There’s six different adjectival patterns in Arabic which are:

1. The active participle / اِسْم الفاعِل
2. The passive participle / اِسْم المَفْعُول
3. The relative adjective / النِسْبة
4. The elative (comparative and superlative) / اسم التَفْضيل
5. The attributive particle / الصِفة المُشَبَّهة
6. The hyperbolic particle / صِيغة المُبالغة

We already spoke about the active and passive participles in the introduction to morphology part of the Intermediate section that’s we’re only going to focus on the four latter right here.

The relative adjective (al-nisba) / النِسْبة

The meanings

The relative adjective is called نِسْبة in Arabic which means ‘relation’. It is generally used to turn a noun into an adjective by adding a يّ or (يّة in the feminine) at the end of the noun (common or proper). It may be compared to English derivational morphemes like ‘-ish, -(i)an, -ese, -i, -ic(al), -al, -ly,’. The relative adjective is to express origin, matter or relation.

Rules of use

• If the noun from which the relative adjective is formed ends with a ة or begins with the defining article ال, these disappear:

• If the noun from which the relative adjective is formed ends in an alif ا/ى
  • Contains a maximum of 4 letters we replace the alif with a و in front of the يّ.

• Contains 5+ letters the alif ا disappears

• If the noun from which the relative adjective is formed ends in an alif hamza اء as a feminine marker, the hamza ء is replaced by a و

• If the noun from which the relative adjective is formed comes from a defective root (3rd root letter) we add a و before the يّ.

• If the noun from which the relative adjective is formed has only two letters in its root, we add a و before the يّ.

• If the noun from which the relative adjective is formed is on the pattern فَعِيلة the ي and the ة disappear.

Note: The relative adjective is supposed to be in the singular however daily use made it so that it can also be formed in a plural.

شُعُوبيّ populist	🢠 شُعُوب people	🢠 جَمْع plural	🢠 شَعْب people
كُتُبيّ librarian	🢠 كُتُب books		🢠 كِتاب   book

The elative (comparative and superlative) / اسم التَفْضيل

In Arabic, the concepts of comparative and superlative degrees of an adjective are merged into a single form, the elative (اِسْم التَفْضِيل). This form is expressed by the pattern أَفْعَل in Arabic. This particular pattern is diptote (مَمْنوع مِنْ الصَرْف) which is a notion we’ll cover under the ‘Advanced section’. To simplify, the form cannot have the tanwīn (indefinite ending) or kasra of the genitive case added to it, regardless of its position in the sentence or whether it is definite or indefinite.

Comparative sentences