The adjectival patterns / أَنْماط الصِفات

Arabic dialects map

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.

Moroccanمَغْرِبِيّ
historicتارِيخِيّ
dailyيَوْمِيّ

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:
educativeتَرْبيّة 🢠 تَرْبَويّ
Emiratiالإمارات 🢠 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.
chaoticفَوضى 🢠 فَوضَويّ
worldlyدُُنيا 🢠 دُنيويّ
  • Contains 5+ letters the alif ا disappears
Turkishتُرْكيا 🢠 تُرْكيّ
technologicتِكْنولوجيا 🢠 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
Desertصَحْراء 🢠 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-relatedماضٍ 🢠 ماضَويّ
judicialقاضٍ 🢠 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.
parentalأَب 🢠 أَبَويّ
manualيَد 🢠 يَدَويّ
  • If the noun from which the relative adjective is formed is on the pattern فَعِيلة the ي and the ة disappear.
tribalقَبِيلة 🢠 قَبَلِيّ
civil/urbanمَدِينة 🢠 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.

biggerأَكْبَر
largerأَوْسَع
smallerأَصْغَر
more (numerous)أَكْثَر
less (numerous)أَقَلّ
higherأَعْلى
lowerأَدْنى
closerأَقْرَب
more farأَبْعَد
betterأَحْسَنْ / أَفْضَل
worseأَسْوَأ

Comparative sentences

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