Chapter 2: Word order

Water > Taste > An Introduction to Lebanese > Chapter 2: Word order

Here are a few common sentence structures found in English. You'll see that they are quite simple to restructure in Lebanese.

a. Pronoun subject + verb
She phoned: Talfanet.

When the subject of the verb is a pronoun in English, the Lebanese equivalent is the verb alone. Verbs contain all the information a pronoun provides, thus making the pronouns redundant as subjects. We only use them for emphasis, or in an idiomatic way; in this case it matters little whether you place it before or after the verb (talfanet hye / hye talfanet: "as for her, she phoned"). The difference in meaning that this creates is really subtle and doesn't significantly affect the meaning, so don't sweat it.

b. Noun subject + verb
Lana left: Taraket Lana.

The verb comes before the subject. Inverting this order creates emphasis (Lana taraket: "As for Lana, she left."), but it can also betray the imperfect speaker.
Even though the verb precedes the subject as a general rule, I notice that very short sentences like the one I used as an example are usually inverted, i.e we'd lean more towards saying "Lana taraket". The reason for this, I believe, is that "Taraket Lana" can be understood in two ways depending on context: "Lana left" or "She left Lana". That's because, as pointed out in the first structure, the verb itself can stand alone and be understood to contain its own subject. As the verb "to leave" is transitive (meaning it can take an object), and a verb's object comes after it just like the subject, we can't be sure out of context that Lana is a subject and not an object. So to avoid ambiguity we stick Lana before the verb where it can ONLY be a subject.

c. Subject + verb + object
Johnny ate the apple: Akal Johnny l-teffé7

The order is: verb – subject – object, as a general rule. If the subject was a pronoun, it would simply be: verb (containing subject) – object.

When the object is also a proper name, this no longer works and we use the same order as English:
Huda touched Rami: Huda da'aret Rami

d. Subject + verb + object + to + complement
Huda sent the book to Rami: ba3atet Huda l-ktéb la-Rami

The order is: verb – subject – object – la – complement, where la is "to". As you can see, nothing changes in the structure we have already learned – all that's happening is that we're adding extra stuff at the end.

Were we dealing with pronouns however, we would have some changes to make. Assume I want to say: Huda sent him the book
The full form would be: Ba3atet Huda l-ktéb la-elo, where "elo" means "him" in this sentence. This is rather heavy to say though, and only children that are still struggling with language skills might use it. What we say is the following: Ba3atetlo Huda l-ktéb.
What happened? The complement disappeared, but a –lo suffix appeared at the end of the verb. -lo is a contraction of la-elo that is attached to the verb, a little like what happens in English: Huda sent him the book.

What if Huda was replaced by a pronoun as well? Then we'd simply eliminate the noun Huda from the Lebanese sentence, as "she" is already implied in the verb: Ba3atetlo l-ktéb ("She sent him the book")

e. Subject 1 – and – subject 2 – verb – complement
Carol and I went to the beach: Ana w-Carol re7na 3al-ba7r.

You may have noticed that Carol ended up in second place: that's because in Lebanese, unlike in English, it is incorrect to say "X and I". The first person is always mentioned first. Otherwise the sentence structure is nothing we haven't seen already: Subject 2 – w – subject 1 – verb – complement, where w is "and".

f. Subject + verb + object + relative sentence
Mirna saw the boy that took her things: Shéfit Mirna l-sabe yalle akhadla ghráda.

Yalle is our relative pronoun, and what comes after it is simply ordered like a new sentence, but without a subject as the latter is stated in the main clause already.

Exercise

Rearrange the following English sentences with a Lebanese order. No translation is necessary at this point, but insert w or yalle if appropriate, and eliminate pronouns that you think would be implied in the verb.

1. Mark went to the market.

2. I caught the bird.

3. It rained.

4. I found the cat that escaped.

5. The teacher sent me my homework.

6. Lina and Kim followed their mother.

7. Janna hit the ball.

8. The man who had called yesterday returned.

See solutions

Chapter 3: The Noun