User:SarahFatimaK/sandbox

=Sandbox=

=South Levantine Arabic grammar=

This article focuses on the grammar of urban South Levantine Arabic.

Gender
Masculine nouns usually end in a consonant. Feminine nouns usually end in Tāʼ marbūṭah (ة), pronounced as vowel a (after guttural or emphatic consonants) or e (elsewhere).

Nouns denoting women or girls are feminine of course, regardless of their final letter.

Dual
The dual denotes two or a pair of something. It is always regular, formed by adding the suffix ـين (-ēn). The final Tāʼ marbūṭah (ة) is changed into a regular Tāʼ (ت) pronounced as t.

Plural
The regular plural of masculine nouns is formed by adding the suffix ـين (-īn). The regular plural of feminine nouns is formed by replacing the final ـة (-a/e) by the suffix ـات (-āt).

While the plural of most feminine nouns is regular, only a few masculine nouns have a regular plural, mainly those refering to people.

The irregular plural is also called "broken plural". It is formed by changing the vowels and adding or removing one of the semivowel ا (a), و (u/w) or ي (i/y) into/from the word.

Collective nouns
Some nouns, especially those referring to plants or animals which often appear in groups have a special declension.

The base form is grammatically masculine and refers to an unspecific number. If the masculine plural exists, it refers to different types/kinds of it.

In order to refer to a specific number, those nouns are turned into grammatically feminine by adding a Tāʼ marbūṭah (ة).

In that case the feminine singular form is called 'singulative', the feminine plural form is called 'paucal'.

When referring to animals, the singulative and paucal form might refer to female animals or with mixed or unknown gender, if a seperate word for male counterparts exist.

When referring to a material (including food like meat or bread), the singulative and paucal forms are referring to pieces of it.

Some collective nouns can't form the singulative and paucal, as they are either loanwords or something that usually isn't divided into pieces.

In that case a measure word can be used. The most common measure word is حبة (ḥabbe).

Cardinal numbers
The numbers 1 and 2 are already implied in the singular and dual form of the noun, but if stress those numbers, they follow the noun like an adjective and are decline by gender.

The numbers from 3 to 19 have two forms, an independent form and an attributive form used when preceding a noun.

Before a small set of nouns (days, months, thousands and fractions) the independet form is used in construct state (ة pronounced as "t").

Nouns are only in the plural after numbers 3 to 10, but in the singular after larger numbers. The same rule applies for ألف (ʾalf, "thousand")

Ordinal numbers
Ordinal numbers either precede or follow the noun. If the precede the noun they are alway used in the masculine form and without a definite article. If they follow the noun, they are are declined by gender and number.

Independent personal pronouns
Independent pronouns are mainly used for the subject of a sentence. They can be omitted if the subject is shown by the conjugation of the verb.

They can also appear after verbs with an enclitic pronoun suffix in order to stress the object.

Feminine plural pronouns are only used in rural dialects. North Levantine dialects use هن (hinne) for both masculine and feminine plural.

نحنا (niḥna) is an alternative form of إحنا (ʾiḥna), mainly used in North Levantine dialects.

Enclitic pronouns
Enclitic pronouns can be attached to several types of words and have different functions:
 * Show possession if attached to nouns
 * Object if attached to verbs or prepositions
 * Subject if attached to conjuctions

Feminine plural pronouns are only used in rural dialects. Northern Levantine dialects use the "feminine forms" for both masculine and feminine plural.

Some enclitic pronouns have different forms, when attached to words ending in a vowel (ا، و، ي، ى). In that case the final h in 3rd person masculine singular is silent, but it has effect on the stress and the vowel lenght.

When attached to Tāʼ marbūṭah (ة) it is changed into a regular Tāʼ (ت).

In polysyllabic words the stress is shifting according to Levantine Arabic stress rules, i.e. the penultimate syllable takes the stress if it become heavy, otherwise the penultimate vowel disappears if it it's a short e or o.

Detached possessive pronouns
Instead of directly attaching enclitic pronouns to nouns, possession can also be expressed by attaching them to the preposition تبع (tabaˁ) or تاع (tāˁ) following the noun.

Those are preferred in the case when referring to nouns followed by adjectives, a series of nouns or foreign words.

تبع (tabaˁ) and تاع (tāˁ) can either be used unchanged or agreeing with the number and gender of the noun they are referring to.

Detached object pronouns
If enclitic pronouns can't be attached to the verb directly, they are attached to the particle ايا (iyyā-) instead.

This the case when either an indirect object pronoun is attached to the verb or a pseudo verb (e.g. عند (ˁind-), بد (bidd-)) is used.

The initial vowel i of ايا (iyyā-) will disappear if the preceding word ends in a vowel.

Indirect object
Indirect object pronouns are similar to direct object pronouns, but an additional consonant l is placed between the verb and the suffix. If more than two consonants occur in a row, the vowel i is inserted and the l is geminated if possible.

Types of roots
Levantine Arabic verbs usually consists of three root letters.

Defective roots
In defective roots, the last consonant is a ا, ى or ي.

ى always changes to ي in the subjunctive stem and usually also vice versa.

ا comes from a final Hamza (أ) in MSA and keeps unchanged.

Hollow roots
In hollow roots, the middle consonant is always ا in the 3rd person of the past tense.

It usually changes to ي or و in the subjunctive stem.

Doubled roots
In doubled roots, the middle and the final are the same, so they become geminated.

The vowel is always a in the past tense and usually changes to e or o in the subjunctive stem.

Verb forms
The basic form is called form I. All the other forms (II to X) are derived from form I by adding letters to the root.

The derived forms have slightly different meanings based on the meaning of the basic form.

Verbs with a four letter root can only have two forms (Iq and IIq), which are similar to form II and V.

Past tense
The basic form of the verb is the past tense masculine singular form. Suffixes are added in order to show the person and number.

In the 1st and 2nd person, the stress shifts to the second syllable if possible. In the 1st person singular and 2nd person masculine a helping vowel e might be inserted in order to simplify pronunciation.

In the 1st and 2nd person, the vowel of hollow verbs is shortened, agreeing with the vowel of the subjunctive stem. In defective and doubled verbs, a long vowel (usually ē) is added between the stem and the suffix.

The form of the 1st person singular and 2nd person masculine are the same. The 3rd person feminine looks the same in writing but it differs in stress and the vowels.

Subjunctive
Unlike the past tense, the subjunctive is conjugated mainly by adding prefixes. The vowels and stress might be different from the past tense.

The subjective is used after particles (e.g. رح, عم) and auxiliary verbs.

If the stress is on the prefix, it usually takes the vowel i, but if the first vowel of the stem is o/u it is changed to u due to vowel harmony.

The prefix of the 1st person singular always has the vowel a. The forms of the 2nd person masculine and 3rd person feminine are the same.

If a suffix is added to a stem having a final vowel (defective root), it is replaced by the suffix.

Imperative
The imperative is formed by removing the initial t from the subjunctive forms.

Present tense
The present tense is formed by adding b in front of the prefix. If there is no vowel after the prefix, the vowel i is added before. In the 1st person plural, the b is assimilated to m.

The prefix of the 1st person singular always has the vowel a. The forms of the 2nd person masculine and 3rd person feminine are the same.

Future tense
There are different ways to express the future in Levantine Arabic:
 * using the present tense
 * particle رح (raḥ) + subjunctive
 * prefix حـ (ḥa-) + subjunctive
 * pseudo verb بد (bidd) + subjunctive

Active participle
The active participle of form I verbs has the pattern is formed by inserting a long vowel a between the first two consonant and in the masculine form a short vowel e between the last two consonants.

In hollow roots the consonant y is inserted in the middle. In week roots the final vowel is changed to i. In the masculine form of doubled roots the geminated consonant is seperated into two consonants.

As active participles are technically adjectives, they are decline like them.

Passive participle
The passive participle of form I verbs has the pattern is formed by adding the prefix ma and inserting a long vowel u between the last two consonants except in defective roots.

In hollow roots the consonant y is inserted in the middle. In doubled roots the geminated consonant is seperated into two consonants.

As passive participles are technically adjectives, they are decline like them.