Arabic: An Essential Grammar

128

Chapter 19

Passive verbs

19.1 The passive verb, َأْل ِف ْع ُل ا ْلـ َم ْج ُهو ُل, is used in Arabic when the

performer of the action is not named.

The active verb, َأْلـ ِفـ ْع ُل  ْلـ َم ْعُلو ُم, is used in Arabic when the performer of

the action is named and expressed as the grammatical subject. So far we

have only dealt with active verb forms in the perfect and imperfect tense.

The passive forms of the perfect and imperfect tenses differ from their

active counterparts by having different vocalization. A characteristic

sign of all passive tense forms is that they have the vowel d

̇

ammah /u/ on

the first radical.

The passive of the perfect tense has only one pattern of vowelling for

all verbs and forms (stems I–X). The first radical has d

̇

ammah /u/ (as

mentioned) and the second radical has kasrah /i/. The pattern of the

passive perfect in the third person masculine singular is thus: ُف ِع َل fu



ila,

e.g.

19.2 The passive of the basic form (I) of the verb in the imperfect tense

has also only one pattern of vowelling for all verbs. The first radical still

Perfect

Active Passive

CaCaCa, CaCiCa, CaCuCa ⇒ CuCiCa

َكـ َتـ َب kataba, he wrote ُكـ ِتـ َب kutiba, it was written

َش ِر َب sˇariba, he drank ُش ِر َب sˇuriba, it was drunk

َب ُع َد ba



uda, he/it was distant ُب ِع َد bu



ida, he was expelled

(See conjugation A2.1 in Appendix 2.)