There’s six different adjectival patterns in Arabic which are:
The active participle / اِسْم الفاعِل
The passive participle / اِسْم المَفْعُول
The relative adjective / النِسْبة
The elative (comparative and superlative) / اسم التَفْضيل
The attributive particle / الصِفة المُشَبَّهة
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.
Moroccan
مَغْرِبِيّ
historic
تارِيخِيّ
daily
يَوْمِيّ
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:
educative
تَرْبيّة 🢠 تَرْبَويّ
Emirati
الإمارات 🢠 إماراتيّ
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.
chaotic
فَوضى 🢠 فَوضَويّ
worldly
دُُنيا 🢠 دُنيويّ
Contains 5+ letters the alif ا disappears
Turkish
تُرْكيا 🢠 تُرْكيّ
technologic
تِكْنولوجيا 🢠 تِكْنولوجيّ
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
Desert
صَحْراء 🢠 صَحْراويّ
Oval (egg-shaped)
بَيْضاء 🢠 بَيْضاويّ
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.
past-related
ماضٍ 🢠 ماضَويّ
judicial
قاضٍ 🢠 قاضَويّ
If the noun from which the relative adjective is formed has only two letters in its root, we add a و before the يّ.
parental
أَب 🢠 أَبَويّ
manual
يَد 🢠 يَدَويّ
If the noun from which the relative adjective is formed is on the pattern فَعِيلة the ي and the ة disappear.
tribal
قَبِيلة 🢠 قَبَلِيّ
civil/urban
مَدِينة 🢠 مَدَنِيّ
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.
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