# Levantine Arabic: Who asked you to do it?



## WannaBFluent

as-salaam 3aleykum all, how to express this sentence in Levantine Arabic? I was think of using the verb Talab.

*miin Talabak fa3alo ?*

*Who asked you to do it ?*

Is this correct? Thank you.


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## momai

Hi,
مين طلب منك ليش تعملو/تعملا؟ 
Note minak should be minik when addressing a female!


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## WannaBFluent

Word by word:
Who asked from you why work it

I don't understand the use of leesh there.

And using fa3al is incorrect? I have to use t3amal (to work) even if I ask the question to someone who is not working?

Imagine if someone during a war give some food to an ennemy in agony.
Your commander could tell you 'Who asked you to do it?' and it's not working so I don't know.


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## momai

I used leesh for emphasizing the question but you can of course leave it out too and the meaning wouldn't change a lot .


WannaBFluent said:


> And using fa3al is incorrect?


3amal has undergone a semantic alteration in Syrian.It does not mean anymore to work but rather to do.
And the G-stem of the root f-3-l is never used in Syrian .


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## WannaBFluent

Ok thank you, that is good too know!
Last thing I did not understand, when you wrote تعملو you meant تعمله do it.
The thing I don't understand is تعملا I think you meant تعملها do it (fem), that would mean that I need to change the gender of it, in accordance with what I see him doing? That's it?

So if I see a man reading, and I ask 'Who asked you to do it' (where it refers to the act of reading),
I have to say 'miin Talab mennak t3amel-ha?' because the act of reading is feminine: قراءة

While if I see a man cooking, and I ask 'Who asked you to do it' (where it refers to the act of cooking),
I have to say 'miin Talab mennak t3amel-o?' because the act of cooking is masculine: الطبخ

Am I correct? or did I just say a complete non-sense


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## analeeh

Momai, I'm also not familiar with this use of _leesh_ (I don't think) - can you give us some more examples? Thanks.

WannaBFluent: _3émel ya3mel_ is the verb and it means 'to do' in colloquial, as Momai has said. I don't _think_ that in this case a masculine or feminine pronoun refers to the gender of the verbal noun - I think you are reaaaasonably free to say _ta3méla _or _ta3melo. _


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## momai

WannaBFluent said:


> Ok thank you, that is good too know!
> Last thing I did not understand, when you wrote تعملو you meant تعمله do it.
> The thing I don't understand is تعملا I think you meant تعملها do it (fem), that would mean that I need to change the gender of it, in accordance with what I see him doing? That's it?


I wrote them this way ,simply because we don't pronounce the H sound in those words.


> So if I see a man reading, and I ask 'Who asked you to do it' (where it refers to the act of reading),
> I have to say 'miin Talab mennak t3amel-ha?' because the act of reading is feminine: قراءة
> 
> While if I see a man cooking, and I ask 'Who asked you to do it' (where it refers to the act of cooking),
> I have to say 'miin Talab mennak t3amel-o?' because the act of cooking is masculine: الطبخ
> 
> Am I correct? or did I just say a complete non-sense


As analeeh has said, it's preferable to mention the action (Masdar) directly otherwise it would be confusing .
@analeeh 
مين ليش جاية يزورنا؟  - who is going to visit us (then)?
ليش شو صار؟- what's happened  ?


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## analeeh

The second one seems totally normal to me (probably because 'why, what's happened' works in English, but the first one is weird! Interesting!


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## Languagelearner123456

So mennak means cooking then? If so a literal translation would be "who asked you to do cooking"?


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## analeeh

No. It means of you.


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## WannaBFluent

To cook is the verb Taba5.


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## WannaBFluent

Can I also say:
miin Talab mennak (ə)tsaaw?
With the same meaning?


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## analeeh

تساويه
_tsaa*wii(h)
*_
The verb is _saawa ysaawi_.


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## WannaBFluent

Thanks analeeh, I had forgot the ه as well for the 'it'.

So the 'o' sound disappear?
I would expect: tsaawiy(h)o


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## analeeh

When attached to final vowels _-o_ is realised as vowel lengthening and a stress shift:

_tsaawi l-2akl > tsaawii(h)
bit7ebbi le-m3allem? - bit7ebbii(h)
maSaari > maSaarii(h)_ (or more commonly _maSriyyaato_ but that's irregular)


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## badde

Which long vowel gets the stress in _tsaawii(h_) and _maSaarii(h_)?

Am I correct in assuming that the general rules of stress are:

1) A long vowel is always stressed
2) If there's no long vowel, a short vowel followed by 2 consonants is stressed
3) I forgot what the rule was when there are 2 (or more) long vowels

I know that you can have stress on the last syllable in Levantine if the vowel it contains is lengthened, which happens here. But does the addition of a suffix move the stress away from the long vowel in the last syllable towards the long vowel in the preceding syllable?

Is this what you mean by "stress shift"?


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## analeeh

Yeah, the stress shifts to the last syllable. The rules are similar to those normally taught in MSA: the last syllable is stressed if it is super-heavy (long vowel followed by consonant or short vowel followed by two consonants) or a lengthened vowel. Otherwise the first heavy syllable (long vowel or short vowel followed by consonant) is stressed from the end is stressed.

There are a couple of exceptions like many form viii verbs - eg byishtighel which is stressed medially in many north Levantine dialects.


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## Languagelearner123456

analeeh said:


> When attached to final vowels _-o_ is realised as vowel lengthening and a stress shift:
> 
> _tsaawi l-2akl > tsaawii(h)
> bit7ebbi le-m3allem? - bit7ebbii(h)
> maSaari > maSaarii(h)_ (or more commonly _maSriyyaato_ but that's irregular)


I'm still confused. What does the h mean?


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## analeeh

It's the variant of _-o_ found after long vowels. It's not pronounced (thus me putting it in brackets), at least by most people.


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