# ـَتِ اْلـ -ati-l- (third-person feminine singular past verb ending)



## hanne

Hi all,

I started learning Arabic some months ago, and only just started on verbs now, so here's what should be a pretty basic question:

The grammar section of my book puts perfect tense, sing. 3rd person fem., as "rakibat" (as does other sources, so I assume that's correct).

Then in the text part of the same book, we get
لَبِسَتِ البِنْتُ ثِيابَها
(I hope I did the typing right, it should read something like "labisati albintu ...")

Why labisati? Why is that kasra there? (There's a similar case on the next line, so I guess it isn't just a typo.)

The only thing I've seen so far that can trigger an -i would be the dative case, but I don't think that can have anything to do with this.

Thanks!


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## AndyRoo

If the verb in the past feminine singular precedes hamzat al-waSl (as is the case here), the sukuun is replaced by a kasra just to make it easier to pronounce.

so it should read: labisati albintu


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## hanne

Ok, that makes sense, thank you very much .


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## Twinings

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
I've been reading children's stories to learn written Arabic, and I've noticed that verbs referring to feminine nouns end in either a kasra or sukun.

Is is there a rule that explains the reasoning behind this?


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## AndyRoo

Hello,

Can you provide more context?


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## abdulwahid

The feminine ت has sukun, but if the first letter in the following word has a sukun then the ت will take a kasrah. 

أكلتْ هِند

أكلتِ البنات


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## Twinings

Take ذهبت for example;

In one case it's:

ذَهَبَتْ الْقِطَّتانِ الى البَقَرَتِ لِتَحْقُمَ بَيْنَهُما

And in another it's:

ذَهَبَتِ الْقِطَّتانِ الى الفَرَسِ لِتَقْسِمَ بَيْنَهُما التُفّاحاتِ


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## abdulwahid

The second one is correct, because the t is followed by a sukun (the laam in the word al-qittatan)


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## Twinings

So the first sentence must be a typo then...


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## AndyRoo

Yes, the first is a typo, because the alif in ال loses its vowel if preceded by another word and you can't have 2 sukoons together (the one on the ت and the one on the ل), so the first sukoon becomes a kasra as a helping vowel.


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## Arabic Guru

That's right, we call it (التقاء الساكنين)
What about هل أكلتِ الطعام؟ and ذهبتْ رَباب إلى المدرسة


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## AndyRoo

Arabic Guru said:


> What about هل أكلتِ الطعام؟ and ذهبتْ رَباب إلى المدرسة



I don't think they contradict what I said, do they?


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## Arabic Guru

والحالة  الوحيدة التي تتحرك فيها (تاء التأنيث) تكون من (السكون) إلى (الكسر) إذا :  جاء بعدها حرف ساكن .. نجحَتِ الطالبةُ .. انكسرَتِ الزجاجةُ .. (التقاء  الساكنين)

The ت in هل أكلتِ الطعام؟ is the subject الفاعل and also refers to feminine. (تاء الفاعل)
The ت in ذهبتْ رباب إلى المدرسة is a تاء التأنيث that refers to feminine, but it's not the subject الفاعل


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## AndyRoo

Arabic Guru said:


> The ت in هل أكلتِ الطعام؟ is the subject الفاعل and also refers to feminine. (تاء الفاعل)
> The ت in ذهبتْ رباب إلى المدرسة is a تاء التأنيث that refers to feminine, but it's not the subject الفاعل



I think when you say _the subject الفاعل _you mean to say the second person الفاعل . If that is the case, ​I agree!


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## Arabic Guru

AndyRoo said:


> I think when you say _the subject الفاعل _you mean to say the second person الفاعل . If that is the case, ​I agree!



Yes


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## abdulwahid

Arabic Guru said:


> والحالة  الوحيدة التي تتحرك فيها (تاء التأنيث) تكون من (السكون) إلى (الكسر) إذا :  جاء بعدها حرف ساكن .. نجحَتِ الطالبةُ .. انكسرَتِ الزجاجةُ .. (التقاء  الساكنين)
> 
> The ت in هل أكلتِ الطعام؟ is the subject الفاعل and also refers to feminine. (تاء الفاعل)
> The ت in ذهبتْ رباب إلى المدرسة is a تاء التأنيث that refers to feminine, but it's not the subject الفاعل



Without context it's not possible to know if هل أكلتِ الطعام is referring to you (did you (f) eat the food?)) or she (dis she eat the food?). In order to avoid ambiguity it's better to put a fatha or a sukun on the laam

هل أكلْتِ الطعام

هل أكلَتِ الطاعم


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## LearningArabic1

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
[To translate this in Arabic : The large new ships arrived in Alexandria from London two days ago]
My only problem was with the verb. I initially thought that the verb had to be feminine singular so I wrote this : وصلت (third person feminine singular-waSalat) but according to my key it's waSalati. What gives ? Can somebody explain me what happened here ? I have the impression it's an error from my key... Thanks


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## elroy

You're both right.  It's وصلت with a kasra, so وصلتِ.


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## LearningArabic1

Ok, so my answer is correct but why would the key be right ? Isn't this in the second person feminine singular ? Can you give more details ? I said : وَصَلَتْ but the key gives وَصَلْتِ. This is different ...


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## analeeh

You wrote that your key says _waSalati_, not _waSalti_.

There is a form _waSalti_, which is feminine singular second person.

There's also a form _waSalat_, which is feminine singular third person. When the _-at_ is followed by a hamzat waSl, it becomes _-at-i_, which is sometimes written on the end of the _-at_. This produces _waSalati_, which is different from _waSalti_.


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## LearningArabic1

Thanks for the answer. Yes, it was my error when writing it! So, from my understanding, both of the forms I wrote in my original post are correct answers ? To be honest, I didn't really enter fully the verbal system yet so I'm not really aware of all these type of details. Not sure why I was supposed to guess this type of stuff at this point but anyway


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## WannaBFluent

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
I have trouble with this sentence:

صُودِرَتِ ٱلصَّنَادِيقُ ٱلآتِيَةُ مِنَ ٱلوِلَايَاتِ ٱلمُتَّحِدَةِ

This is how the sentence is written in the book. Isn't there a mistake on the taškiil of صُودِرَتِ ? It should be صُودِرَتْ right ?


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## elroy

The original is correct.  The kasra is triggered by the following همزة وصل.


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## WannaBFluent

Perfect ! Thanks


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