Breakdown of ألقى الوزير خطابا طويلا.
الal
the
طويلtawîl
tall / long
وزيرwazîrun
minister
ألقىalqâ
to deliver / to cast (a look, a glance)
خطابkhitâb
speech
Questions & Answers about ألقى الوزير خطابا طويلا.
Why does the verb ألقى end with the letter ى (Alif Maqsurah) instead of a tall Alif (ا)?
ألقى is a defective verb, meaning its root has a weak letter at the end. When a past tense verb ends in an 'aa' sound, it is written with an Alif Maqsurah (ى) if the original weak root letter was a Ya. The root of this verb is ل ق ي.
If ألقى means 'he delivered', how would I conjugate it to say 'I delivered'?
When you conjugate a defective verb ending in ى for 'I' or 'you' in the past tense, the hidden original letter reappears! You change the ى back to a regular Ya (ي) and add the pronoun ending. So, 'I delivered' becomes ألقيت (alqaytu).
I learned that ألقى means 'to throw'. Why is it translated as 'delivered' here?
While ألقى literally means 'to throw', it is the standard verb used in Arabic alongside خطابا (a speech) or كلمة (a word/address) to mean 'delivering' a speech. You can think of it as 'throwing' your words out to the audience.
Why do the words خطابا and طويلا both have an extra Alif (ا) added to the end?
The extra Alif acts as a carrier for the 'an' sound (Tanwin Fatha). This 'an' ending marks خطابا as the direct object, meaning it is the thing being delivered. Because طويلا is an adjective describing the speech, it must copy the noun's grammar case, so it also takes the 'an' ending and its extra Alif.
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