Future participles

Hi everyone!

In the last few posts we looked at the resultative and continuous meanings of the participle (as well as some continuous participles likely to be unintuitive for English speakers). In this post we’re going to look at one more possible meaning: the future.

This use of the participle is deceptively simple for English speakers. Having learnt forms like جايه jaaye ‘coming’ and رايحين raay7iin ‘going’ as continuous forms, it feels natural to use them in contexts like the following:

جايه بكرا؟
jaaye bukra?
Are you coming tomorrow?

رايحين ع البيت بعدين
raay7iin 3albeet ba3deen
They’re going home afterwards.

نايم عندي اليوم صح؟
naayem 3indi lyoom Sa77?
You’re sleeping at mine today, right?

On closer inspection, however, it’s clear that forms aren’t really continuous, in English or in Arabic. The action isn’t taking place in the moment. What we’re really expressing here is a ‘pre-scheduled’ intention or plan for the future. This overlaps very closely with (one use of) the future formed with رح ra7-:

So far, so good. But it’s important to note that even verbs that can’t form a continuous participle can still form a future participle. The following examples can only have a resultative or a future meaning. They absolutely cannot have a continuous meaning:

أنا ماني موقعة
2ana maani mwaqq3a
I’m not signing it [= I’m not going to sign it].
I haven’t signed it [resultative].

وين آخدتيه؟
ween 2aakhidtii?
Where are you taking him [going to take me]?
Where have you taken him?

Note as well that not all examples of the future participle correspond directly to the English continuous-as-future (although most do). The future participle can also be used to express sudden emotive declarations of intent, which in English require ‘going to’, as in this dramatic example:

ولله إني قاتلو!
waLLaahi 2inni 2aatlo!
I’m going to murder him!

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