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! Today we’re going to talk about a distinctively Arabic construction, the 2iDaafe (إضافة). The broad outlines of the Syrian system are more or less the same as they are in fuS7a. But as usual there are some differences in forms and usage that you need to be aware of. What is an 2iDaafe? The 2iDaafe is used to express all sorts of relationships between different nouns and translates most uses of the possessive ‘s, ‘of’ and juxtaposition of nouns in English. I won’t spend too long talking about the general semantics here because they’re more or less the same as their fuS7a counterparts. Note that only the last noun can carry the definite article, and that this makes the whole structure definite or indefinite: ...
Hi everyone! Another fuS7a to shaami redux post. Today we’ll be talking about demonstratives: ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘those’. While in some respects the Syrian system here resembles that of fuS7a, it diverges enough that it probably needs to be looked at piece by piece. We’ll start with the demonstrative pronouns, which will look fairly familiar, and then move on to other things that have no fuS7a counterpart. Demonstrative pronouns The independent demonstrative pronouns are as follows: ...
Hi everyone! Continuing today with our fuS7a to shaami reboot, I’d like to briefly introduce the independent pronouns. If you’ve studied fuS7a, the distinction between independent and attached pronouns (which we’ll cover in another post) will not be new to you. The system Syrian has eight distinct pronouns. Their independent versions are as follows: Singular Plural أنا 2ana I, me نحنا ni7na we, us انتي 2inti you (f.) انت 2inte you (m.) انتو 2intu you (p.) هو huwwe he, him هي hiyye she, her هنه hinne they, them ...