Faail Pronouns In The Verb

You have learned the ماضي and مضارع verb forms. In this lesson, we take a deeper look at these verbs and what they consist of. Let's get straight into it:

In the table above, some letters have been coloured red. That is to highlight that these letters are not just letters, but they are actually pronouns built into the verb to represent the فاعل. If we look at نَصَرُوْا (they helped), we would label the نَصَرُ portion as the verb, and the وْ letter on its own as the فاعل.

There are a few interesting things to note:

• Two of the ماضي and 5 of the مضارع have nothing highlighted in red. This is quite significant and will be discussed in more detail later.
• In #3 for the ماضي, only the Waw is the pronoun. The Alif after it is purely a script issue. If you rubbed off all of the vowels (نصرو), how would you know if the word was نَصَرُوْ (They helped) or نَصَرَ وَ (He helped and...). And so the Alif is brought to let the reader know we are intending #3 ماضي (3rd person plural masculine).
• If #4 and #5 of the ماضي, you might mistake the ت as a pronoun. It is actually a sign of femininity and is not a pronoun.
• In the مضارع, only the Noons attached to the plural feminines are pronouns. All other Noon suffixes are not pronouns.

Let's now take a look at the first point in more detail.

The Mustatir (مُسْتَتِرٌ) (Hidden) Pronouns

And let's repeat the example we used when introducing this rule زَيْدٌ دَخَلَ الْبَيْتَ (Zaid, he entered the house). We mentioned that "Zaid" cannot be the فاعل it occurs before the verb, and so it is مبتدأ and the sentence is a جملة إسمية.

Now, if every فعل needs a فاعل after it, where is the فاعل then for دَخَلَ? Clearly الْبَيْتَ is the object and there are no more words, so where is the فاعل? We say that there is a hidden pronoun inside the verb دَخَلَ which points back to Zaid, so conceptually we have the following: زَيْدٌ دَخَلَ (هُوَ) الْبَيْتَ. Our full breakdown would be as follows:

This might seem like we are splitting hairs. Why does it matter what it is? Why not just call Zaid the فاعل grammatically and be done with it? There are two reasons.

First, is a Balagha benefit. Notice that in the Nominal Sentence version, Zaid is referred to twice. Explicitly at the start, and implicitly through the hidden هو pronoun. This places extra emphasis on Zaid over the rest of the sentence.

Second, let's look at ذَهَبَ الرِّجَالُ (the men went). Every فعل needs a فاعل after it, either in the form of a noun or a pronoun. We can see الرِّجَالُ is the فاعل conceptually, and it occurs after ذَهَبَ, so we can say it is the فاعل grammatically as well. In this instance, we would say the verb ذَهَبَ is empty in that it is not carrying/hiding a pronoun within it. To say ذَهَبُوْا الرِّجَالُ would be a gross error. Since the Waw would be the فاعل for ذَهَبُوْا, the word الرِّجَالُ would not be understood to be used as a فاعل and the listener would be confused trying to figure out how it is being used and what the intended meaning is.

Now let's try to put some emphasis on the men by turning this into a Nominal Sentence. We flip the sentence round: الرِّجَالُ ذَهَبُوْا. Notice now how the verb changed to ذَهَبُوْا. That's because الرِّجَالُ can't be the فاعل grammatically, so the ذَهَبَ requires a plural masculine pronoun to be attached to it. And since we are in the 3rd person, we must use ذَهَبُوْا. It would be an error to say الرِّجَالُ ذَهَبَ.

Here is another example, نُصِرَتِ النِّسَاءُ (the women were helped). The verb is نُصِرَتْ which is number 4. This is also a proof that the ت is not a pronoun, rather it is a sign of femininity. Had it been a pronoun, it would be the فاعل, which would render the sentence invalid because النِّسَاءُ can no longer be the فاعل. If we inverted the sentence, then we would have to bring in the 3rd person plural feminine version of the verb (#6), النِّسَاءُ نُصِرْنَ.

For the ماضي, there are only 2 conjugations where a pronoun can be assumed, and those are #1, فَعَلَ, and #4, فَعَلَتْ.

For the مضارع, the 5 Singulars can all have a مُسْتَتِرٌ pronoun inside them. The rest of the conjugations all have a pronoun attached. تَكْسُرُ الْحَجَرَ (You are breaking the stone) - الْحَجَرَ is منصوب because it is مفعول به. There are no other words that can be the فاعل so we must have a مستتر pronoun, which in this case is the second person singular masculine pronoun أَنْتَ.