The Arabic Language

-ah
, 
-ā
and 
-āʾ
, have merged 
into one ending, 
-a
, as, for instance, in the Classical Arabic adjective 
ḥamrāʾu
‘red [feminine]’, Syrian Arabic 
ḥamra.
• 
The relative pronoun (Classical Arabic 
allaḏī
, feminine 
allatī
, plural 
allaḏīna
, 
allawātī
, 
allātī
) has lost its inflection, for instance, in Syrian Arabic 
(y)ǝlli
.
The working of analogy has eliminated a large number of anomalous or 
irregular forms. In Classical Arabic, weak verbs with a third radical 
w
were still 
distinct from verbs with a third radical 
y
in the basic pattern of the verb. In the 
dialects, both categories have merged into those with a third radical 
y
; thus we 
find, for instance, in Syrian Arabic 
rama
/
ramēt
‘he/I threw’ and 
šaka
/
šakēt
‘he/I 
complained’, as against Classical Arabic 
ramā
/
ramaytu
and 
šakā
/
šakawtu
. Likewise, 
the reduplicated verbs (Classical Arabic 
radda
‘to repeat’, first-person singular of 
the perfect 
radadtu
) have been re-analysed as verbs with a third radical 
y
in the 
second measure, for example, in Syrian Arabic 
radd
, first-person singular 
raddēt
.
Individual dialects have gone a long way towards a general levelling of the 
endings of the weak and the strong verbs. In many dialects, some of the endings 
of the weak verbs have been replaced by those of the strong verbs, for instance, 
in Syrian Arabic 
ramu
‘they threw’ like 
katabu
‘they wrote’, as against Classical 
Arabic 
katabū
/
ramaw
. Inversely, in Muslim Baġdādī Arabic, weak endings have 
substituted for some of the endings of the strong verbs (e.g., 
kitbaw
‘they wrote’, 
like 
mašaw
‘they walked’). In the Jewish dialect of Baghdad, this tendency is also 
manifest in the endings of the imperfect verb, for example, 
ykǝtbōn
‘they write’/
tkǝtbēn
‘you [feminine singular] write’, like 
yǝnsōn
‘they forget’/
tǝnsēn
‘you forget’ 

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136
The Arabic Language
[feminine singular] (cf. Classical Arabic 
yaktubūna
/
taktubīna
and 
yansawna
/
tansayna
). In the Sunnī dialect of Bahrain, the first-person singular of the perfect 
of all verbal classes has taken the weak ending: 
kitbēt
‘I wrote’, 
nāmēt
‘I slept’, 
ligēt
‘I found’ (Classical Arabic 
katabtu
, 
nimtu
, 
laqītu
).
In some syntactic constructions, the Arabic dialects developed towards a more 
analytic type of language, in which syntactic functions are expressed by indepen
-
dent words rather than by morphological means. Often, these independent words 
were subsequently grammaticalised and became new morphological markers. 
In the nominal system, the declensional endings have disappeared, and in the 
place of the Classical Arabic possessive construction with a genitive an analytic 
possessive construction has developed, in which a genitive exponent expresses 
the meaning of possessivity (see below). In the verbal system, the distinction 
between three moods in the imperfect verb has disappeared. The imperfect verb 
without modal endings has taken over most modal functions. In most dialects, a 
new morphological contrast has developed in the imperfect by means of a set of 
markers to express tense and aspect (see below).
The sentence structure of Classical Arabic has changed drastically in the 
modern dialects. The distinction between two types of sentence, one with topic–
comment and one with verb–agent (cf. above, Chapter 6, pp. 98f.; Chapter 7, pp. 
112–14), has disappeared. In its place, one canonical word order has emerged, 
which in most dialects seems to be Subject–Verb–Object, although Verb–Subject 
occurs in many dialects as a stylistic variant. But even in those cases in which the 
verb precedes the subject, there is full number agreement between them. This 
proves that such constructions are not simply a translation of a Classical Arabic 
pattern, but belong to the structure of the dialect (on the occurrence of variable 
agreement patterns in some dialects, see below, p. 148).
In Classical Arabic, the pronominal indirect object had a relatively free syntactic 
position, as in (1a,b), which were both allowed:
(1a) 
ʾurīdu 
ʾan 
ʾaktub-a 
la-kum
 
want.IMPERF.1s COMPL 
write.1s-SUBJ to-2mp
 
risālat-an
 
letter-ACC
‘I want to write you a letter’
(1b) 
ʾurīdu 
ʾan 
ʾaktuba 
risālat-an 
lakum
 
want.IMPERF.1s COMPL 
write.1s-SUBJ letter-ACC to-2mp
 
‘I want to write a letter to you’
In the modern dialects, the pronominal indirect object is connected clitically with 
the verbal form, as in (2) from Syrian Arabic:

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The Emergence of New Arabic 
137
(2) 
bǝdd-i 
ʾǝktob-l-kon
risāle
 
want-1s 
write.IMPER.1s-to-2p 
letter
‘I want to write you a letter’
The dialects differ with regard to the scope of this construction: some dialects 
allow almost any combination of direct and indirect object suffixes on the verb, 
others make a more restricted use of clitics. In combination with the negative 
circumfix 
mā-…-š
, the aspectual particles of future and continuous, and the 
pronominal clitics, verbal forms in some dialects can become quite complex, as 
in (3) from Moroccan Arabic:
(3) 
ma-ġa-nǝktǝb-o-lǝ-k-š
 
NEG-FUT-write.IMPERF.1s-3ms-to-2s-NEG
‘I won’t write it to you’
or in (4) from Egyptian Arabic:
(4) 
ma-bi-tgib-ha-l-nā-š
NEG-CONT-bring.IMPERF.2ms-3fs-to-1p-NEG
‘You’re not bringing her to us’
In modal expressions such as ‘want to, must, can’, Classical Arabic made use 
of a hypotactic construction with the conjunction 
ʾan
governing the following 
verb in the subjunctive form of the imperfect, for example, 
yurīdu ʾan yaqtul-a-nī
‘he wants to kill me’. In the modern dialects, this construction was replaced by 
an asyndetic construction of the imperfect without modal endings, for example, 
in Syrian Arabic 
bǝddo yǝʾtolni
‘he wants to kill me’ (where 
bǝddo 
derives from 
Classical Arabic 
bi-wuddihi
‘it is in his wish’), in Egyptian Arabic 
lāzim tiʿmil da
‘you must do this’ (where 
lāzim 
derives from Classical Arabic 
lāzim 
‘necessary, 
binding’), and in Moroccan Arabic 
ḫǝṣṣni nǝktǝb
‘I must write’ (where 
ḫǝṣṣ 
derives 
from Classical Arabic 
ḫaṣṣa
‘to concern especially’).
There is a set of lexical items that is found in almost all dialects, for example, 
the verbs 
jāb
(< 
jāʾa bi-
) ‘to bring’, 
šāf
‘to see’, 
sawwa
(
sāwa
) ‘to do, make’, and 
rāḥ
‘to 
go away’. Some of these items were used in Classical Arabic in a less general sense, 
which was expanded by a process of semantic bleaching; 
šāf
, for instance, origi
-
nally meant ‘to observe from above’ (cf. 
šayyifa
‘scout’), 
sawwā
‘to render equal, 
to arrange’, 
rāḥ
‘to go away in the evening’. Characteristic of the dialects is the 
nominal periphrasis of some interrogative words: they all have a variant of the 
expression 
ʾayyu šayʾin
‘which thing?’ instead of Classical Arabic 
mā
, for example, 
Egyptian 
ʾēh
, Moroccan 
āš
, Syrian 
šū, 
Iraqi 
šinu
. For 
kayfa
‘how?’, such periphrases 
as Syrian Arabic 
šlōn
(< 
ʾēš lōn
, literally ‘what colour?’, Classical Arabic 
lawn
) and 
Egyptian Arabic 
izzayy
(< 
ʾēš zayy
, literally ‘what appearance?’, Classical Arabic 
ziyy
) are found.

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138
The Arabic Language