19.4 The derived verb forms V, VI and VII have no passive becausetheir active forms often have a passive or intransitive meaning, e.g.Form V ي َرََّت َغ tag ̇ayyara, to be changed (he/it changed)
Form VI َت َبا َر َك taba ̄raka, to be blessed (he/it got blessed)
Form VII ِإ ْن َك َس َر
inkasara, to be broken (he/it broke)19.5 The grammatical subject of the passive verb is called in Arabicgrammar َنا ِئ ُب ْل َفا ِع ِل, which means ‘the deputy of the doer’. Like any
subject, it takes the ending of the nominative case and the verb agreeswith it in person, gender and number. But logically it represents theobject (or goal) of the action; compare in English: ‘I (subject) saw him(object)’ ⇒ ‘He (subject) was seen [by me (agent)].’ Arabic passivesentences are considered to be impersonal, because they do not expressthe performer of the action.19.6 When the performer of the action is mentioned, one cannot usea passive verb in traditional Arabic. This means that the Englishsentence ‘The book was written by the teacher’ should in Arabic berendered by an active sentence, where the performer (semantic agent) isexpressed by the grammatical subject: ‘The teacher wrote the book’:لـ ُم ْلـ ِكـ َتـا َبَّكـ َتـ َب ْلـ ُمـ َعـَ kataba l-mu
allimu l-kita ̄ba.19.7 In modern literary Arabic, it is, however, increasingly commonto use certain compound prepositions to express the semantic agent inpassive sentences, in the same way as in many European languages. ThePassivePerfect Imperfectُك ِت َب ِك َتا ٌب ُي ْك َت ُب ِك َتا ٌب
kutiba kita ̄bun.yuktabu kita ̄bun.A book was written. A book is (being) written.ُك ِت َب ْل ِك َتا ُب ُي ْك َت ُب ْل ِك َتا ُب
kutiba l-kita ̄bu.yuktabu l-kita ̄bu.The book was written. The book is (being) written.130Passive
verbs