All dialects: tense and mood differences with function words

[wriight]

By "tense and mood", I mean like my dialect's past-tense (شاف), present-indicative (بيشوف), and present-subjunctive (يشوف) conjugations. Many function words can take more than one of these options, sometimes triggering a difference in meaning. I also run into differences between dialects occasionally.

What other words are there in any dialect that can take different types of verbs here? And is there any pattern when it comes to meaning, especially across dialects?

• إذا:
  • إذا شاف and إذا بيشوف are synonymous and they both mean "if he sees" for me, referring to the future.
  • But only إذا شاف can also mean "if he saw", referring to the past.
  • I can't say إذا يشوف.
• لو:
  • لو بيشوف means "if only he'd see"/"even if he sees", referring to the future.
  • لو شاف and لو يشوف are synonymous and they both mean "if only he'd seen"/"even if he saw", referring to the past.
• انشالله:
  • انشالله يشوف means "I hope/pray he sees", referring to the future.
  • I don't think انشالله بيشوف is valid for me, but I'd understand it the same way as انشالله يشوف.
  • انشالله شاف can only be said incredulously, and it means "don't tell me he saw?!", referring to the past. I think you can also say stuff like انشالله بدو يشوف or انشالله جايي يشوف incredulously to the same effect, i.e. basically anything but بيشوف and يشوف.
• يا ريت:
  • يا ريتو شاف means "I wish he'd seen", referring to the past.
  • يا ريتو يشوف means "I wish he'd see", referring to the future.
  • I don't think I can say يا ريتو بيشوف, although it feels similar in meaning to يشوف.
• بركي:
  • بركي شاف means "what if he saw?"/"what if he sees?", referring to either the past or the future. (Or, if it's used within a larger sentence, it can be like "he might see"/"he might have seen".) It can either be negative, suggesting you don't want him to see, or just neutral if you use it to suggest something. (For example, بركي رحنا نشوف is a neutral suggestion).
  • بركي بيشوف is "what if he sees?" (or again "he might see"), but with a hopeful shade of meaning. It suggests you do want him to see.
  • I can't say بركي يشوف.

To kickstart discussion of dialect differences, I remember I talked to a Damascene once who grouped لو يشوف together with لو بيشوف, not with لو شاف like me. This post by elroy also explains that the meanings of بلكي يشوف and بلكي بشوف are split up differently in his dialect.

 

[WadiH]

Are you asking for a listing of all possible tense and mood combinations in each dialect? Each one would require a whole book! 😬

What I can say for Peninsular dialects (and you probably already know this), is that there is no distinction between the verb form in the indicative versus the subjunctive and other moods (i.e. you just say يفعل, not بيفعل and the like). For the tense, the particle is either بـ (contraction of يبي, "wants") or in some dialects تـ (from تبي), except in some Yemeni dialects where you get شـ as in شفعل).

For conditionals, إلى (from إلى أن > إلين), إذا, إنْ and لو are all used, but they are only coupled with the past or future tense (with some variation of كان added to modulate the tense, as in إن كان يبي يروح ...). The exception is لو (as in لو تعرف قل لي).

 

[HoopoeOfHope]

What I can say for Peninsular dialects (and you probably already know this), is that there is no distinction between the verb form in the indicative versus the subjunctive and other moods (i.e. you just say يفعل, not بيفعل and the like). For the tense, the particle is either بـ (contraction of يبي, "wants") or in some dialects تـ (from تبي), except in some Yemeni dialects where you get شـ as in شفعل).

I've been thinking about this and was wondering what others think: while the verb itself doesn't change its form, it seems like the negative particle that the verb takes changes agreeing somewhat to the mood. The particle ما is attached to the indicative while لا is for the prohibitive and subjunctive:

ما يروح = he doesn't go
لا يروح = may he not go/don't let him go
ودي أن لا يروح = I want that he doesn't go
المفروض أن لا يروح = "he shouldn't" go

Using ما with the second one changes the meaning and it sounds weird to me with the third and fourth ones. Do you agree with me on this? (لا can also be used for negating two things like لا يروح ولا يجي but this is a different usage, also adding a pronoun to أن makes the negative ما like in ودي أنه ما يروح.)

As for OP's post, it would require a lot of time to think about the differences between the forms. To be honest the more I think about it the more I question which form sounds more natural and they begin to blend in together if that makes sense. For the most part we use them the same way you do at least between the present and past tenses. Some exceptions are:

- The word إذا always refer to the future regardless of the verb tense.
- We can use إنشالله for the past tense to mean "I pray that he saw", and it can be used with the incredulous way you mentioned.
- We don't use the word بركي.

 

[WadiH]

Our version of بركي is كود or لعل/عل.

 

[HoopoeOfHope]

We also use ألن as in ألنه شاف but I don't know how common this one is.

 

[Faris132000]

Are you asking for a listing of all possible tense and mood combinations in each dialect? Each one would require a whole book! 😬

What I can say for Peninsular dialects (and you probably already know this), is that there is no distinction between the verb form in the indicative versus the subjunctive and other moods (i.e. you just say يفعل, not بيفعل and the like). For the tense, the particle is either بـ (contraction of يبي, "wants") or in some dialects تـ (from تبي), except in some Yemeni dialects where you get شـ as in شفعل).

For conditionals, إلى (from إلى أن > إلين), إذا, إنْ and لو are all used, but they are only coupled with the past or future tense (with some variation of كان added to modulate the tense, as in إن كان يبي يروح ...). The exception is لو (as in لو تعرف قل لي).

ب for future marker comes from يبي؟ That's really interesting to know if true

 

[HoopoeOfHope]

ب for future marker comes from يبي؟ That's really interesting to know if true

Yes, the ب in the Peninsular dialects which is used for the future and desires. The Levantine and Egyptian ب is different.

 

[Hemza]

In Morocco, the present progressive or a repeated action (daily or monthly or whatever) is mostly formed by putting a ك or a ت (more rarely a ق) before the verb. To my knowledge, this was traditionally a pre-hilalian (roughly urban) trait that got borrowed by hilalian dialects (roughly rural/bedouin) through contact (not everywhere though). Traditionally, rural/bedouin dialects didn't make use of any prefix in front of the verb to distinguish the present from its progressive aspect. Otherwise, some people put
جالس/قاعد/بارك/قايل*+ك/ت before the verb to talk about an action which lasts in time and is ocurring.
*(both ج and ق are pronounced "g").

Regarding the conditional particles, there is إلى and إذا (often pronounced إدا). لو is often used in conjunction with كان though some people "mispronounce" it كو كان instead of لو كان.

ان شاء الله is indeed used for something we hope for or even something we wish it have happened (without knowing if it happened or not) in the same vein as @HoopoeOfHope described it (and I don't think I would go wrong if I said this is not peculiar to any dialect).

For the future غادي/ماشي (respectively from غدى/مشى) are the most used particules (sometimes reduced to غ and ما) and با in some dialects (it comes from بغى/بى). Also sometimes, people use دابا/ضروك (which means "now") to speak about something which will occur in the future (دابا/ضروك يجي means "he will come soon").

To emphasise on something, Mauritanians, Moroccans, Tunisians and Libyans use أرى/رى/راهو or ترى (I don't know if ترى is used outside Morocco amongst Maghrebi countries may be @Sadda7 and @djara know?) before a verb (the form depends on what follows). Exception with Algerians who use it for the present progressive.

I also know one odd use of the verb "want" which may either mean something we wish (in the future then) when followed by another verb or something we wished it to happen (in the past). For instance:

بغى يجي معيا/يبغي يجي معيا (He wants to come with me)
بغى يجي معيا (he wanted to come with me)
(In some areas, the غ is elided thus you hear بى/يبي يجي معيا this rarely leaves the audience without some laughs )

Only the context allows one to distinguish what is meant with the past form.

For يا ريت, it is similar to your dialect (and others I suppose).

 

[HoopoeOfHope]

To emphasise on something, Mauritanians, Moroccans, Tunisians and Libyans use أرى/رى/راهو or ترى (I don't know if ترى is used outside Morocco amongst Maghrebi countries may be @Sadda7 and @djara know?) before a verb (the form depends on what follows). Exception with Algerians who use it for the present progressive.

I can't comment about the other Maghrebi dialects, but we use ترى a lot in the Najdi and Gulf dialects. Its meaning is more of informing the listener that the thing we are saying might not be known to them, or at least we want to bring their attention to what we're saying:

تراه جا = he came [if you didn't know]

This particle can come before anything and not just verbs

 

[Hemza]

It is used with the exact same goal (to inform, bring attention) and we say تراه/أراه/راهو جا and you're right, it's not only before verbs, I don't know why I had this in mind.

 

[WadiH]

In my opinion, ترى fulfills the same function as إن/فإن in FuSHa (try replacing one with the other and you'll see what I mean).

 

[HoopoeOfHope]

In my opinion, ترى fulfills the same function as إن/فإن in FuSHa (try replacing one with the other and you'll see what I mean).

I don't think so. For example:

إنه قوي
تراه قوي

The first one emphasises the meaning while the other one informs the listener. I agree with you that there are many times when the two can end up saying the same thing, but their core meanings are different; إن focuses on confirming the sentence with emphasis while ترى focuses a lot on the listener's attention.

 

[WadiH]

I don't think "emphasis" and "focusing the listener's attention" are as different as you make them out to be. I think they are basically the same thing.

كل التمر تراه مفيد -- كل التمر فإنه مفيد
ترى بعض المدح يا سيد العرب يرّث النقصان -- إن بعض المدح يا سيد العرب يورث النقصان

It's very rare to find a situation where they are not interchangeable. What would our ancestors (before they said ترى) use to "focus the listener's attention"? I think they would have used إنّ.

We can at least agree that there is a great overlap between them and that they are functionally equivalent in the majority of cases?

 

[HoopoeOfHope]

Well, I personally think that there is a noticeable difference between the two even if it is difficult to describe, but yes we both agree that many times they can be used to make similar meanings (though with different focus).

Take a look at this YouTube video about راهو in Libyan Arabic. While some of the uses are different from the ones we have, the main usage is similar.

 

[Hemza]

One use described in the video (around 3:17) is a little bit different from what you may hear in Morocco:
راك ترقد/راك تطيح/راك تعاودها etc may mean "beware of doing it again/sleeping/falling" in the sense of "look out, you're doing it again/falling asleep/you're falling". I find it hard to describe the difference actually but you say these sentences (in Morocco) when it is occurring, on the spot to warn the person but not in the "threating" meaning. راك تعاودها for instance in Morocco means "beware, you're doing it again" and not "beware of doing it again/beware you may do it again".
(I hope my explanations aren't too blurry).
Otherwise, for "beware you may+verb" we would say "عندك+فعل مضارع" or رد بالك+فعل مضارع. This is specifically Moroccan so I think Tunisians rather use it as Libyans do.

In other examples displayed in the video, you can replace رى (and its derivates) by ترى or أرى regarding Moroccan (though ترى isn't used everywhere I think) they are all used for the same purposes.