Re: questions about Arabic

En réponse à Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>:

>
> If i'm understanding what you mean by "derived forms", it does.  In
> Hebrew they're called _binyanim_, meaning "buildings" or "structures".
> I
> usually call them "paradigms" in English.  There are 7 of them:
> They're named after their past-masculine-thirdperson forms.
>
> pa`al (also known as _qal_, "simple") ~ CâCaC
> nif`al (passive) ~ niCCaC
>
> pi`eil (intensive) ~ CiC2êC
> pu`al (intensive-passive) ~ CuC2aC
>
> hif`il (causative) ~ hiCCîC
> huf`al (causative-passive) ~ huCCaC
>
> hitpa`eil (reflexive) ~ hitCaC2êC
>
> As my _201 Hebrew Verbs_ book explains better than i could, "The actual
> meaning of the several forms of verbs is not always evident in
> translation in relation to the form.  It is therefore much more
> advisable
> to identify the forms by their vocalization and general appearance than
> by their meaning."
>
So, like in Arabic, the derived forms sometimes have meanings not really
transparent knowing the general meaning of the derivation and the meaning of the
corresponding simple verb? I also see that the derived forms in Hebrew have
quite grammatical meanings, like "passive", "intensive", "causative", etc... In
Arabic it's not the case. Often, the derived forms have a rather different
lexical meaning than the simple form. For instance, the derived form n°3 (made
in past by lenghthening the vowel of the first syllable in /a:/) has the meaning
of "to make an effort in someone's or something's direction", often with a
nuance of hostility. Thus "to fight", "to try" and "to carry on" are of this
scheme. On the other hand, the derived form n°6 serves to make a
reflexive-passive of the derived form n°3 (transforming "to fight (someone)"
into "to fight (each other)" for instance). It is quite equivalent to the use of
the reflexive pronoun in Romance languages. To give a last example of how
blurred the image really is, the derived form n°9 is not even derived from a
simple verb but from an adjective of color or physical particularity, and means
"to become...".

So to conclude, the derived forms in Arabic are quite a mix between grammatical
and lexical derivation (I was about to say: a mess :) ). They seem much more
straightforward in Hebrew, though from what you say they have also their
particularities. The Arabic system of derived verbs is really nice in my
opinion. I wish I could be able to design an equivalent system...

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Reply