Arabic: An Essential Grammar

18.4 The derived verb forms are called َأْلـ َمـ ِزي ُد,

al-mazı ̄du, which

means ‘increased’ or ‘added’. They are formed from the root by means

of consonant doubling, prefixes or infixes, according to certain patterns

(mentioned below, and in table A1.1, the ten forms of َف َع َل fa



ala, in

Appendix 1).

18.5 The meanings of the derived verb forms are generally derived

from the basic verb form according to a system explained below. As a

rule, grammarians prefer to call the derived verb forms derived verb

stems, because each derived verb form has a complete set of conjugated

forms (tenses, verbal noun, participles, etc.). (See table A1.1 fa



ala in

Appendix 1.)

18.6 There are 14 derived verb forms (stems). Western Arabists

traditionally number these forms with Roman numerals starting from

the basic form, which is numbered as I, and the derived verb forms as II,

III, IV, etc. Forms I to X are the most frequent and only these will be

explained in this book.

18.7 There is no verb which is used in all ten forms; normally the verb

is used in five or six of the derived forms, and sometimes even the basic

verb form itself is not used. For example, the verb form I َعِل َم



alima ‘to

know’ occurs in forms II, IV, V, and X, but another verb might occur

only in forms III, VI, X, and so on.

18.8 As mentioned in chapter 14, there is no infinitive in Arabic in

the same sense as in Indo-European languages. The derived verb forms

are listed in the dictionary under the root, which is mostly the same as

the basic verb form (I) without vowels.

18.9 It is crucially important to learn by heart these ten verb forms

and their derivations from table A1.1 of the verb َفـ َع َل fa



ala in Appen-

dix 1; otherwise it is almost impossible to find a word in a dictionary.

18.10 Arab grammarians chose the basic verb َفـ َع َل /f



l/ fa



ala ‘to do,

to act’ as a pattern or model for describing other verb forms and nouns

which are derived from it.

18.11 Although the vowelling of the middle consonant (radical) of

the basic verb form (I) in the perfect tense varies: َك َت َب kataba ‘to write’,

116

Derived

verb forms,

transitive

and

intransitive

verbs