(tafaʿala) The anti‑causative form in Arabic

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to disentangle the anti‑causative meaning of the verb form (tafaʿala) from other senses that may be confused with it, such as participation, exaggeration, substitution for the simple triliteral, affectation, and illusion. This will be achieved through selected examples from the Qur’anic text and by examining the interpretations of several exegetes. We have concluded that if participation necessarily entails the sharing of the event between the external and internal arguments (i.e., the subject and the object), such that each performs an action upon the other and experiences it simultaneously, then the violation of this condition may shift the verbs of this morphological pattern into the domain of anti‑causativity. Exaggeration, however, requires that the form (tafaʿala) correspond to the meaning of its triliteral root; otherwise, it is interpreted as substitution for the simple triliteral. As for affectation, it does not occur in praiseworthy attributes, and we have classified it together with illusion under what is referred to in some generative literature as morphological reflexivity, whereby the verb reflects the state or condition of the subject without necessarily implying participation or exaggeration.