Posts

A few posts ago we looked at the independent pronouns: pronoun forms that act as distinct words. Just like fuS7a, Syrian also has a corresponding set of ‘attached’ pronouns, suffixes which can’t stand on their own and have to occur with another word. In this post we’ll be looking briefly at how these pronouns work. Attached pronouns suffix mainly (but not exclusively) to nouns and to verbs. Although the forms are mostly the same, there are a few small differences, so it’s worth looking at them separately. Today we’ll be looking at the forms that attach to nouns. ...

Over the last few posts we’ve looked at the semantics of various verbal forms. Here we’ll briefly talk about the last two central components of the system, the particles 3am (the continuous) and ra7- (the future). 3am (the continuous) The particle 3am is combined with the base imperfective or the b- form of the verb (there’s some variation between speakers on the exact forms used). Its most common use is to express continuous action, meaning it corresponds quite nicely to the English structure ‘be Xing’: ...

Hi everyone! A few posts ago we looked at how to conjugate the perfective. In this post, as promised there, we’re going to look very briefly at its semantics. For the most part, these are exactly the same as they are in fuS7a. Bit since how the perfective differs from the English past is often not very well explained to learners, in this post I’ll be trying to give you a sense of what exactly this means. ...

Hi everyone! Last time we looked at the uses of the ‘imperfective’, formed by attaching the prefix b- to the base form we learned how to conjugate a few posts ago. As you will probably know, however, the base form itself also occurs quite commonly in Syrian sentences. In this post we will briefly introduce the uses of this form, often called the subjunctive. Most of the places that the subjunctive is used have an obvious trigger word or structure. There are a few cases, however, where it can be used on its own to give a specific meaning. For ease of organisation, we’re going to look at these independent and triggered uses separately. ...

In the last few posts we’ve looked at how to form the perfective and the imperfective (‘base form’). But if you know anything about Levantine Arabic, you probably know that most of the time an imperfective form in fuS7a will correspond to a structure with a b- prefix in Levantine: fuS7a Syrian أحب 2u7ibbu I love بحب b7ibb I love أعتقد 2a3taqidu I think بعتقد bi3ti2ed I think ...

Hi everyone! In this final (إن شاء الله) conjugation post, we’re going to look at Forms IX (f3all) and X (staf3al) and the two quadriliteral (four-letter) patterns, fa3lal and tfa3lal. As in previous posts, I’ll start by looking at the stems used in the perfective and imperfective. I’ll then briefly give some examples of how these stems interact with affixes. Stem shapes Form IX is the simplest of all. There is only one possible stem shape: ...

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): ...

Hi everyone! In the last couple of posts, we looked at how to conjugate so-called ‘Form I’ verbs of various kinds. In this post we will look at how to conjugate derived verbs on Forms II (fa33al), III (faa3al), V (tfa33al) and VI (tfaa3al). Stem shapes All four of the forms we’re looking at here are fairly straightforward. They don’t have distinct doubled or hollow shapes – as in fuS7a, these take exactly the same form as their sound equivalents (for example Form II نوم nawwam ‘put to sleep’ and دقق da22a2 ‘be precise’, which have exactly the same shape as شرب sharrab ‘give to drink’). Their only significant variants are sound and defective. Moreover, their internal vowelling is more or less what you would expect it to be from fuS7a. ...

Hi everyone! Today we’re going to look at how to conjugate the second of the two big ‘tense’ forms: the imperfective (the مضارع). A range of other tense-type constructions are derived from this form, and in the next few posts we’ll look at some of these (the b- prefix, the 3am continuous, the future and the imperative). But for today we’re going to look at the basic form without any prefixes. As we will see, this is most commonly used in subjunctive structures. ...

Hi everyone! Over the last few posts we’ve more or less covered everything to do with nouns and adjectives. We’re now going to look at the other crucial sentence component: the verb. We’re going to begin by looking at the perfective (the ماضي). I’m not going to talk much about the semantics of the perfective today because they are broadly the same as in fuS7a. Instead, I’m going to talk about how to conjugate it, looking for now at so-called Form I verbs. ...