An Introduction to Verbs

 

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Nearly all Arabic works in reference to 'root' forms. These form a basis from which other words can be derived. Knowledge of the root often gives extra insight to the meanings and intention in the use of a particular word. The root is also the verb form for 'he/it somethinged' - or the third person singular past, if you like it in those terms. 99.9% of roots have three letters. A few have four. Words may be listed in a dictionary under their respective root forms, so being able to find roots can be very useful

Some examples:

خَتَمَ
جَعَلَ
تَبِعَ
كَانَ

and here are some three letter words that aren't verbs:

اِلَى
عَلَى
هُدًى
نَحنُ
لَكُم
وَلَدٌ

So how would you tell the difference? Firstly, with practice will come expectation and familiarity. But for now note that nearly all verbs in this form have a pattern َ َ َ  , although the second letter may occasionally have a ُ or a ِ  . The first two non-verbs اِلَى 'to' and عَلَى 'on' are very common, so you might just as well remember them now! A verb will never have ٍ  ٌ  ً  since these are noun endings.
So let's see how we can get on with a sentence from the quraan with the few clues you've had so far. Here is Surah 2 Ayah 7:

7:2

Well, straight away we have a good candidate for a verb! Remember its form is 'he somethinged'. Also the second word should be guessable just from the sounds - 'Allah'. It also has a ُ on the end, so 'Allah' could be the subject (doer) of the sentence. Then come a load of other words, two of which are frequently repeated. One is عَلَى 'on' and the other is وَ 'and'. Lastly, a few words near the end of the sentence end with a ٌ and so cannot be verbs.

So without picking up a dictionary, we have 'Allah somethinged on ? and on ? and on ? noun and ? noun noun'

OK, lets look in a dictionary. Mine suggests 'sealed, stamped, put his seal to' for the basic verb, and goes on to suggest 'sealed up' when it is used with عَلَى

So we have 'Allah sealed up ? and...' - and we could guess that the other words are some nouns - more things that got sealed up!

Well, it's time to learn something new. The next word seems to have a lot more than three letters, and I doubt you'll find it in a dictionary as it is. So may I have the pleasure of introducing you to 'them' - or 'they', or 'theirs'. The two-letter combination هم is something you will see quite frequently, either standing alone as 'they', or added onto the end of a noun making it 'theirs', or the end of a verb/preposition making it 'them'.

Of course, there are other letter combinations for 'you', 'yours', 'ours' etc. - but learing lists is an odd way to tackle language - just so long as you are aware there are things that can be added, and thus taken away to help you find the root of the matter.

So removing 'their' from the next word just leaves us with قُلُوبِ and that is almost a three-letter word we can look up. There are two things that would make it easy for you to pick when you are a little more practiced. Firstly it is a common shape for a plural, and secondly only a few letters can be added to nouns, and in a few places. But as we have a few more things to learn from this sentence, I won't burden you with the details now, just say that the root is قَلب.

Opening the dictionary gives 'heart, viscera, stomach, mind, soul, intellect, interior, centre, core, kernel' but also 'turn, change, inversion, permutation'. Of course 'common sense' tells us some of these possibilities are silly, but sometimes 'common sense' may just be prejudice or social training preventing you from a wider or correct understanding.

But we now seem to have something like 'Allah sealed up their hearts/souls/essences and...'

See what you make of the next unknown word....

Well, I hope you quickly spotted another هم on the end. Removing this leaves us with a three-letter word سَمع. Going to the dictionary produces 'hearing, ear, thing heard, reputation'.

'Allah sealed up their hearts/souls/essences and their hearing and ...'

Next we have another word ending in هم ! Removing it leaves اَبصَارِ which is a bit better. It is another plural, from بصر which the dictionary gives as 'sight, vision, perception, discernment'. Things are still looking good for our sentence!

The next word ends in a ة which is a feminine singular ending. So temporarily ignoring that leaves غِشَاوَ which for some reason to be explained shortly I am going to find in the dictionary under the root غشى with this particular form of the word meaning 'covering, veil'.

But now we seem to have a slight problem with our sentence. 'Allah sealed up their hearts and their hearing and their sight a veil and...'

It doesn't quite scan, so perhaps we shall pause for thought. It was only a first guess that the 'ands' were joining up a list of things that were being sealed up. But 'and' is also used to join separate sentences. Perhaps a revision of our first idea is needed here. Let's try it using this later 'and' in this way (which means the عَلَى is no longer associated with the verb خَتَمَ):

'Allah sealed up their hearts and their hearing, and on their sight (is) a veil and...'

Seems pretty good to me like that, so lets see what is left. Next up is لَهُم.

First reaction might be we have a three-letter word to look up directly, but it so happens this one isn't. ل is joined on the front of words to mean 'to', and the next two letters you should recognise! What we have here is 'to them, theirs'.

The roots of the last two words are عذب and عظم 'punishment, pain, torture' and 'huge, immense, mighty, formidable'.

'Allah sealed up their hearts and their hearing, and on their sight (is) a veil and theirs (is) a mighty punishemnt' - of course the 'them' being refered to has to be taken from the context of previous sentences. Taking snippets will often lead to failed understanding, and is often used by those hoping for authority for their own personal opinion rather than those seeking to know.

Well, we blasted through that sentence fairly briskly, and glossing over some points, so let's recap what you should take away from this:

    Be prepared to modify your ideas as you get more information
    You may be able to get a working idea just from the very common words
    ً ٌ ٍ  on the end mean the word is a singular noun
    ة as the last letter also means a singular (feminine) noun
    هم can be added on a word for 'them' or 'their'
    ل can be stuck on the front of a word for 'to'
    An Arabic sentence might go 'verb, subject, rest of sentence'
    You happen to have seen a noun that has an ا stuck on the front of its root letters. This is one of the few letters that are added on the front of a root for a noun.
    You happen to have seen nouns that have a ا و ى inbetween the second and third letters of the root. You shouldn't expect any others!
    Putting in these extra letters might have made the noun plural

Finally, let us deal with that quirky root غشى . Two of the letters are no trouble at all - غ and ش. The problem comes when one of the root letters is ا و ى since these can get changed into each other depending on the preceeding vowel sound. I always take the precaution of looking up all possible roots. In this case that would have been غشا , غشو and غشى

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