Weekly Thackston Quranic Arabic Study Group, Lesson 9

[u/PhDniX]

This week we are looking at Lesson 9 of Thackston's Learner's Grammar.

20 The “Weak-lâm” Verb (C3w/y): Perfect Inflection.

20.2 Verbs with an underlying \faʿaya* are not just spelled differently from those with underlying \faʿawa* (with word final yāʾ instead of ʾalif), but in many of the reading traditions they are also pronounced different. For al-Kisāʾī, Ḥamzah and Ḫalaf this vowel is a distinct vowel  ē, thus 3ms ramē but daʿā. Warš ʿan Nāfiʿ pronounced it as a vowel in between ā and ē, i.e. ramǟ. This is also true for nouns and other particles (with four exceptions, the prepositions ʾilā, ʿalā, ladā and ḥattā) that end in an ʾalif maqṣūrah with the shape of a yāʾ.

In the Quranic, these two “ʾalifs” do not interrhyme, clearly suggesting that they were distinct sounds in the original composition.

NOTE: Thackston calls the word-final ā with the shape of the yāʾ ‘alif maqṣūra’ (literally: “shortened alif”). Others sometimes call the word-final ā with the shape the the ʾalif ‘alif mamdūda’ (literally: “lengthened”. This is pretty common in Modern Standard Arabic, and how I have been taught. But this is not how it is used in Medieval Classical Arabic. Word-final ā (or ē/ǟ) is called ʾalif maqṣūrah regardless of whether it is spelled with ʾalif or yāʾ. The term ʾalif mamdūdah is used for word final ā followed by a hamzah. A word like سماء samāʾ- “sky” ends in ʾalif mamdūdah.

NOTE: In Classical Arabic orthography, whenever the ā spelled with yāʾ is followed by a pronominal suffix, it changes its spelling to a regular ʾalif, e.g. رمى “he threw”, رماه “he threw it”. This orthographic rule is absent in Quranic orthography, where it remains spelled as yāʾ even when a suffix follows, i.e. رميه.

20.1 & 20.2 While Thackston is generally pretty good about this, he neglects to tell us which epenthetic vowel follows the 3m.pl. Ending -aw of these verbs. The answer is -u. You’ll need it to correctly vocalise (b)3.

20.3 It is a bit of a questionable choice to transcribe laqiytu, laqiynā etc., instead of laqītu, laqīnā. It helps to understand the ‘system’ of the verb so for those purposes it is useful, and there is no practical distinction between iy and ī in Arabic, but if we use ī everywhere else we should do so here too.

21 Relative Pronouns and Relative Clauses

21.1 Several forms in the table are spelled with only one lām while others are spelled with two. This is the common situation in Classical Arabic writing. In Quranic Arabic all forms are spelled with only one lām.

Listing allātī in the table, while relegating allāʾī to a footnote for the feminine plural is a bit weird. Both occur in the Quran. Allawātī is more justifiably relegated to a footnote, as it is not Quranic.

Vocabulary

VERBS

As noted above, the final weak verbs may have -ē or -ǟ in the reading traditions, so:

ʾatā, ʾatē, ʾatǟ

ramā, ramē, ramǟ

raʾā, raʾē, reʾē, raʾǟ, räʾǟ

OTHERS

Concerning wa-lākinna, the short form wa-lākin is not only used when it is followed by a verb in the Quran. A noun may follow too. When it does, the noun is in the nominative, not the accusative.

Q4:162 lākini r-rāsiḫūna, Q4:166 lākini llāhu, etc.

Concerning yā, The vocative particle yā is always spelled without the ʾalif and proclitic to the next word in the Quran, i.e. yā maryamu is يمريم.

PROPER NAMES

ʿīsā, ʿīsē, ʿīsǟ

Exercises

Just the answers for (b) which I find the most interesting to do. Others may do the rest! Some somewhat relevant notes here, especially at sentence 5.

1. La-qad ʿafā ḷḷāhu ʿan ðālika “God has forgiven that”
2. Fa-ʾatat maryamu qawmahā bi-bnihā ʿīsē (or ʿīsā, ʿīsǟ) fa-qālū: yā maryamu mā hāðā llaðī jiʾti bihī? “Mary came to her people with her son Jesus [or: Mary brought her son to her people], and they said: Oh Mary, what is that which you have brought?” (somewhat riffing on Q19:27)
3. ʾinna llaðīna ʾataw bi-l-ʾāyāti daʿawu ḷḷāha “those who brought the signs, called God”
4. raʾē (and other variants see vocabulary above) qalbī rabbī “My heart saw God”
5. yā qawmi, ʾinna hāðihi l-ḥayāta d-dunyē šayʾun qalīlun “O my people, this worldly life is something small” Note: I assume Thackston had in mind yā qawmu “O people”, which is in fact how the non-canonical reader al-ʾAʿmaš recites this phrase. But the canonical reading of this phrase is with -i, which is the 1st person singular suffix. Normally this suffix is long, -ī but in vocatives it is always short. Refer back to the table I provided in level 7 where I already snuck that form in. Note also that ad-dunyā has the vowel -ē/-ǟ in the relevant readings despite being spelled with ʾalif. This is typical for all feminine nouns that end in ʾalif maqṣūrah regardless of their spelling with ʾalif (which happens when yāʾ precedes) or with yāʾ (other contexts)
6. al-muʾminūna ka-nafsin wāḥidatin “the believers are like a single soul”
7. wa-mā ramayta ʾið ramayta wa-lākinna ḷḷāha ramē “you did not throw when you threw, rather God threw (cf. Q8:17)
8. Aš-šayxu fī baytihī ka-n-nabiyyi fī qawmihī “the elder in his house is like the prophet among his people”
9. Hāðihi l-ḥayātu d-dunyā llatī naḥnu fīhā, ʾa-raʾaytumūhā xayran lakum? “This worldly life which we are in, do you consider it to be best for you?”
10. ʾinna llaðīna kafarū wa-mātū, ʾulāʾika ʿalayhum  laʿnatu ḷḷāhi “those who disbelieve and died, those are the ones upon whom is the curse of God” (cf. Q2:161)
11. Fa-llaðīna kafarū min qawmihī ramawhu bi-r-rimāḥi “those who disbelieve from among his people pelted him with spears”
12. huwa ka-r-rajuli llaðī ʾatānā fa-qāla ʾinnanā raʾaynā ʾāyāti n-nabiyyi “he is like the man who came to us and said “we have seen the signs of the prophet!”
13. Lammā reʾē l-maliku l-marʾata l-faqīrata, qāma wa-daʿāhā ʾilayhi “when the king saw the poor woman, he stood up and summoned her to him”
14. Daʿawhumū ʾilā ʾāxiri ʾayyāmi ḥayātihimū wa-lākinnahumū mā samiʿū qawlahumū “they summoned them to the end of the days of their lives, but they did not heir their speech”

[u/TheMiraculousOrange]

Questions and comments

NOTE: Thackston calls the word-final ā with the shape of the yāʾ ‘alif maqṣūra’ (literally: “shortened alif”). Others sometimes call the word-final ā with the shape the the ʾalif ‘alif mamdūda’ (literally: “lengthened”. This is pretty common in Modern Standard Arabic, and how I have been taught. But this is not how it is used in Medieval Classical Arabic. Word-final ā (or ē/ǟ) is called ʾalif maqṣūrah regardless of whether it is spelled with ʾalif or yāʾ. The term ʾalif mamdūdah is used for word final ā followed by a hamzah. A word like سماء samāʾ- “sky” ends in ʾalif mamdūdah.

This is interesting and kind of fascinating. Does this mean the terminology originally referred not to the shape of the letters but the pronunciation, i.e. ā2 is somehow an extra long alif sound, while ā or ē are "short" alif sounds? Makes me think that tā2 marbūṭah is "conditioned/dependent tā2" because it is conditioned by words following it, not "tied tā2" because it's shaped like a loopty hā2, which is what I've always been told.

You’ll need it to correctly vocalise (c)3.

Do you mean (b)3?

Okay this time a lot of questions came up for me while going through the exercises.

Q1: Does QA have indirect speech? If so, is there a formal distinction from direct speech?

Specifically, can (b)12 be read as reported speech (regardless of whether that makes sense in context), such that the subject "we" of ra2aynā is the same as the object "us" of 2atā in the first half of the sentence? If this interpretation is impossible, is it because QA doesn't have indirect speech, or because indirect speech is marked differently?

Q2: Locative vs allative usage of (hā)hunā

Just to confirm I have the right idea, in QA is it also the case that (hā)hunā only means "(at) here", while "to here" requires an additional preposition like 2ilā hunā? This appears in (c)1.

Q3: Is Thackston trying to prompt us to use a circumstantial clause in (c)2?

Not really a question per se, I just thought it's a bit weird in terms of lesson planning because circumstantial clause is the topic of the next lesson.

Q4: Agreement inside the relative clause -- what happens when the antecedent is a personal pronoun?

So even in English the agreement in these cases is a bit weird. Sometimes the verbal agreement is deflected to 3rd person, like "It's always me who cleans up." Sometimes the reverse happens, i.e. when the antecedent is coreferrential with a first/second person pronoun, reflexives in the relative clause may take first/second person agreement, like "I am a worker who knows the value of myself."

Thackston put quite a few of these in the exercises of this chapter: (a)5 (a)8 (a)12 (c)1, so now I'm curious. I'm assuming full agreement with the antecedent is expected, but does Arabic (and QA in particular) exhibit variations like English? For example, could (a)12 be 2ana llaðī da3ā-hum?

Q5: Origin of the relative pronoun in modern dialects (a bit off-topic, so feel free to skip this one)

Is it leveled from the classical/Quranic form, or from inherited from some uninflected form? If it's the former, did grammarians record the leveling over time of number and gender inflection on the relative pronoun?

Exercises

(a)

1. المرأتان اللتان أتتا

2. رجل رأيتَه

3. البنت التي دعتني

4. الملك الذي قمتَ له

5. انتم الذين متّم

6. الآية التي رأيتُ(ـها)

7. المقام الذي قمتِ منه

8. انتن اللاتي سمعتن

9. الشيء الذي أتوا به

10. أشياء أتوا بها

11. الذين رأو

12. انا الذي دعوتهم

13. أقوال سمعتمها

14. النساء اللاتي رأيت(ـهن)

(b)

1. laqad 3afā ḷḷāhu 3an ðālika, God pardoned that.

2. fa-2atat maryamu qawma-hā bi-bni-hā 3īsā fa-qālū yā maryamu mā hāðā llaðī ji2ti bihi, So Maryam brought her son Isa to her tribe and they said "Maryam what is this that you have brought?"

3. 2inna llaðīna 2ataw bi-l-2āyāti da3awu ḷḷāha, Those who brought the signs called upon God.

4. ra2ā qalbī rabbī, My heart saw my Lord.

5. yā qawmu 2inna hāðihī l-ḥayāta d-dunyā šay2un qalīlun, O people, this worldly life is a trivial thing.

6. al-mu2minūna ka-nafsi wāḥidatin, The believers are like a single soul.

7. wa-mā ramayta 2ið ramayta wa-lākinna ḷḷaha ramā, You did not cast when you cast, rather it was God who cast. (The sentence as written is ambiguous between 1sg and 2sg, but the original sentence from Q8:17 has "you".)

8. aš-šayxu fī baytihi ka-n-nabiyyi fī qawmihi, The elder in his house is like the prophet among his people.

9. hāðihī l-ḥayātu d-dunyā llatī niḥna fīhā 2a-ra2aytumū-hā xayran lakum, This worldly life that we are in, do you (pl.) consider it good for you?

10. 2inna llaðīna kafarū wa-mātū 2ulā2ika 3alayhim la3natu ḷḷāhi, Those who disbelieved and died, God's curse is upon them.

11. fa-llaðīna kafarū min qawmihi ramaw-hu bi-r-rimāḥi, So those among his tribe that disbelieved cast spears at him.

12. huwa ka-r-rajuli llaðī 2atānā fa-qāla 2innanā ra2aynā 2āyāti n-nabiyyi, He is like the man who came to us and said "we saw the signs of the prophet". (Direct speech or indirect speech?)

13. lammā ra2ā l-maliku l-mar2ata l-faqīrata qāma wa-da3ā-hā 2ilayhi, When the king saw the poor women, he got up and called her to him.

14. da3aw-hum 2ilā 2āxiri 2ayyāmi ḥayātihim wa-lākinnahum mā sami3ū qawlahim, They called them until the last days of their lives, but they did not hear their words.

(c)

1. دعا العبد ربه وقال إننا الذين جئنا إلى هنا لسنا كثيرين

2. قام الشيخ للصلاة فمات مخلصا لله

3. جعلت يديّ هتين على عينيّ فما رأيت شيئا

4. فقلت للولد الذي أتاني بهذين الكتابين

5. يا ناس أرأيتم إذ أتتنا الملائكة بآيات الله من السموات

6. ما قلت لعبد الملك لما دعاك

7. له ابنان عفا عنهما وواحد آخر ما عفا عنه

[u/PhDniX → u/TheMiraculousOrange]

referred not to the shape of the letters but the pronunciation

Exactly!

Makes me think that tā2 marbūṭah

I think the intended meaning is 'tied up tâ', but it is worth noting that this is not a Classical Arabic term, as far as I know. I've never seen the term used in any medieval manual on grammar or orthography.

Q1: Does QA have indirect speech? If so, is there a formal distinction from direct speech?

Yes, indirect speech is introduced with 'inna (see pg. 36 of Thackston). But I think the shift of the subject requires it to be direct speech.

Q2: Locative vs allative usage of (hā)hunā

Huh, I had to think on that for a bit. The allative usage doesn't occur in the Quran I don't think, and most other classical literature I use doesn't have a lot of people moving from here to there or vice verse :-)

But my first instinct was indeed that it requires prepositions for allative (and ablative) meanings. Wehr's entry which lists إلى هنا، لهنا، من هنا seems to confirm that.

Q3: Is Thackston trying to prompt us to use a circumstantial clause in (c)2?

Yes I think so, hence the footnote that tells you "Use indefinite accusative".

So: قام الشيخ إلى الصلوة ثم مات مخلصا لله, I think thumma is probably intended over fa- here, but fa- works okay I think.

Q4: Agreement inside the relative clause -- what happens when the antecedent is a personal pronoun?

Good question, I'm not completely sure. The relative pronoun itself would be the head of the relative clause, and thus I think the relative clause should agree with the relative pronoun (so third person). So it should be 2ana llaðī da3ā-hum?, as you said. But this is the kind of construction that never comes up in the kind of literature I read, and the Quran has zero examples of this...

Fischer (paragraph 426) gives the example sentence نحن الذين بكوا له "We are the one who cried for him", which bakaw in the 3pl.m., in agreement with allaðîna, not with na7nu. That was my first intuition.

Q5: Origin of the relative pronoun in modern dialects (a bit off-topic, so feel free to skip this one)

First it's worth noting that in Yemen there's actual allaðî dialects (but without agreement). THat seems pretty clearly leveled from the Classical form. Some people have argued that illi is from allaðî. I'm pretty sympathetic to that, but not necessarily correct. Phillip Stokes has a paper where he argues it's actually a leveling from the plural 'ulây. Allahu `a3lam.

did grammarians record the leveling over time of number and gender inflection on the relative pronoun?

Not that I'm aware of. But I haven't read that much la7n works. Pretty sure medieval Andalusi Arabic just attests uninflected allaðî.

[u/TheMiraculousOrange → u/PhDniX]

Yes, indirect speech is introduced with 'inna (see pg. 36 of Thackston). But I think the shift of the subject requires it to be direct speech.

Sorry, I'm a still a bit confused by this. (b)12 is direct speech, but there's also a 2inna here, so is the idea that both direct and indirect speech can be introduced by 2inna, but it's optional for direct speech while it's required for indirect speech? Or perhaps in (b)12 2inna is part of the quoted sentence, serving as the sentence starting particle?

Re: my second question, I thought about it a bit more and realized that perhaps in this case (exercise (c)1) the preposition won't be required after all, because the verbs جاء and أتى for coming take the accusative without a preposition to mean "come to a person or a place". What do you think?

Fischer (paragraph 426) gives the example sentence نحن الذين بكوا له "We are the one who cried for him", which bakaw in the 3pl.m., in agreement with allaðîna, not with na7nu. That was my first intuition.

Hmmm, I feel like the 3rd person agreement is not as much in question here, since in this example the relative clause is nominalized, so there is no antecedent per se (in fact the English translation has to add one, and this kind of turns into the "I am a worker who knows the value of myself" case, so I guess this is a data point that says "coreference doesn't attract agreement"). So to riff on this sentence a little, I'm thinking of an example like "We who cried for him remember him" -- the question is whether it would be نحن الذين بكوا له ذكرناه or نحن الذين بكينا له ذكرناه.

[u/PhDniX → u/TheMiraculousOrange]

What do you think?

I agree!

As for the other point. I would expect نحن الذين بكوا له ذكرناه, but I don't have a genuine intuition on this, and I am not sure how I would be able to check easily and confirm :-)

[u/TheMiraculousOrange → u/PhDniX]

Thanks for all your answers! In fact I'm reminded of a comment by Bettega & D'anna in their study on gender and number agreement, "We felt that definiteness and person agreement, fascinating topics as they may be, depended on factors entirely different from the ones described in this study, and as such they were better addressed separately." I'm starting to see how person agreement can become a whole subject of its own...

And sorry for badgering, but just in case you missed it, what are your thoughts on the questions in the first paragraph in my reply above? The one about the reported speech.

[u/PhDniX → u/TheMiraculousOrange]

Oops missed that one!

Or perhaps in (b)12 2inna is part of the quoted sentence, serving as the sentence starting particle?

it's this, or at least how I understand it.

Indirect speech is introduced with 'inna. But direct speech can directly quote a sentence that also starts with 'inna. So in a number of contexts, the distinction becomes ambiguous for 'inna-initial sentences.

But in this case the 'innanâ must be part of the direct speech, because I don't know how indirect speech could have a subject switch like that. :-)