Sarf – Variations of المُضارع

Welcome back to صرف, finally! After a long haul with نحو we are back in the domain of صرف. Insha Allah I will explain some of the variations which can occur with المُضارع (the present and future tense verb) and how the grammatical structure and meaning of the verb will change with these variations.

There are two حرف (particles) which will combine with the المُضارع to change it to a negative verb: لن and لم. Each of these imparts a slightly different meaning to the resulting verb and each of them will cause the original verb to have different endings as well.

1. لن : Adding لن to المُضارع will negate it and will restrict it to the future tense. Remember here that we had earlier said that المُضارع covers both present and future. So now we know how to talk about just about the future! Finally, when لن negates the المُضارع an element of emphasis is added to the negation. Thus, لن یَنصُرَ means he will never help and لن یُنصَرَ means he will never be helped.
2. لم : Adding لم to المُضارع will negate it and will remove all notions of present and future tense from the verb, thus rendering it back into past! This might seem a little odd since we already have the الماضی (past tense) with us and we have already seen that we can negate it by using ما. So why exactly do we need to stick لم in front of المُضارع to construct what we already have? The difference here is rather subtle: If your listeners have no previous knowledge of an event occurring and you want to say that the event did not happen (meaning you are simply informing them of the action not occurring) then you would use ما ; on the other hand if you are speaking to someone who has incorrect knowledge of the event and believes that the event did occur whereas the evenet did not occur then you would use لم. So ما نَصَرَ is simple negation whereas لم ﻳﹶﻨﺼﹸﺮ has the element of rejection in it. One way of putting this is to say that لم is used when arguing with someone.

Rules for Conjugating المُضارع + لن :

1. The 5 conjugations which ended in dhamma will now end in fatha
2. Out of the remaining 9 all except the two feminine plurals will lose their final ن
3. The two feminine plurals will not undergo any change

He will never do	لَنْ يَفْعَلَ
They (2 males) will never do	لَنْ يَفْعَلاَ
They (group of males) will never do	لَنْ يَفْعَلوْا
She will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلَ
She (2 females) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلاَ
She (group of females) will never do	لَنْ يَفْعَلْنَ
You (male) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلَ
You (2 males) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلاَ
You (group of males) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلُوْا
You (female) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلِيْ
You (2 females) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلاَ
You (group of females) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلْنَ
I will never do	لَنْ أَفْعَلَ
We will never do	لَنْ نَفْعَلَ

Rules for Conjugating المُضارع + لم :

1. The 5 conjugations which ended in dhamma will now end in sukun
2. Out of the remaining 9 all except the two feminine plurals will lose their final ن
3. The two feminine plurals will not undergo any change

He did not do	لَمْ يَفْعَلْ
They (2 males) did not do	لَمْ يَفْعَلاَ
They (group of males) did not do	لَمْ يَفْعَلُوْا
She did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلْ
She (2 females) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلاَ
She (group of females) did not do	لَمْ يَفْعَلْنَ
You (male) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلْ
You (2 males) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلاَ
You (group of males) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلُوْا
You (female) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلِيْ
You (2 females) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلاَ
You (group of females) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلْنَ
I did not do	لَمْ أَفْعَلْ
We did not do	لَمْ نَفْعَلْ

Two final points:

1. The passive of the لَنْ construct is built by switching the fatha on the first letter to a dhamma e.g. لَنْ يَفْعَلَ becomes لَنْ يُفْعَلَ , and so on
2. The passive of the لم construct is built by switching the fatha on the first letter to a dhamma e.g. لَمْ يَفْعَلْ becomes لَمْ يُفْعَلْ , and so on