Derived verbs: Forms VII and VIII

Hi everyone!

Today we’re going to talk about how to conjugate Forms VII (nfa3al) and VIII (fta3al). As in the previous posts, we’ll start by looking at stem shapes and then talk about how these stems combine with prefixes and suffixes.

Stem shapes

The common stem shapes for Form VII (which almost always has passive meaning) are as follows. Note the irregular stress on the middle i in the imperfective (and the fact that it’s i, not a as fuS7a would suggest):

انضرب nDarab got hit	ينضرب yi-nDireb gets hit
انزار nzaar got visited	ينزار yi-nzaar gets visited
انشرى nshara got bought	ينشري yi-nshiri gets bought
اندق nda22 got tapped	يندق yi-nda22 gets tapped

You may occasionally encounter passive imperfective forms with a: yi-nDarab or yi-nshara. These are not common in Damascene, but frequent in some other Syrian dialects and in Lebanon, so they’re worth being aware of.

The common shapes for Form VIII are very similar, with the same irregular stress:

اختلف khtalaf differed	يختلف yi-khtilef he differs
اختار khtaar choose	يختار yi-khtaar he chooses
اشترى shtara bought	يشتري yi-shtiri he buys
اهتم htamm takes an interested in	يهتم yi-htamm he takes an interest in

As with the passive, you may encounter a handful of defective imperfectives with a. The only one that’s really common in Damascene is يلتقى yi-lta2a ‘be found’.

Suffixes and prefixes

By this point you know the drill. The imperfective forms are entirely regular. Since all possible stems here begin with consonant clusters, they use the same set of imperfective prefixes. When one of the imperfective suffixes is added (-i or -u), it causes deletion of the final short vowel of a sound stem in accordance with the usual rule. It also causes a defective stem vowel (whether a or i) to drop:

تختلف ti-khtilef you (m.) differ	تختلفي ti-khtilf-i you (f.) differ
يلتقى yi-lta2a he’s found	يلتقو yi-lta2-u they’re found
يشتري yi-shtiri he buys	يشترو yi-shtir-u they buy

The perfective forms map almost perfectly onto their Form I counterparts. Sound verbs lose their final a when the suffix -et ‘she’ is added, just like in كتب katab:

اكتتب ktatab he subscribed	اكتتبت ktatb-et she subscribed
انشرب nsharab it (m.) got drunk	انشربت nsharb-et it (f.) got drunk

Otherwise, their behaviour is exactly what you’d expect. Hollow verbs’ short stem usually has an a (although you may also hear i):

اختار khtaar chose	اخترت khtar–et I chose
انشاف nshaaf was seen	انشفنا nshaf-na we were seen

The defective forms act exactly as we’d expect them to. They lose their final vowel before vowel-initial suffixes and change it into -ee- before consonant-initial suffixes:

اشترى shtara he bought	اشتريت shtaree-t I bought
اكترى ktara he rented	اكترو ktar-u they rented
انطوى nTawa it (m.) got folded	انطوو nTaw-u they got folded

Doubled forms also act as we’d expect. They add an -ee before consonant-initial suffixes:

انجر njarr he got dragged	انجريت njarree-t I got dragged
اهتم htamm he took an interest	اهتمينا htammee-na we took an interest

That’s all for today. Next time we’ll look at the rest of the forms. Then we’ll be able to move on to something a bit more interesting than conjugation!