Hidden Form V Verbs in the Qur’an

مَخْفيّ

root: خ-ف-ي / adjective / definition: hidden, concealed

Last week, I attended an online talk about developing a writing system for Cypriot Arabic. As a Cypriot linguist who’s studying Arabic, I kind of couldn’t miss it.

I hadn’t realised, though, that it was a “camera-on” event—so I quickly threw on a headscarf and smoothed my eyebrows to look somewhat presentable before flicking open my webcam.

One of the things I learnt was that the letter ع is the only emphatic consonant from Standard Arabic to survive in Cypriot Arabic.

I wonder whether mourning phonemes is illogical. I mean, Arabic emphatics are pretty cool. And have you heard about how they can mask verb forms?

Let’s rewind a little.

Whilst reading the Qur’an, I came across forms like these:

يَصَّعَّدُ

(6:125)

يَطَّوَّفَ

(following أنْ, see 2:158)

يَضَّرَّعونَ

(7:94)

فاطَّهَّروا

(an imperative, 5:6)

المُطَّهِّرينَ

(an active participle, 9:108)

Hmm. Which verb form do these derive from? I wondered. Are they from a form beyond the 19 that I know of?

No, actually. They’re simply form V verbs hidden in plain sight!

You see, form V verbs usually appear in the pattern تَفَعَّلَ (past tense) and يَتَفَعَّلُ (present tense). And the form V active participle pattern is مُتَفَعِّل, whilst its imperative looks like this: تَفَعَّلْ.

But, the verbs and derivative forms I mentioned from the Qur’an all have a root beginning with an emphatic denti-alveolar consonant, either ص or ض or ط.

When such roots combine with form V verbs, something called regressive assimilation can take place. Basically, the ت present in the form V pattern is pronounced like the following letter.

So, instead of يَتَصَعَّدُ, we get يَصَّعَّدُ—with the صّ encapsulating both the ت of the verb form and the ص of the root.

Similarly:

يَطَّوَّفَ comes from يَتَطَوَّفَ
يَضَّرَّعونَ is from يَتَضَرَّعونَ
the imperative اطَّهَّروا is from تَطَهَّروا (the alif is added at the beginning when assimilation takes place, because a word can’t begin with a shadda on the first letter)
and المُطَّهِّرينَ is from المُتَطَهِّرين

Note, though, that this assimilation is not a hard and fast rule.

Sometimes, we see their non-assimilated forms in the Qur’an too. Like يَتَضَرَّعون (see 6:42) and يَتَطَهَّرون (see 7:82).

Have you ever wondered about these assimilated forms before? We explored another interesting case of assimilation in The Case of امّحق: Form VII Assimilation, have a read if you want to learn some more about this phonological phenomenon.

And for a full overview of all nineteen verb forms from three- and four-letter roots (plus derivative forms like the participles), access the downloadable chart here: