Middle Letter Variations

This is quite a relaxed lesson in which we will discuss Middle Letter Variations. Recall our model Sarf verb, فَعَلَ, and its Mudaari يَفْعَلُ. You should be able to conjugate both of these verb tables along with their passives fluently by now.

You may also remember from the مضارع lesson that we mentioned that the ع letter can have any vowel - Dammah, Fathah, or Kasrah. And we would need the dictionary to tell us which vowel is the correct one. This issue does not just affect the مضارع but the ماضي as well. The ع letter of the ماضي can also be a Dammah, Fathah, or Kasrah, and again the only way to know is to look at a dictionary (or to come across the word).

Although we would need the dictionary to tell us for certain the correct pairing for a verb, there are a few things that we can use to give us a good likelihood of guessing the correct pairing. The first is that the following 3 pairings never occur in the language:

Therefore, if we see a verb like قَبِلَ((to accept)), we automatically know that its مضارع can't be يَقْبُلُ, and instead must be either يَقْبَلُ or يَقْبِلُ. Similarly, seeing a verb like كَرُمَ((to be noble)), we know that the مضارع must be يَكْرُمُ since the other two are not allowed.

With that said, here are the 6 pairings which are allowed, listed in order of popularity:

There are 3 things of special note:

1. The category of كَرُمَ يَكْرُمُ we already know is the only possible one for a ماضي verb where the ع letter is a Dammah.
2. حَسِبَ يَحْسِبُ is an incredibly rare category. And given that فَعِلَ يَفْعُلُ is not allowed, we can say with very high confidence that a ماضي where the ع letter is a Kasrah will be from سَمِعَ يَسْمَحُ
3. The بَاب((most common translation is door, but it also means category/group)) of فَتَحَ يَفْتَحُ is special. For a ماضي to belong to this بَاب, either its ع letter or ل letter must be one of the letters of the throat ( أ ه ح خ ع غ ). If neither position is a letter of the throat, then the Maadi-Mudaari pairing cannot be from this group, and must therefore be from either نَصَرَ يَنْصُرُ or ضَرَبَ يَضْرِبُ. Be careful though, just because there is a throat letter present in either or both of the last two positions, doesn't mean the category will be فَتَحَ يَفْتَحُ. It could still be from one of the other two groups as well.