Hi everyone! In this post I’ll be providing a brief overview of how passives and causatives work in Syrian. I’ve already covered passives in more detail here. This is intended mainly for completeness as part of my updated fuS7a-to-Shami series. As usual, I’ll be assuming you already know fuS7a. Passive In fuS7a any verb can form a passive by changing its internal vowelling. This structure is not normal in Syrian (although you will sometimes hear borrowings from fuS7a, especially in higher-register language). Instead, Syrian relies mainly on a change of pattern to passivise a verb: ...

Hi everyone! In this post we’re going to talk briefly about a few negative constructions. If you’ve studied fuS7a – and I’ve generally been assuming you have – you’ll know that in written Arabic there are lots of different negative constructions depending on tense. Although there are a few possible negatives in spoken Arabic, the system is generally simpler. maa As a general rule, all verbal structures can be negated by simply placing ما maa before the verb. This corresponds to لا, لم and لن in fuS7a: ...

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long hiatus. Today we’ll be looking at a distinctive feature of Levantine that fuS7a has no straightforward counterpart to. We’ve already looked at how normal object pronouns attach to verbs. In this post, we’re going to look at another kind of attached pronoun: the -l- forms. What is a -l- form? The -l- pronoun suffixes attach to verbs, just like normal object suffixes. Instead of a direct object noun, however, they generally (but not always) correspond to a noun with the preposition لـ la- ‘for’ or ‘to’: ...

In this post we’re going to talk about relative clauses and how to form them in Syrian. What is a relative clause? A relative clause is a clause that acts like an adjective – that is, it adds extra information about a noun (the ‘head noun’) to which it is attached. Examples of relative clauses in English are things like ‘the man who I saw‘, ‘a key (that) I found in the park‘, ‘a book (that) you heard about‘. ...

Hi everyone! Today we’re going to talk briefly about the imperative. This is formed differently in Syrian and fuS7a. Conjugation The imperatives of Form I sound verbs are a bit complicated. There is usually no prefix. Instead, the imperfective stem is used on its own. When there are no suffixes attached – that is, in the masculine form, with no pronouns attached – the stem vowel is lengthened. Note that the addition of suffixes triggers the merger of stressed u to i: ...

Hi everyone! In the last few posts we’ve looked at various forms of the verb. Today we’re going to look briefly at the direct object pronouns. These are almost identical to the forms used with nouns, with the exception of the first person singular. Verb forms A pronoun attached to a verb marks its direct object, and the same concerns apply (including lengthening and deletion). Note the two sets of forms, one following vowels, one following consonants: ...

Hi everyone! Today we’re going to talk about an underappreciated topic in dialect teaching: the ‘sisters of kaan‘ or ‘framing verbs’. You will be familiar with this class of verbs from fuS7a (ظل, أصبح etc). In Syrian the set is slightly different, but has similar functions. The main property of all the sisters of kaan is that they can be combined with both verbal and nominal sentences to add a particular nuance (usually a time-related nuance). Since English syntax usually distinguishes between these two functions, most of these verbs will have different translations depending on the kind of sentence they’re combined with. The basic meaning, however, is usually the same. And unlike in fuS7a, you don’t have to worry about case marking. ...

Hi everyone! With our last post on the use of participles, we’ve looked at all the important bits of the verbal system proper. But if you’ve been paying attention (or if you’ve just studied fuS7a), you’ll have noticed that there are a few holes in the system. In particular, how do we express continuous or regular action in the past, given that the perfective form can’t be used for this purpose? The answer involves the verb كان kaan ‘to be’. ...

Hi everyone! In the last post we looked at how to form the active participle (اسم فاعل). Most of the information there will have been fairly familiar to anyone who’s studied fuS7a. Active participles in Syrian look pretty similar to their fuS7a counterparts. But their usage is quite different from what you’ll probably have encountered in modern fuS7a texts. Basic meanings Most participle forms are translated with an English verb. Since I’ve already produced a series going into more detail on participle semantics, this will be a fairly brief overview. ...

Hi everyone! Today we’re going to look quickly at one final component of the verbal system: active participles. In this post we’ll look at how to form the participle. In the next post we’ll see how it’s used. Formation Active participles are formed similarly to fuS7a. Form I verbs generally use the pattern faa3el. Note that the doubled forms are regular (the fuS7a form here would be داقّ daaqqun): SOUND كاتب kaateb has written HOLLOW ...