Arabic verbs


Arabic verbs, like the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those languages, are based on a set of two to five consonants called a root. The root communicates the basic meaning of the verb, e.g. كتب k-t-b 'write', قرء q-r-ʾ 'read', أكل ʾ-k-l 'eat'. Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with prefixes or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as person, gender, number, tense, mood, and voice. There is a rough parallel to the variation in English among the words "writing", "rewrote" and "unwritten", where the basic consonant stem is constant but the vowels, prefixes and suffixes change to show different grammatical forms.
Various categories are marked on verbs:
Weakness is an inherent property of a given verb determined by the particular consonants of the verb root, with five main types of weakness and two or three subtypes of each type.
Arabic grammarians typically use the root فعل f-ʿ-l to indicate the particular shape of any given element of a verbal paradigm. As an example, the form يتكاتب yutakātabu 'he is corresponded ' would be listed generically as يتفاعل yutafāʿalu, specifying the generic shape of a strong Form VI passive verb, third-person masculine singular present indicative.
The maximum possible total number of verb forms derivable from a root — not counting participles and verbal nouns — is approximately 13 person/number/gender forms; times 9 tense/mood combinations, counting the sa- future ; times 17 form/voice combinations, for a total of 1,989. Each of these has its own stem form, and each of these stem forms itself comes in numerous varieties, according to the weakness of the underlying root.

Inflectional categories

Each particular lexical verb is specified by four stems, two each for the active and passive voices. In a particular voice, one stem is used for the past tense, and the other is used for the present and future tenses, along with non-indicative moods, e.g. subjunctive and imperative. The past and non-past stems are sometimes also called the perfective stem and imperfective stem, respectively, based on a traditional misinterpretation of Arabic stems as representing grammatical aspect rather than grammatical tense.
To the past stem, suffixes are added to mark the verb for person, number and gender, while to the non-past stem, a combination of prefixes and suffixes are added. A total of 13 forms exist for each of the two stems, specifying person ; number ; and gender.
There are six separate moods in the non-past: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, jussive, short energetic and long energetic. The moods are generally marked by suffixes. When no number suffix is present, the endings are -u for indicative, -a for subjunctive, no ending for imperative and jussive, ـَنْ -an for shorter energetic, ـَنَّ -anna for longer energetic. When number suffixes are present, the moods are either distinguished by different forms of the suffixes, or not distinguished at all. The imperative exists only in the second person and is distinguished from the jussive by the lack of the normal second-person prefix ـت ta-/tu-.
The third person masculine singular past tense form serves as the "dictionary form" used to identify a verb, similar to the infinitive in English. For example, the verb meaning 'write' is often specified as كَتَبَ kataba, which actually means 'he wrote'. This indicates that the past-tense stem is كَتَبْـ katab-; the corresponding non-past stem is ـكْتُبْـ -ktub-, as in يَكْتُبُ yaktubu 'he writes'.

Tense

There are three tenses in Arabic: the past tense, the present tense and the future tense. The future tense in Classical Arabic is formed by adding either the prefix sa- or the separate word sawfa onto the beginning of the present tense verb, e.g. سَيَكْتُبُ sa-yaktubu or سَوْفَ يَكْتُبُ sawfa yaktubu 'he will write'.
In some contexts, the tenses represent aspectual distinctions rather than tense distinctions. The usage of Arabic tenses is as follows:
In all but Form I, there is only one possible shape for each of the past and non-past stems for a given root. In Form I, however, different verbs have different shapes. Examples:
Notice that the second vowel can be any of a i u in both past and non-past stems. The vowel a occurs in most past stems, while i occurs in some and u occurs only in a few stative verbs. The most common patterns are:
There are three moods, whose forms are derived from the imperfective stem: the indicative mood, usually ending in u; the subjunctive, usually ending in a; and the jussive, with no ending. In less formal Arabic and in spoken dialects, the final vowels of the indicative and subjunctive are not pronounced, making them identical to jussive.
The imperative is formed by dropping the verbal prefix from the imperfective jussive stem, e.g. قَدِّم qaddim 'present!'. If the result starts with two consonants followed by a vowel, an elidible alif is added to the beginning of the word, usually pronounced as "i", e.g. اِغْسِلْ ighsil 'wash!' or اِفْعَل ifʿal 'do!' if the present form vowel is u, then the alif is also pronounced as u, e.g. أُكْتُب uktub 'write!'. Negative imperatives are formed from the jussive.
The exception to the above rule is the form IV verbs. In these verbs a non-elidible alif pronounced as a- is always prefixed to the imperfect jussive form, e.g. أرسل arsil "send!", أضف aḍif 'add!'.
The subjunctive is used in subordinate clauses after certain conjunctions. The jussive is used in negation, in negative imperatives, and in the hortative la+jussive. For example: 2. m.:
Arabic has two verbal voices, active, and passive. The passive voice is expressed by a change in vocalization. For example:
Thus, the active and passive forms are spelled identically in Arabic; only their vowel markings differ.

Participle

Every verb has a corresponding active participle, and most have passive participles. E.g. معلم muʿallim 'teacher' is the active participle to stem II. of the root علم ʿ-l-m.
In addition to a participle, there is a verbal noun, sometimes called a gerund, which is similar to English gerunds and verb-derived nouns of various sorts. As shown by the English examples, its meaning refers both to the act of doing something and to its result. One of its syntactic functions is as a verbal complement of another verb, and this usage it corresponds to the English gerund or infinitive.
Some well-known examples of verbal nouns are فتح fatḥ , تنظيم tanẓīm, جهاد jihād, إسلام islām, انتفاضة :wikt:intifada|intifāḍah, and استقلال istiqlāl.

Derivational categories, conjugations

The system of verb conjugations in Arabic is quite complicated, and is formed along two axes. One axis, known as the form, is used to specify grammatical concepts such as causative, intensive, reciprocal, passive or reflexive, and involves varying the stem form. The other axis, known as the weakness, is determined by the particular consonants making up the root. For example, defective verbs have a و w or ي y as the last root consonant, and doubled verbs have the second and third consonants the same. These "weaknesses" have the effect of inducing various irregularities in the stems and endings of the associated verbs.
Examples of the different forms of a sound verb, from the root كتب k-t-b 'write' :
FormPastMeaningNon-pastMeaning
Ikataba
كَتَبَ		'he wrote'yaktubu
يَكْتُبُ		'he writes'
IIkattaba
كَتَّبَ		'he made write'yukattibu
يُكَتِّبُ		'he makes write'
IIIkātaba
كاتَبَ		'he corresponded with, wrote to 'yukātibu
يُكاتِبُ		'"he corresponds with, writes to '
IVʾaktaba
أَكْتَبَ		'he dictated'yuktibu
يُكْتِبُ		'he dictates'
Vtakattaba
تَكَتَّبَ		nonexistentyatakattabu
يَتَكَتُّبُ		nonexistent
VItakātaba
تَكَاتَبَ		'he corresponded 'yatakātabu
يَتَكَاتَبَ		'he corresponds '
VIIinkataba
اِنْكَتَبَ		'he subscribed'yankatibu
يَنْكَتِبُ		'he subscribes'
VIIIiktataba
اِكْتَتَبَ		'he copied'yaktatibu
يَكْتَتِبُ		'he copies'
IXiḥmarra
اِحْمَرَّ		'he turned red'yaḥmarru
يَحْمَرُّ		'he turns red'
Xistaktaba
اِسْتَكْتَبَ		'he asked to write'yastaktibu
يَسْتَكْتِبُ		'he asks to write'

The main types of weakness are as follows:
WeaknessRootPast
3rd 		Past
1st 		Present
3rd 		Present
3
Sound كتب
k-t-b 'to write'		كَتَبَ
kataba		كَتَبْتُ
katabtu		يَكْتُبُ
yaktubu		يَكْتُبْنَ
yaktubna
Assimilated, Wوجد
w-j-d 'to find'		وَجَدَ
wajada		وَجَدْتُ
wajadtu		يَجِدُ
yajidu		يَجِدْنَ
yajidna
Assimilated, Yيبس
y-b-s 'to dry'		يَبِسَ
yabisa		يَبِسْتُ
yabistu		يَيْبَسُ
yaybasu		يَيْبَسْنَ
yaybasna
Hollow, Wقول
q-w-l 'to say'		قالَ
qāla		قُلْتُ
qultu		يَقُولُ
yaqūlu		يَقُلْنَ
yaqulna
Hollow, Yسير
s-y-r 'to travel, go'		سارَ
sāra		سِرْتُ
sirtu		يَسِيرُ
yasīru		يَسِرْنَ
yasirna
Defective, Wدعو
d-ʿ-w 'to call'		دَعا
daʿā		دَعَوْتُ
daʿawtu		يَدْعُو
yadʿū		يَدْعُونَ
yadʿūna
Defective, Yرمي
r-m-y 'to throw'		رَمَى
ramā		رَمَيْتُ
ramaytu		يَرْمِي
yarmī		يَرْمِينَ
yarmīna
Doubledمدد
m-d-d 'to extend'		مَدَّ
madda		مَدَدْتُ
madadtu		يَمُدُّ
yamuddu		يَمْدُدْنَ
yamdudna

Conjugation

Regular verb conjugation for person-number, tense-aspect-mood, and participles

In Arabic the grammatical person and number as well as the mood are designated by a variety of prefixes and suffixes. The following table shows the paradigm of a regular sound Form I verb, kataba 'to write'. Most of the final short vowels are often omitted in speech, except the vowel of the feminine plural ending -na, and normally the vowel of the past tense second person feminine singular ending -ti.
The initial vowel in the imperative varies from verb to verb, as follows:
In unvocalised Arabic, katabtu, katabta, katabti and katabat are all written the same: كتبت. Forms katabtu and katabta can be abbreviated to katabt in spoken Arabic and in pausa, making them also sound the same.
ا in final ـُوا is silent.

Weak roots

Roots containing one or two of the radicals و w, ي y or ء ʾ often lead to verbs with special phonological rules because these radicals can be influenced by their surroundings. Such verbs are called "weak" and their paradigms must be given special attention. In the case of hamzah, these peculiarities are mainly orthographical, since hamzah is not subject to elision. According to the position of the weak radical in the root, the root can be classified into four classes: first weak, second weak, third weak and doubled, where both the second and third radicals are identical. Some roots fall into more than one category at once.

Assimilated (first-weak) roots

Most first-weak verbs have a و w as their first radical. These verbs are entirely regular in the past tense. In the non-past, the w drops out, leading to a shorter stem 'to whip, flog'. This same stem is used throughout, and there are no other irregularities except for the imperative, which has no initial vowel, consistent with the fact that the stem for the imperative begins with only one consonant.
There are various types of assimilated Form I verbs:
Past stem
Non-past stem
Imperative
MeaningSound verb parallel
وَجَدَ
wajad-a		يَجِدُ
yajid-u		جِدْ
jid		'to find'
وَرِثَ
warith-a		يَرِثُ
yarith-u		رِثْ
rith		'to inherit'
وَضَعَ
waḍaʿ-a		يَضَعُ
yaḍaʿ-u		ضَعْ
ḍaʿ		'to put'
وَجِلَ
wajil-a		يَوْجَلُ
yawjal-u		إيجَلْ
ījal		'to be scared'
يَسَرَ
yasar-a		يَيْسِرُ
yaysir-u		إيسِرْ
īsir		'to be simple'
يَبِسَ
yabis-a		يَيْبَسُ
yaybas-u		إيبَسْ
ības		'to be/become dry'
يَدُّ
yadd-u		إيدَدْ
īdad		'to want to; to love'
وَلِيَ
waliy-a		يَلِي
yalī		لِ
li		'to protect'''

Hollow (second-weak) roots

The following shows a paradigm of a typical Form I hollow verb 'to say', parallel to verbs of the type. See notes following the table for explanation.
All hollow verbs are conjugated in a parallel fashion. The endings are identical to strong verbs, but there are two stems in each of the past and non-past. The longer stem is consistently used whenever the ending begins with a vowel, and the shorter stem is used in all other circumstances. The longer stems end in a long vowel plus consonant, while the shorter stems end in a short vowel plus consonant. The shorter stem is formed simply by shortening the vowel of the long stem in all paradigms other than the active past of Form I verbs. In the active past paradigms of Form I, however, the longer stem always has an ā vowel, while the shorter stem has a vowel u or i corresponding to the actual second root consonant of the verb.
No initial vowel is needed in the imperative forms because the non-past stem does not begin with two consonants.
There are various types of Form I hollow verbs:
  • 'to say', formed from verbs with و w as their second root consonant and parallel to verbs of the type
  • 'to get going, to travel', formed from verbs with ي y as their second root consonant and parallel to verbs of the faʿala type
  • 'to fear', formed from verbs with و w as their second root consonant and parallel to verbs of the type
  • 'to sleep', formed from verbs with ي y as their second root consonant and parallel to verbs of the type
The passive paradigm of all Form I hollow verbs is as follows:
  • 'to be said'

    Defective (third-weak) roots

فعى يفعي ''''
The following shows a paradigm of a typical Form I defective verb 'to throw', parallel to verbs of the type. See notes following the table for explanation.
;Two stems each
Each of the two main stems comes in two variants, a full and a shortened. For the past stem, the full is رميـ ramay-, shortened to رمـ ram- in much of the third person. For the non-past stem, the full is rmiy-, shortened to rm- before -ū -ī. The full non-past stem ـرميـ rmiy- appears as ـرميـ rmī- when not before a vowel; this is an automatic alternation in Classical Arabic. The places where the shortened stems occur are indicated by silver, gold.
;Irregular endings
The endings are actually mostly regular. But some endings are irregular, in boldface:
  • Some of the third-person past endings are irregular, in particular those in رمى ram-ā 'he threw', رموا ram-aw 'they threw'. These simply have to be memorized.
  • Two kinds of non-past endings are irregular, both in the "suffixless" parts of the paradigm. In the indicative, the full stem ـرمي -rmī actually appears normally; what is irregular is the lack of the -u normally marking the indicative. In the jussive, on the other hand, the stem actually assumes a unique shortened form ـرمـ -rmi, with a short vowel that is not represented by a letter in the Arabic.
    (فعا (يفعو ''''
The following shows a paradigm of a typical Form I defective verb 'to call', parallel to verbs of the type. Verbs of this sort are entirely parallel to verbs of the type, although the exact forms can still be tricky. See notes following the table for explanation.
Verbs of this sort are work nearly identically to verbs of the type. There are the same irregular endings in the same places, and again two stems in each of the past and non-past tenses, with the same stems used in the same places:
  • In the past, the full stem is دعوـ daʿaw-, shortened to دعـ daʿ-.
  • In the non-past, the full stem is دعوـ dʿuw-, rendered as دعوـ dʿū- when not before a vowel and shortened to دعـ dʿ- before ـُو، ـِي -ū -ī.
The Arabic spelling has the following rules:
  • In the third person masculine singular past, regular ا alif appears instead of alif maqṣūrah: hence دَعَا not *دَعَى.
  • The otiose final alif appears only after the final wāw of the plural, not elsewhere: hence تَدْعُو 'you call ' but تَدْعُوا 'you call ', even though they are both pronounced تدعو tadʿū.
    فعي يفعى ''''
The following shows a paradigm of a typical Form I defective verb nasiya 'to forget', parallel to verbs of the type. These verbs differ in a number of significant respects from either of the above types.
;Multiple stems
This variant is somewhat different from the variants with ـِي -ī or ـُو -ū in the non-past. As with other third-weak verbs, there are multiple stems in each of the past and non-past, a full stem composed following the normal rules and one or more shortened stems.
  • In this case, only one form in the past uses a shortened stem: نسوـ nas-ū 'they forgot'. All other forms are constructed regularly, using the full stem نسيـ nasiy- or its automatic pre-consonant variant نسيـ nasī-.
  • In the non-past, however, there are at least three different stems:
  1. The full stem نسيـ -nsay- occurs before -a/ā- or ـنـ -n-, that is before dual endings, feminine plural endings and energetic endings corresponding to forms that are endingless in the jussive.
  2. The modified stem نساـ -nsā occurs in "endingless" forms. As usual with third-weak verbs, it is shortened to نسـ -nsa in the jussive. These forms are marked with red.
  3. Before endings normally beginning with -i/ī- or -u/ū-, the stem and endings combine together into a shortened form: e.g. expected تنسين *ta-nsay-īna 'you forget', تنسيون *ta-nsay-ūna 'you forget' instead become تنسين ta-nsayna, تنسون ta-nsawna respectively. The table above chooses to segment them as تنسين ta-nsa-yna, تنسون ta-nsa-wna, suggesting that a shortened stem ـنسـ -nsa- combines with irregular endings ـين -yna < ـين *-īna, ـون -wna < ـون *-ūna. Similarly subjunctive/jussive تنسوا ta-nsaw < تنسيوا *ta-nsay-ū; but note energetic تنسون ta-nsawunna < تنسين *ta-nsay-unna, where the original ـيـ *-yu- has assimilated to ـوـ -wu-. Consistent with the above analysis, we analyze this form as تنسون ta-nsa-wunna, with an irregular energetic ending ـون -wunna where a glide consonant has developed after the previous vowel. However, since all moods in this case have a form containing ـنسوـ -nsaw-, an alternative analysis would consider ـنسوـ -nsaw and ـنسيـ -nsay as stems. These forms are marked with gold.
;Irregular endings
The endings are actually mostly regular. But some endings are irregular in the non-past, in boldface:
  • The non-past endings in the "suffixless" parts of the paradigm. In the indicative and subjunctive, the modified stem ـنساـ -nsā appears, and is shortened to ـنسـ -nsa in the jussive. In the forms actually appears normally; what is irregular is the lack of the -u normally marking the indicative. In the jussive, on the other hand, the stem actually assumes a unique shortened form ـنسـ -nsa, with a short vowel that is not represented by a letter in the Arabic script.
  • In the forms that would normally have suffixes -i/ī- or -u/ū-, the stem and suffix combine to produce ـنسيـ -nsay-, ـنسوـ -nsaw-. These are analyzed here as consisting of a shortened stem form ـنسـ -nsa-'' plus irregular endings.

    Doubled roots

The following shows a paradigm of a typical Form I doubled verb 'to extend', parallel to verbs of the type. See notes following the table for explanation.
All doubled verbs are conjugated in a parallel fashion. The endings are for the most part identical to those of strong verbs, but there are two stems in each of the past and non-past. The regular stems are identical to the stem forms of sound verbs, while the modified stems have the two identical consonants pulled together into a geminate consonant and the vowel between moved before the geminate. In the above verb 'to extend', the past stems are مددـ madad-, مدـ madd-, and the non-past stems are مددـ mdud-, مدـ mudd-. In the table, places where the regular past stem occurs are in silver, and places where the regular non-past stem occurs are in gold; everywhere else, the modified stem occurs.
No initial vowel is needed in most of the imperative forms because the modified non-past stem does not begin with two consonants.
The concept of having two stems for each tense, one for endings beginning with vowels and one for other endings, occurs throughout the different kinds of weaknesses.
Following the above rules, endingless jussives would have a form like تمدد tamdud, while the corresponding indicatives and subjunctives would have forms like تمد tamuddu, تمد tamudda. As a result, for the doubled verbs in particular, there is a tendency to harmonize these forms by adding a vowel to the jussives, usually a, sometimes i. These are the only irregular endings in these paradigms, and have been indicated in boldface. The masculine singular imperative likewise has multiple forms, based on the multiple forms of the jussive.
There are various types of doubled Form I verbs:
Modified past stem
Regular past stem
Modified non-past stem
Regular non-past stem
MeaningSound verb parallel
مَدَّ
madd-a		مَدَدْنَ
madad-na		يَمُدُّ
ya-mudd-u		يَمْدُدْنَ
ya-mdud-na		'to extend'
تَمَّ
tamm-a		تَمَمْنَ
tamam-na		يَتِمُّ
ya-timm-u		يَتْمِمْنَ
ya-tmim-na		'to finish'"
ظَلَّ
ẓall-a		ظَلِلْنَ
ẓalil-na		يَظَلُّ
ya-ẓall-u		يَظْلَلْنَ
ya-ẓlal-na		'to remain'

Formation of derived stems ("forms")

Arabic verb morphology includes augmentations of the root, also known as forms, an example of the derived stems found among the Semitic languages. For a typical verb based on a triliteral root, the basic form is termed Form I, while the augmented forms are known as Form II, Form III, etc. The forms in normal use are Form I through Form X; Forms XI through XV exist but are rare and obsolescent. Forms IX and XI are used only with adjectival roots referring to colors and physical defects, and are stative verbs having the meaning of "be X" or "become X". Although the structure that a given root assumes in a particular augmentation is predictable, its meaning is not, and not all augmentations exist for any given root. As a result, these augmentations are part of the system of derivational morphology, not part of the inflectional system.
The construction of a given augmentation is normally indicated using the dummy root f–ʿ–l, based on the verb faʿala 'to do'. Because Arabic has no direct equivalent to the infinitive form of Western languages, the third-person masculine singular past tense is normally used as the dictionary form of a given verb, i.e. the form by which a verb is identified in a dictionary or grammatical discussion. Hence, the word faʿala above actually has the meaning of 'he did', but is translated as 'to do' when used as a dictionary form.
Verbs based on quadriliteral roots also exist. There are four augmentations for such verbs, known as Forms Iq, IIq, IIIq and IVq. These have forms similar to Forms II, V, VII and IX respectively of triliteral verbs. Forms IIIq and IVq are fairly rare. The construction of such verbs is typically given using the dummy verb faʿlala. However, the choice of this particular verb is somewhat non-ideal in that the third and fourth consonants of an actual verb are typically not the same, despite the same consonant used for both; this is a particular problem e.g. for Form IVq. The verb tables below use the dummy verb faʿlaqa instead.
Some grammars, especially of colloquial spoken varieties rather than of Classical Arabic, use other dummy roots. For example, A Short Reference Grammar of Iraqi Arabic uses فمل FaMaLa and فستل FaSTaLa for three and four-character roots, respectively. Commonly the dummy consonants are given in capital letters.
The system of identifying verb augmentations by Roman numerals is an invention by Western scholars. Traditionally, Arabic grammarians did not number the augmentations at all, instead identifying them by the corresponding dictionary form. For example, Form V would be called "the tafaʿʿala form".
Each form can have either active or passive forms in the past and non-past tenses, so reflexives are different from passives.
Note that the present passive of forms I and IV are the same. Otherwise there is no confusion.

Sound verbs

Sound verbs are those verbs with no associated irregularities in their constructions. Verbs with irregularities are known as weak verbs; generally, this occurs either with verbs based on roots where one or more of the consonants is w, y or the glottal stop ʾ ; or verbs where the second and third root consonants are the same.
Some verbs that would be classified as "weak" according to the consonants of the verb root are nevertheless conjugated as a strong verb. This happens, for example:
  • Largely, to all verbs whose only weakness is a hamzah radical; the irregularity is in the Arabic spelling but not the pronunciation, except in a few minor cases.
  • Largely, to all verbs whose only weakness is a y in the first radical.
  • To all verbs conjugated in Forms II, III, V, VI whose only weakness is a و w or ي y in the first or second radicals.

    Form VIII assimilations

Form VIII has a ـتـ -t- that is infixed into the root, directly after the first root consonant. This ـتـ -t- assimilates to certain coronal consonants occurring as the first root consonant. In particular, with roots whose first consonant is د، ز، ث، ذ، ص، ط، ض، ظ d z th dh ṣ ṭ ḍ ẓ, the combination of root and infix ت t appears as دّ، زد، ثّ، ذّ، صط، طّ، ضط، ظّ dd zd thth dhdh ṣṭ ṭṭ ḍṭ ẓẓ. That is, the t assimilates the emphasis of the emphatic consonants ص، ط، ض، ظ ṣ ṭ ḍ ẓ and the voicing of د، ز d z, and assimilates entirely to the interdental consonants ث، ذ، ظ th dh ẓ. The consonant cluster ضط ḍṭ, as in اضطرّ iḍṭarra 'compel, force', is unexpected given modern pronunciation, having a voiced stop next to a voiceless one; this reflects the fact that ط ṭ was formerly pronounced voiced, and ض ḍ was pronounced as the emphatic equivalent not of د d but of an unusual lateral sound.

Defective (third-weak) verbs

Other than for Form I active, there is only one possible form for each verb, regardless of whether the third root consonant is و w or ي y. All of the derived third-weak verbs have the same active-voice endings as verbs except for Forms V and VI, which have past-tense endings like verbs but non-past endings like verbs. The passive-voice endings of all third-weak verbs are the same as for the verbs. The verbal nouns have various irregularities: feminine in Form II, -in declension in Form V and VI, glottal stop in place of root w/y in Forms VII–X.
The active and passive participles of derived defective verbs consistently are of the -in and -an declensions, respectively.
Defective Form IX verbs are extremely rare. Heywood and Nahmad list one such verb, iʿmāya 'be/become blind', which does not follow the expected form اعميّ *iʿmayya. They also list a similarly rare Form XI verb اعمايّ iʿmāyya 'be/become blind' — this time with the expected form.

Hollow (second-weak) verbs

Only the forms with irregularities are shown. The missing forms are entirely regular, with w or y appearing as the second radical, depending on the root. There are unexpected feminine forms of the verbal nouns of Form IV, X.

Assimilated (first-weak) verbs

When the first radical is w, it drops out in the Form I non-past. Most of the derived forms are regular, except that the sequences uw iw are assimilated to ū ī, and the sequence wt in Form VIII is assimilated to tt throughout the paradigm. The following table only shows forms with irregularities in them.
The initial w also drops out in the common Form I verbal noun ʿilah.
When the first radical is y, the forms are largely regular. The following table only shows forms that have some irregularities in them, indicated in boldface.

Doubled verbs

Hamzated verbs

The largest problem with so-called "hamzated" verbs is the complicated way of writing such verbs in the Arabic script. In pronunciation, these verbs are in fact almost entirely regular.
The only irregularity occurs in verbs with a hamzah as the first radical. A phonological rule in Classical Arabic disallows the occurrence of two hamzahs in a row separated by a short vowel, assimilating the second to the preceding vowel. This affects the following forms:
  • The first-person singular of the non-past of Forms I, IV and VIII.
  • The entire past and imperative of Form IV.
In addition, any place where a hamzat al-waṣl occurs will optionally undergo this transformation. This affects the following forms:
  • The entire imperative of Form I.
  • The entire past and imperative of Form VIII, as well as the verbal noun of Form VIII.
There are the following irregularities:
  • The common verbs ʾakala 'eat', ʾakhadha 'take', ʾamara 'command' have irregular, short imperatives kul, khudh, mur.
  • Form VIII of the common verb ʾakhadha 'take' is ittakhadha 'take on, assume', with irregular assimilation of the hamzah.
  • The common verb saʾala yasʾalu 'ask' has an alternative non-past yasalu with missing hamzah.

    Doubly weak verbs

Doubly weak verbs have two "weak" radicals; a few verbs are also triply weak. Generally, the above rules for weak verbs apply in combination, as long as they do not conflict. The following are cases where two types of weaknesses apply in combination:
  • Verbs with a w in the first radical and a w or y in the third radical. These decline as defective verbs, and also undergo the loss of w in the non-past of Form I, e.g. waqā yaqī 'guard', wafā yafī 'complete, fulfill ', waliya yalī 'be near, follow'. These verbs have extremely short imperatives qi fi li , although these are not normally used in Modern Standard Arabic. Similarly, verbs of this sort in Form IV and Form VIII are declined as defective but also have the normal assimilations of w-initial verbs, e.g. Form IV awfā yūfī 'fulfill a vow', Form VIII ittaqā yattaqī 'fear ', augmentations of wafā yafī and waqā yaqī, respectively.
  • Verbs with a hamzah in the first radical and a w or y in the third radical. These decline as defective verbs, and also undergo the assimilations associated with the initial hamzah, e.g. the common verb ʾatā yaʾtī 'come' and the related Form IV verb ʾātā yuʾtī 'bring'.
The following are examples where weaknesses would conflict, and hence one of the "weak" radicals is treated as strong:
  • Verbs with a w or y in both the second and third radicals. These are fairly common, e.g. rawā yarwī 'recount, transmit'. These decline as regular defective verbs; the second radical is treated as non-weak.
  • Verbs with a w in the first radical and the second and third radicals the same. These verbs do not undergo any assimilations associated with the first radical, e.g. wadda yawaddu 'to love'.
  • Verbs with a hamza in the first radical and the second and third radicals the same. These verbs do not undergo any assimilations associated with the first radical, e.g. ʾajja yaʾujju 'burn', first singular non-past ʾaʾujju 'I burn', despite the two hamzahs in a row.
The following are cases with special irregularities:
  • Verbs with a w or y in the second radical and a hamzah in the third radical. These are fairly common, e.g. the extremely common verb jāʾa yajīʾu 'come'. The only irregularity is the Form I active participle, e.g. jāʾin 'coming', which is irregularly declined as a defective participle.
  • The extremely common verb raʾā yarā 'see'. The hamzah drops out entirely in the non-past. Similarly in the passive, ruʾiya yurā 'be seen'. The active participle is regular rāʾin and the passive participle is regular marʾīy-. The related Form IV verb arā yūrī 'show' is missing the hamzah throughout. Other augmentations are regular: Form III rāʾā yurāʾī 'dissemble', Form VI tarāʾā yatarāʾā 'look at one another', Form VIII irtaʾā yartaʾī 'think'.
  • The common verb ḥayiya yaḥyā 'live', with an alternative past tense ḥayya. Form IV aḥyā yuḥyī 'resuscitate, revive' is regular. Form X istaḥyā yastaḥyī 'spare alive, feel ashamed' also appears as istaḥayya and istaḥā.

    Summary of vowels

The vowels for the various forms are summarized in this table:
See also.

Verbs in colloquial Arabic

The Classical Arabic system of verbs is largely unchanged in the colloquial spoken varieties of Arabic. The same derivational system of augmentations exists, including triliteral Forms I through X and quadriliteral Forms I and II, constructed largely in the same fashion. The same system of weaknesses also exists, again constructed largely in the same fashion. Within a given verb, two stems still exist along with the same two systems of affixes.
The largest changes are within a given paradigm, with a significant reduction in the number of forms. The following is an example of a regular verb paradigm in Egyptian Arabic.
This paradigm shows clearly the reduction in the number of forms:
  • The thirteen person/number/gender combinations of Classical Arabic have been reduced to eight, through the loss of dual and feminine-plural forms.
  • The system of suffix-marked mood distinctions has been lost, other than the imperative. Egyptian Arabic and many other "urban" varieties have non-past endings -i -u inherited from the original subjunctive forms, but some varieties have -īn -ūn endings inherited from the original indicative. Most varieties have also gained new moods, and a new future tense, marked through the use of prefixes. Various particles are used for the future, derived from reduced forms of various verbs.
  • The internal passive is lost almost everywhere. Instead, the original reflexive/mediopassive augmentations serve as both reflexive and passive. The passive of Forms II and III is generally constructed with a reflex of Forms V and VI, using a prefix it- derived from the Classical prefix ta-. The passive of Form I uses either a prefix in- or it-. The other forms often have no passive.
In addition, Form IV is lost entirely in most varieties, except for a few "classicizing" verbs.
See varieties of Arabic for more information on grammar differences in the spoken varieties.

Negation

The negation of Arabic verbs varies according to the tense of the verb phrase. In literary Modern Standard Arabic, present-tense verbs are negated by adding لا lā "not" before the verb, past-tense verbs are negated by adding the negative particle لَمْ lam "not" before the verb, and putting the verb in the jussive mood; and future-tense expressions are negated by placing the negative particle لَنْ lan before the verb in the subjunctive mood.
OWIKI.org. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.