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Spot the Fa’il
By ArabicTree | March 15, 2008
What is the fa’il? The word fa’il (فاعِل) means doer, the one who does the action. “Fa’il” also means a pattern–fa, alif, ayn with kasra, and lam–that denotes a pattern of doers. One word on this pattern is haakim (حاكِم) –haa, alif, kaf with kasra, and meem–meaning the one who judges).
Grammatically, the fa’il is very, very important–it’s the person doing the action in the sentence! The fa’il has a few important qualities:
- It’s the one doing the action
- It always comes after (to the left of) the verb.
- It is always definite
- It always takes damma
And those qualities are questions you can ask yourself when you want to discover the fa’il–particularly the first two qualities.
The fa’il can be a pronoun (such as he/she), a clear noun (anything that’s not a pronoun–like a chair), or–here’s the tricky part–a deleted pronoun. Also, note that *every sentence can only have one fa’il*–never two or three or more.
Let’s look at a couple of examples.
ذَهَبَت عاإشَةُ إلَ بَيتِهَا (thahabat ‘Aishatu ila baytihaa): ‘Aishah went to her house. Here, the fa’il is obvious–Aishah–because we know she’s the one doing the action! But grammatically, ‘Aishah is also marfoo’ and definite, and behind the verb (the conditions we mentioned above).
Now, if we turn this into a jumulah ismiyyah (nominal sentence), everything turns upside-down! Check it out:
عاإشَةُ ذَهَبَت إلَ بَيتِهَا (’Aishatu tahabat ila baytihaa): ‘Aishah went to her house.
Notice, the meaning is exactly the same! But who’s the fa’il? If you said “Aishah,” you’re wrong!
What? Wrong? How is that possible? Well, in reality, she IS the one doing the action–but grammatically, she’s not the fa’il. Let’s examine the details.
First, it’s a nominal sentence. The mubtada is ‘Aishah, and the khabr is a jumulah fi’liyyah (verbal sentence).
Now the verbal sentence stands on its own. It is a complete sentence–not a fragment. How would you translate that? “Thahabat ila baytihaa”–she went to her house. Who’s the fa’il in this sentence? It’s a hidden hiya. The sentence is really “Thahabat hiya ila baytihaa.”
And who is that hiya? Look at the mubtada–it’s ‘Aishah.
So even though both sentences were EXACTLY the same in meaning and translation, grammatically, they are two very different beasts.
Now, if you recall an earlier post, we talked about how the fa’il is part of the verb conjugation. How does this change the way we formulate sentences? Let’s look at an example.
مُحَمَّدٌ وَ أحمَرٌ وَ خَالِدٌ ذَهَبُو إلَ المَسجِد (Muhammadun wa Ahmerun wa Khaalidun thahabuw ila al-masjid).
Again, a nominal sentence–the mubtada contains three people who are, in reality, doing the action–going to the masjid. The khabr is a verbal sentence–thahabuw ila al-masjid. Grammatically, this sentence contains the fa’il–the waw in thahabuw.
What happens if we reverse this sentence–convert it into a jumulah fa’liyyah? We might try something like this:
ذَهَبُو مُحَمَّدٌ وَ أحمَرٌ وَ خَالِدٌ إلَ المَسجِد (Thahabuw Muhammadun wa Ahmerun wa Khaalidun ila al-masjid).
But is this correct? Let’s examine it. It’s a verbal sentence; the verb is thahabuw, and the fa’il is the waw. But wait–Muhammad, Ahmed, and Khaalid also are definine, marfoo’, and come after the verb! This sentence has multiple fa’ils!
And that’s grammatically incorrect–you cannot have a sentence with multiple fa’ils. Clearly, we need to change something–but what? We can’t remove one of the three–they all need to be there–but we can change the verb. The corrected sentence is:
ذَهَبَ مُحَمَّدٌ وَ أحمَرٌ وَ خَالِدٌ إلَ المَسجِد (Thahaba Muhammadun wa Ahmedun wa Khaalidun ila al-masjid).
Why does this work? Again, it’s a verbal sentence, like the original; but in this case, we removed the fa’il on the verb–the waw in thahabuw–so now we have only one (ok, three, joined by waw–but it counts as one) fa’il.
And this is how you construct a verbal sentence where you want to indicate multiple people doing an action–you specify them as the fa’il, and choose a verb without a fa’il–either thahaba or thahabat in the past-tense–and use that, instead of a different conjugation of the verb.
This is a confusing and deep, technical issue of Arabic grammar, so if you have any questions, post them in the comments insha’Allah.
Topics: Grammar, Intermediate | 2 Comments »
December 9th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Hmm, I have doubts regarding the Faa’il being definite. Why do we say “dhahaba muhammadu” and not “…muhammaduN”? This rule is new to me; have never come across it before. How about saying “A man opened the door”? Would it be “fataha rajulu…” instead of “…rajuluN…”? I don’t think so, akhee.
Also, if “hiya” is the Faa’il in “dhahabat ilaa baitihaa”, why isn’t “HUM” the Faa’il in “dhahaboo ilal-masjid”? In the latter case, shouldn’t the Faa’il be the hidden “hum” here?
Yahdeekallaah, akhee.
December 9th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Whoops, that’s a mistake. Jazakumullahu khayran. It should be indefinite with tanween.
I want to clarify two exceptions though:
- Female names always take single tanween.
- You cannot have an indefinite non-person mubtada, eg. battatun fiy al-bayt. You need to rearrange the sentence to put the preposition first.
Wallahu ‘alim.