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--- In westasianconlangs@yahoogroups.com, "Isaac Penzev" <isaacp@...> wrote: > I would rather expect a verbal noun (of qa:to:l type) or a participle > (qo:te:l). At least those are the forms borrowed from Arabic to Farsi > (masdars and participles). Farsi has lots of Arabic loans that seem to fit > perfectly into the language system. > > Isaac Thanks for the input! I heard from Dr. Kees Versteegh, and indeed Farsi, Urdu, Turkish and the other Persian and Turkic languages use a do construction combined with the masdar or a participle. As for Nubi Arabic Creole and Juba Arabic, I had originally thought they used the 1st person imperfect (an idea I based on the Nubi verb akulu) but in fact, Dr. Versteegh says they took the Arabic verb from the imperative. In my research I also learned about a language spoken in Madagascar called Kalamo (apparently a mixed language based on Malagasy and Arabic); the forms of the Arabic verbs used in Kalamo appeared to me to be the unmarked form of the Arabic verb, but Dr. Versteegh says it is the imperative. There's an article called "Arabic in Madagascar" that discusses this and other aspects of Kalamo in greater detail and I would *love* to read it, but unfortunately I no longer have access to JSTOR. >_< As for Swahili, I found an example of four verbs taken from Arabic but, alas, I haven't yet decided what forms they are derived from; they are (it's been years since I've deciphered an Arabic verb table): amini - believe, trust haribu - destroy sahau - forget dhani - think Cheers, Eamon