Tuesday, 12 February 2013

Future tense for فعل form

The Arabic future tense for the فعل form is conjugated the same way as the present tense while adding سَ or سَوْفَ at the beginning of the verb. There is no difference in meaning between سَ  and سَوْفَ. They both mean 'very soon'.

Singular
  1. سَيَقْعَلُ he will do
  2. سَوْفَ تَفْعَلُ she will do
  3. سَتَفْعَلُ you will do (masculine)
  4. سَوْفَ تَفْعَلِنْ you will do (feminine)
  5.  سَأَفْعَلُ I will do
Dual
  1. سَتَفْعَلَانِ you both will do (masculine and feminine)
  2. سَوْفَ يَفْعَلَانِ they both will do (masculine and feminine)
Plural
  1. َسَيَفْعَلُون they all will do (masculine)
  2. سَوْفَ يَفْعَلْنَ they all will do (feminine)
  3. سَتَفْعَلُونَ you all will do (masculine)
  4. سَوْفَ تَفْعَلْنَ you all will do (feminine)
  5. سَنَفْعَلُ we will do
Other tri-lettered verbs may be conjugated the same way.

My comment
Since I am also learning Quranic language on my own, I learned that the present tense is also used as future tense in the Quran without the presence of سَ or سَوْفَ, for example:
Warning, the following are Quranic verses:
  1. وَيَفْعَلُ آللهُ مَا يَشَآءُ And الله does what He pleases (present tense)
  2. يَدْخُلُونَ آلْجَنَّةَ They will enter the Paradise (looks like present tense but actually future tense without سَ or سَوْفَ)
Thus, the tense in verse 2 above is determined based on the context of the verb used in the sentence.
Of course, the Quran also uses the سَ or سَوْفَ for future tense, for example:
  1. سَيَقُولُ آلسُّفَهَآءُ The fools (among the people) will say... (future tense with سَ)
  2. فَسَوْفَ يُحَاسَبُ حِسَابًا يَسِيًرا His account will be taken by an easy reckoning. (future tense with سَوْفَ)
Honestly, my hands trembled when I typed and discussed the Quranic verses above. May الله forgive me should there be errors or I did anything wrong.

Please be aware that although I am learning both languages on my own, I only intend to discuss modern Arabic language and not Quranic language in this blog. Quranic language is very different from Modern Arabic language. Quranic language is not just ancient Arabic language but it is a language that came directly from الله. The Quran cannot be recited like reading normal Arabic language, ancient or modern. Reciting each and every huruf of the Quran needs to be accompanied with its history, including the place, time and reasons of revelation, the hadeeth, etc. This procedure is called tafseer.