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Arabic Verbs: The Vowel on the Second Root Letter
The vowel on the second root letter of an Arabic verb reveals many things about the character and personality of the verb.
The second radical is the most important component of the past tense. Only the second root letter can have any of the three vowels (a, i, u) in the past tense whereas the first and third must have فَتْحةٌ.
The second vowel can help us understand verbs better and may tell us more about the character and meaning of the verb. Let’s see why.
| “a” | فَعَلَ | an act; someone initiates something |
| “i” | فَعِلَ | a transitory state; |
| “u“ | فَعُلَ | a permanent state; |
Some examples:
| “a” | قَتَلَ | to kill |
| “a” | فَعَلَ | to do; to act |
| “i” | لَبِسَ | to dress |
| “i” | عَلِمَ | to know |
| “u“ | حَسُنَ | to be beautiful |
| “u“ | كَبُرَ | to be big |
This is generally but not universally true. There are exceptions because neighboring consonants have influenced the vowels (or the other way round). There is a rule of thumb for verbs of category 3 (فَعُلَ):
They usually don’t form an active participle – but a pseudo, quasi participle that describes the state of things (صِفةٌ مُشَبَّهةٌ). For example: big (ٌكَبِير), nice (لَطِيفٌ).
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Amazing! I had no idea about this 😅
قَتَلَ (u)?
Hi Teresa, do you mean the present tense (يَقْتُلُ)? This article only talks about the stem vowel of the past tense, which is “a” in قَتَلَ. Regarding the present tense, there are other rules.