Resultative participles

In the last post we looked at the continuous use of the participle. In this post we’re going to look at the other main use, the so-called resultative. This is a very common construction: almost all verbs can form a resultative participle. But it often goes unnoticed by learners because it has no corresponding form in fuS7a.

What does ‘resultative’ mean? Like a continuous participle, a resultative participle expresses a state. But in this case, the state in question is the state that results from a verb being completed. It’s probably easiest to get a sense of what this means in practice by provisionally translating the participle using the English present perfect form (‘have Xed’), with which it shares some similarities. Consider the examples on the left and right:

Although both the normal past tense (maaDi) and the participle position an event in the past, the participle tends to emphasise present relevance, just like the English present perfect:

شايفة هالفيلم؟
shaayfe halfil^em?
Have you seen this film?

كاتبلك كل شي ع ورقة
kaatiblak kill shii 3a wara2a
I’ve written everything down for you on a piece of paper.

The two structures are not identical, however. For one thing, it is possible to combine the participle with expressions of time, which is famously impossible with the present perfect:

متفقين امبارح إنو…
mittif2iin ⁱmbaare7 2inno…
We agreed yesterday that…

For another, resultative participles are very commonly used with verbs of becoming, verbs that correspond to English structures with ‘get + ADJECTIVE’ or ‘become + ADJECTIVE’. In these cases the idiomatic translation is often a simple adjective, but the meaning is the same. Many common ‘adjectives’ in -aan you will probably have seen are actually participles of this kind:

Eagle-eyed readers of this and the previous post might have noticed that one of the examples above, طالعين Taal3iin, used a verb of motion – a kind of verb that often has a continuous participle. In fact, all verbs of motion, and almost all verbs that can form continuous participles, can also form resultative participles:

فايت لجوا شي من قبل؟
faayet la-juwwa shii min 2ab^el?
have you ever been inside before?

طالعة من البلد من ست سنين
Taal3a mn ⁱlbalad min sitt ⁱsniin
I left the country six years ago.

It would be convenient if there was a way to distinguish between these two meanings. Unfortunately, there isn’t. The participles of these verbs are ambiguous. The only way to decide which meaning is intended is from context.

That’s all for now. Next time, we’ll look at the participles of some specific difficult verbs. And if you want to keep up with this and other translation/Arabic-related content, follow me on Twitter at Chris Hitchcock (@chm3na).