Hi everyone!

In this post we’re going to talk briefly about a few negative constructions. If you’ve studied fuS7a – and I’ve generally been assuming you have – you’ll know that in written Arabic there are lots of different negative constructions depending on tense. Although there are a few possible negatives in spoken Arabic, the system is generally simpler.

maa

As a general rule, all verbal structures can be negated by simply placing ما maa before the verb. This corresponds to لا, لم and لن in fuS7a:

As in fuS7a, the negative counterpart to an imperative is a negative subjunctive form:

muu

Everything else is negated with the invariable particle muu (which corresponds to fuS7a ليس). This is most obvious in ‘to be’ sentences:

wala

The word ولا wala is sometimes placed before the object or another part of a negative verbal sentence. This tends to intensify the meaning:

ما شفت ولا شي
maa shif^et wala shii
I didn’t see anything (at all)

ما رحنا ولا على محل
maa ri7na wala 3ala ma7all
we didn’t go anywhere (at all)

If the word (usually the subject) comes before the verb, the verb isn’t negated:

ولا حدا إجى
wala 7ada 2ija
not a single person came

This word is also used on its own with various nouns: ولا شي wala shii ‘nothing’, ولا حدا wala 7ada ‘no-one’, etc.

laa

Both in imperatives and in independent subjunctives – especially in fixed expressions – you might also hear لا laa instead of maa:

لا تاكل خبز
laa taakol khib^ez
don’t eat bread

الله لا يردك
2aLLa laa yriddak!
may God not bring you back! (I hope I never see you again)

maal-, maan-

These two structures are combined with attached pronouns to produce a negative version of ‘to be’. In structures like the following, they are synonymous with muu:

مانو هون
maano hoon
he’s not here

مالي راجعة!
maali raaj3a!
I’m not coming back!

7ada and maa 7ada

حدا ‪7ada means ‘anyone’ or ‘someone’ in both negative sentences and questions:

ما شفت حدا
maa shif^et 7ada
I didn’t see anyone

Note that when 7ada is the subject and comes before the verb, it combines with maa:

ما حدا إجى
maa 7ada 2ija
nobody came

That’s probably enough for one post!

In this post we’re going to talk about relative clauses and how to form them in Syrian.

What is a relative clause?

A relative clause is a clause that acts like an adjective – that is, it adds extra information about a noun (the ‘head noun’) to which it is attached. Examples of relative clauses in English are things like ‘the man who I saw‘, ‘a key (that) I found in the park‘, ‘a book (that) you heard about‘.

Arabic relative clauses work differently in two important ways. Firstly, they agree with their noun for definiteness, and secondly, the noun always has to be referenced (usually by a pronoun) in the relative clause.

Definite and indefinite clauses

A relative clause attached to a definite noun is always introduced with اللي ⁱlli (which does not change for gender or number, unlike its fuS7a counterparts الذي, التي etc):

اللي is often translated as ‘that’, but it’s important to remember that unlike its English counterpart, it is obligatory with definite clauses and wrong with indefinite clauses.

Referencing the head noun

Unlike in English, the head noun always has to be referenced somehow in the relative clause. When the head noun is the subject, this reference is simply the agreement marking on the verb. In all other cases, however, Arabic requires us to include a pronoun which shows us exactly what role the head noun is playing in the relative clause:

Indefinite relative clauses with subjunctive

An indefinite relative clause with a subjunctive generally expresses ‘an X to Y (with, etc)’:

بيت نقعد فيه
beet ni23od fii
a house to stay in
a house for us to stay in

سكينة تقطع فيها الخضروات
sikkiine t2aTTe3 fiiha lkhaDrawaat
a knife to chop the vegetables with
a knife for you to chop the vegetables with

Relative clauses standing alone

A definite relative clause with اللي, like a definite adjective, can stand on its own (as a ‘headless’ relative clause). There are many possible translations here, including ‘the one/the ones that’, ‘the guy/woman that’, depending on context:

اللي عم تدور عليه
ⁱlli 3am ⁱtdawwer 3alee
what you are looking for
the one you’re looking for
the guy you’re looking for

اللي اجو امبارح
ⁱlli 2iju mbaare7
the ones that came yesterday
the guys that came yesterday

That’s all for today!

Hi everyone!

Today we’re going to talk briefly about the imperative. This is formed differently in Syrian and fuS7a.

Conjugation

The imperatives of Form I sound verbs are a bit complicated. There is usually no prefix. Instead, the imperfective stem is used on its own. When there are no suffixes attached – that is, in the masculine form, with no pronouns attached – the stem vowel is lengthened. Note that the addition of suffixes triggers the merger of stressed u to i:

Adding a pronoun suffix to the masculine form reverses the lengthening:

Note as well the similar forms for 2akhad ‘take’ and 2akal ‘eat’, which lose their initial consonant:

Otherwise the forms are more or less what we would expect from fuS7a. Defective verbs take a prefix 2i- (although a variant with lengthening like sound verbs also exists):

All other types of verb use the imperfective stem on its own, with no prefix. This goes for all other kinds of Form I verb as well as all derived verbs:

Note the irregular imperatives:

Using the imperative

The imperative is used to give orders:

تعال لعندي
ta3 la3indi
come here

عطيه مصاري
3aTii maSaari
give him some money

As we noted briefly in the post on the subjunctive, there is no third person imperative per se. Where a third person structure is used, the verb must be subjunctive:

ما حدا يحكي كلمة
maa 7ada yi7ki kilme
nobody say anything

khalli is also used for first-person imperatives:

خليني شوف
khalliini shuuf
let me see

خلينا نروح
khalliina nruu7
let’s go

Hi everyone!

In the last few posts we’ve looked at various forms of the verb. Today we’re going to look briefly at the direct object pronouns. These are almost identical to the forms used with nouns, with the exception of the first person singular.

Verb forms

A pronoun attached to a verb marks its direct object, and the same concerns apply (including lengthening and deletion). Note the two sets of forms, one following vowels, one following consonants:

Note again that when the verb itself ends in a vowel, as in the case of shaafu ‘they saw’, the pronoun spelt ـه is pronounced as a stress shift and lengthening and is not otherwise distinguished from the form without a pronoun.

Beyond the basic forms, there isn’t much to say about these pronouns. But it is worth noting that unlike in fuS7a, where the ـني form is more or less confined to verbs, this set of pronouns is used on all sorts of other miscellaneous words in Syrian:

كلني عرق
kill-ni 3ara2
I’m covered in sweat [= all of me is sweat]

لساتني هون
lissaat-ni hoon
I’m still here

Note that where a verb has two pronoun objects, only one can appear as a suffixed pronoun on the verb. The other is shunted off onto a carrier, يا yaa (corresponding to the fuS7a إيا). The order of the two pronouns generally corresponds to the English order:

عطينتي ياها
3aTeet-ni yaa-ha
you’ve given me it

Hi everyone!

With our last post on the use of participles, we’ve looked at all the important bits of the verbal system proper. But if you’ve been paying attention (or if you’ve just studied fuS7a), you’ll have noticed that there are a few holes in the system. In particular, how do we express continuous or regular action in the past, given that the perfective form can’t be used for this purpose? The answer involves the verb كان kaan ‘to be’.

As in fuS7a, it is possible to combine forms of كان with any other kind of sentence in order to change the tense reference. This is most common in the past, where it allows us to use imperfective constructions and ‘to be’ sentences with past reference. Note that the subjunctive form is used after kaan:

Remember that it is unusual to use descriptive verbs, ‘to know’, etc in the perfective. Instead we have to use a form with kaan:

We can also produce past continuous and future-in-past forms (like كان سـ kaana sa- in fuS7a):

A perfective form gives a past-in-past (like كان قد فعل kaana qad fa3ala), although these forms are not as common as their English counterparts:

كنت سألت عن الإجار
kint sa2al^et 3an ⁱl2ajaar
I’d asked about the rent

كانت راحت
kaanet raa7et
she’d (already) left

Similarly, we can produce past-in-past forms with resultative-meaning participles and past continuous forms with continuous-meaning participles:

كتني جايه لعنا
kinti jaaye la3inna
you were coming here [جاية = ‘is coming’]

كانو باعتينلي المصاري
kaanu baa3tiinli lmaSaari
they’d sent me the money [باعتين = ‘they have sent’]

Although the perfective forms are most common, the imperfective of kaan can also be used in this way to produce future forms. Like the English equivalents, they are often used to express inferences:

بتكون جايه هلق
bitkuun jaaye halla2
she’ll be on her way now

بكون وقع منو ع الطريق
bikuun wi2e3 minno 3aTTarii2
he’ll have dropped it on the way

Occasionally, this structure adds a ‘repeated action’ meaning to another form:

كل يوم لما بخلص شغل بكون تعبت كتير
kill yoom lamma bkhalleS shighl ⁱbkuun t3ibt ⁱktiir
every day when I finish work I’m very tired

Hi everyone!

In the last post we looked at how to form the active participle (اسم فاعل). Most of the information there will have been fairly familiar to anyone who’s studied fuS7a. Active participles in Syrian look pretty similar to their fuS7a counterparts. But their usage is quite different from what you’ll probably have encountered in modern fuS7a texts.

Basic meanings

Most participle forms are translated with an English verb. Since I’ve already produced a series going into more detail on participle semantics, this will be a fairly brief overview.

For some very common verbs, a participle expresses an ongoing event (‘is X-ing’). The most common categories here are verbs of motion (‘go’, ‘come’ etc) and posture (‘sit’, ‘stand’ etc):

وين رايحة؟
ween raay7a?
where’re you going?

ليش قاعدين؟
leesh 2aa3diin?
why are you sitting down?

With a few verbs, the best English translation will be an adjective. The meaning, however, is the same:

نايمين جوا
naaymiin juwwa
they’re asleep inside

This form is not interchangeable with the 3am form! For more on this, see this post.

This continuous meaning is not available for all verbs. But all participles – at least in theory – can also express a result (i.e. of a past action). Sometimes this corresponds to English ‘have Xed’, and sometimes it carries a connotation of surprise or reportedness:

كاتبة مقالة جديدة
kaatbe maqaale jdiide
she’s written a new article

ليش هيك مساوي؟
leesh heek ⁱmsaawi?
why’d you do that?!

Finally, participles can sometimes have future meaning:

مسافرين بكرا
msaafriin bukra
we’re going to be travelling tomorrow

Participles used as nouns

Learning Arabic, you first encounter participles as a kind of agent noun: كاتب ‘author’, مدير ‘director’, طالب ‘student’, etc. In fuS7a, these forms are identical in form to the more ‘verbal’ uses of the participle, with the exception that they often have broken plurals (كتاب, مدراء, طلاب). In Syrian, there are a few nouns of this kind that are also indistinguishable in form from their underlying participle:

In most cases, however, a fuS7a form is used for the noun, while the more characteristically Syrian form is used for the participle. It’s good to keep forms like the following separate in your mind:

Note that the feminine forms also act differently. While adding an object to a feminine participle doesn’t trigger the -et form, adding a word to a feminine noun does:

As in fuS7a, many noun forms also have broken plurals, while their participle counterparts always form the plural with -iin:

Hi everyone!

Today we’re going to look quickly at one final component of the verbal system: active participles. In this post we’ll look at how to form the participle. In the next post we’ll see how it’s used.

Formation

Active participles are formed similarly to fuS7a. Form I verbs generally use the pattern faa3el. Note that the doubled forms are regular (the fuS7a form here would be داقّ daaqqun):

A handful of Form I verbs use a form on fa3laan or fi3laan, which strictly speaking is a distinct adjective form in fuS7a. Most such verbs are ‘verbs of becoming’ (often corresponding to ‘get’ + adjective), although there are a handful of exceptions, عرف ‘know’, فهم ‘understand’ and قدر ‘be able to’ being common examples:

Most other forms use the imperfective stem plus the prefix مـ, which is m- before a single consonant and mi- before a consonant cluster:

The handful of forms that have a as their final vowel in the imperfective stem change this vowel to e or i in the active participle:

The forms given above, of course, are the masculine. Feminines and plurals are formed with ـة -e/a and ـين -iin, which follow the normal rules:

Form with pronouns

As with verbs, pronouns can be attached representing the object. The masculine and plural forms are predictable, but note the feminine generally restores its deleted i/e:

Normally, the participle makes no person distinctions (‘I’, ‘you’, ‘she’ etc) explicitly. Where it refers to ‘you (f.)’ and a pronoun is attached, however, an -ii- is inserted. This creates the following distinction:

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’:

عم بشرب
3am bishrab
I’m drinking

عم يشتغلو
3am yishtighlu
they’re working

It also commonly has the meaning ‘has been Xing’:

عم تشوف أحمد؟
3am tshuuf 2a7mad?
have you been seeing Ahmad?

عم اشتغل كتير
3am 2ishtighel ⁱktiir
I’ve been working a lot

Note that many verbs – in particular verbs of motion and verbs describing states (‘sleep’, ‘sit’, ‘stand’) – can only use 3am to express the second meaning (‘has been Xing’). These verbs use a participle to express ongoing motion instead:

If this brief introduction has left you desperate for more information on the semantics of the continuous, I’ve written a series of posts on 3am and the participle starting here.

ra7- (the future particle)

The particle رح ra7- (as well as the variants 7a-, la7-, la- and ra7a-) is attached to the base imperfective to expressly mark the future. Although there are some differences, it most closely corresponds to the English construction ‘going to’ (whose etymology it shares). You can think of it as the dialect equivalent of fuS7a سوف:

رح تشرب مي
ra7 tishrab mayy
she’s going to drink water

رح احكي معها بكرا
ra7 2i7ki ma3ha bukra
I’m going to talk to her tomorrow

In Syrian, a ra7- structure can also sometimes have conditional meaning (‘would X’), just like the b- form. We’ll talk about this in more detail later:

لو قلتلي رح افهم
law 2iltilli ra7 2ifham
if you told me, I’d understand!

As we know, the b- form can also be used for the future. The two structures, however, are not interchangeable. The b- form most closely corresponds to English ‘will X’. The distinction between ‘will’ and ‘going to’ is famously difficult to pin down, but if you’re lucky enough to be a speaker of English you can let your intuitions guide you in Arabic here as well.

Note that بد bidd- ‘want’ can also be used like ra7 here.