan Arabic such verbs generally behave as normal weak verbs (e.g. ħya/yħya "live" from Ħ-Y-Y, quwwa/yquwwi...
latter. The verb كان kān, followed by another verb, forms compound tenses. Both verbs are conjugated with their subject. Form I verbs often correspond...
Libyan Arabic: i-verbs (e.g. k-t-b to write) follow an interconsonantal vowel structure that is predominated by an i (normally pronounced [ə]) a-verbs (e...
مو /muː/ as in مو كذا /muː kida/ ('not like this') Hejazi Arabicverbs, as with the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those...
(صيغة المجهول 'sighatu l-majhūl') of Standard Arabicverbs, using the same stem of the active voice verb with different vocalization. The passive voice...
verbs (verbs built from nouns); Form V is the equivalent used for intransitive denominatives. The associated participles and verbal nouns of a verb are...
faʕula verbs have disappeared, often merging with faʕila. Doubled verbs now have the same endings as third-weak verbs. Some endings of third-weak verbs have...
Adyghe verbsArabicverbs Ancient Greek verbs Basque verbs Bulgarian verbs Chinese verbs English verbs Finnish verb conjugation French verbs German verbs Germanic...
invariable for number and gender, is اللي (illi). Like Arabicverbs, most Levantine verbs are based on a triliteral root (also called radical) made...
conjugation, each verb group has its way: Verbs starting with one consonant: As for CVCC verbs, things might change a bit. Both simple-voweled verbs and double-voweled...
verbs from nouns and adjectives: bʿad—yibʿid “to go away” (from bʿīd “far”) to create “weather verbs”: štat—tišti “to rain” to derive causative verbs...
Barron's 201 ArabicVerbs follows the rules exactly (but the sequence ūʾū does not occur; see below). John Mace's Teach Yourself ArabicVerbs and Essential...
pseudo verbs The words used in Palestinian to express the basic verbs 'to want', 'to have', 'there is/are' are called prepositional pseudo verbs because...
Hungarian verb van ("to be") also has a future form. Turkish verbs conjugate for past, present and future, with a variety of aspects and moods. Arabicverbs have...
The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are...
The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals" (hence the term consonantal root)...
Appendix:English modal verbs in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. The English modal auxiliary verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to...
mood inflection is confirmed in the spellings of verbs with y/w as the third root consonant. Verbs of this class in result clauses are spelled in such...
Verbs constitute one of the main parts of speech (word classes) in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are...
partaking'; abbr. PTCP) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, participle...
objects of a verb are indicated by the verb form. Verbs are then said to agree with their subjects (resp. objects). Many English verbs exhibit subject...
Standard Arabic, the main way to negate past-tense verbs is to add the negative particle لَمْ lam "not" before the verb, and to put the verb in the jussive...
Japanese verbs, like the verbs of many other languages, can be morphologically modified to change their meaning or grammatical function – a process known...
"thousand" Verbs are conjugated by adding affixes (prefixes, postfixes, both or none) that change according to the tense. In all Algerian Arabic dialects...
Juba wa Ingliizi Juba Arabic Swadesh list Podcasts in Juba Arabic Juba-Arabic-Verbs-and-Phrases Juba Arabic Facebook page Juba Arabic for Beginners (Chapter...