2.4 The Doer and the Done: فاعل and مفعول — Epoché
What you will be able to do Build the doer of any plain verb by putting a long a after the first root consonant: كَتَبَ gives كَاتِب . Build the thing the action was done to by putting a prefix in front and a long u before the last consonant: مَكْتُوب . Recognise both shapes on sight in a word you have never met, and say which of the two it is before you know what the root means. Read a sentence like الْبَاب مَفْتُوح and see that an English passive has been done with a single adjective and no verb at all. Say why the doer shape is how Arabic names a great many professions, and read طَالِب and عَامِل as members of the same set. Prerequisites : 2.3 and the three vowellings of the plain verb A verb names an event, and an event almost always has two ends to it. Somebody does it; something has it done. English marks the two ends with whatever material comes to hand: a writer takes -er, a teacher takes -er, a cook takes nothing at all, and a person who is cooked is not a cook. Arabic does not improvise like this. It has one shape for the end that acts and one shape for the end that is acted on, and the two shapes apply to every form I verb in the language without exception. That is a larger gift than it looks. Once you can make these two shapes from a verb, each verb you learn arrives with two nouns attached, and you have not had to memorise them. It also runs the other way, which is the more useful direction: when you meet an unknown word that is on one of these two shapes, you can strip the shape off, get three consonants, and know that whatever the root means, this word is either the one doing it or the one it was done to. That halves the size of the guess. The root family The one who does it The doer shape puts a long a after the first root consonant and a short i before the last. Nothing is added at the front. From the verb for writing it gives the word for a writer, which you have had since the first lesson of this volume; from the verb for working it gives a worker; from the verb for seeking it gives a student, which is to say one who seeks. The last of those is worth dwelling on, because it shows how the shape behaves in real vocabulary. The Arabic word for a student is not built from a root meaning to study. It is the doer of the verb meaning to ask for, to seek, and a student is a seeker of knowledge. English has nothing like this transparency; student comes from Latin and tells an English speaker nothing. In Arabic the analysis is on the surface of the word, and it stays there, which is why a reader who knows the shape can often work out a profession without ever having met the noun. The same shape makes ordinary adjectives when the verb is not an action but a state. The verb for dwelling gives a word that means both a resident and, of a thing, motionless, still. Both senses are the doer of the same verb: one who is dwelling, and something that is staying put. Where English needs two words, Arabic has one and lets the context choose. The one it is done to The other shape adds a mim at the front, puts a sukun on the first root consonant, and places a long u before the last. From the verb for writing it gives something written; from the verb for opening, something opened, which is to say open; from the verb for breaking, broken. Look at the English translations of those three and you will see the difference between the two languages laid out. English translates the first with a past participle used as an adjective, the second with a plain adjective that has lost all sign of the verb, and the third with a past participle again. Arabic is uniform: all three are the same shape from three different roots, and if you know one you can read all of them. The practical consequence appears immediately in the sentences below. To say that a door is open, Arabic says the door, and then the word meaning opened, and there is no verb in the sentence at all. English cannot do that; is has to appear. The absence of a verb where English expects one is the subject of lesson 3.1, and this shape is the reason half of those sentences exist. One caution. Not every word beginning with a mim is on this shape, and not every word with a long a after the first consonant is a doer. The place shape of the next lesson also begins with a mim, and the pattern that gives a book has a long a in the middle. What identifies these two shapes is the whole arrangement, not one feature of it: a long a in second position with a short i before the final consonant for the doer, a mim plus a long u before the final consonant for the done. Read the whole word. The table The two shapes side by side The model root gives the names, and a real root fills them out. The verb in the first column is the plain past of lesson 2.3. Verb Root Doer Done to English of the two فَعَلَ ف-ع-ل فَاعِل مَفْعُول the names of the two shapes themselves كَتَبَ ك-ت-ب كَاتِب مَكْتُوب writer; written, a written thing فَتَحَ ف-ت-ح فَاتِح مَفْتُوح opener, conqueror; open كَسَرَ ك-س-ر كَاسِر مَكْسُور one who breaks; broken عَرَفَ ع-ر-ف عَارِف مَعْرُوف one who knows; known, well known طَلَبَ ط-ل-ب طَالِب مَطْلُوب student, one who seeks; wanted, required عَمِلَ ع-م-ل عَامِل مَعْمُول worker; made, done سَكَنَ س-ك-ن سَاكِن مَسْكُون resident, still; inhabited Read the third column straight down and then the fourth. Each column is one rhythm repeated seven times, and the consonants change under it. That is the clearest demonstration this course can give you of what a pattern is, and it is worth doing out loud rather than with the eye. What the shape does not tell you Two warnings, both of them things learners assume and then have to unlearn. First, a word on the doer shape is not always a person. The shape gives whatever is doing the verb, and that can be a thing: the doer of the verb for cutting is a cutting thing, which is a word for a sharp edge. Do not translate the shape as -er and stop there. Second, the done-to shape does not mean that anyone in particular did