The Arabic Language

jazā-ʾir 
‘island’ … (note that a long vowel 
counts as two short vowels). This plural pattern accounts for as many as 90 per 
cent of all nouns. According to McCarthy, the diminutive with its fixed pattern 
fuʿayl
(e.g., from 
kitāb
‘book’ the diminutive 
kutayb 
‘booklet’) represents the same 
iambic pattern, only this time with the combination vowel + 
y
instead of a long 
vowel.
Syntactically, the broken plurals function as feminine singulars, which shows 
that semantically they are collectives (see above, Chapter 2, p. 19, and below, 
p. 103).
In Table 6.3 the declensional endings of the noun in Classical Arabic have been 
tabulated. Within the declensional system a special place is taken by the so-called 
diptotic nouns, which have only two case endings. Explanations in the indigenous 
tradition operate with a number of factors, whose combination causes a loss of 
declension (see Chapter 7, pp. 115f.). According to Baerman (2005), the original 
Semitic declension had two endings: 
-u 
for the direct case (nominative), and 
-a 
for 
the indirect case (accusative); this is paralleled by the endings of the sound plural, 
-ūna
/
-īna
. In this view, the genitive ending 
-i 
is related to the 
nisba 
suffix 
-iyyun
and represents a later development. The original state was preserved by proper 
names, which are predominantly diptotic. Others believe that from the beginning 
there were always two different declensions.
The verbal system of Arabic has a two-way distinction of a prefix and a suffix 
conjugation, traditionally called in Western grammars the imperfect and the 
perfect (see above, Tables 6.1 and 6.2). The opposition between these two verbal 
forms has been variously interpreted as past/non-past, perfective/imperfective, 
or completed/uncompleted (Eisele 1999). Some, like Aartun (1963), believe that 
the basis of the verbal system is temporal. Others propose a mixed aspectual–
temporal opposition, because the suffix conjugation usually denotes both past 
tense and perfect aspect. Still others claim that the main opposition is aspectual.
The main characteristic of the Arabic suffix conjugation seems, indeed, to 
be that it cannot denote a state, but always has punctual reference. In Western 

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94
The Arabic Language
grammars of Arabic forms like 
ʿalimtu 
and 
jalastu 
are sometimes translated as ‘I 
knew’ and ‘I sat’, which is incorrect. These forms denote a punctual action, in 
this case an inchoative one: ‘I came to know’ and ‘I sat down’. The only way for a 
verb in the suffix conjugation to denote a state is in combination with the particle 
qad
, which transforms it into a present state, 
qad ʿalimtu 
‘(I have come to know 
and therefore) I know (now)’ and 
qad jalastu 
‘’I have sat down and therefore) I sit 
(now)’.
Although Arabic grammarians and exegetes interpreted the verbal system as 
one based on tense (see below, Chapter 7, p. 117), they were well aware of the 
punctual meaning of the suffix conjugation, as is clear from their reactions to an 
apparent counterexample (1) in the 
Qurʾān
:
(1) 
ʾaw 
jāʾū-kum 
ḥaṣirat
 
or 
come.PERF.3mp-2mp to.be.oppressed.PERF.3fs
ṣudūru-hum
 
breast.PL-3mp
‘or they came to you with a heavy heart’ (
Q
4/90)
In this verse the verb seems to express something that looks like a state. The 
exegetes tried to solve this problem in different ways: some of them inserted a 
virtual particle