Arabic grammar
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Arabic is a Semitic language. See Arabic language for more information on the language in general. This article describes the grammar of Classical Arabic.
Contents |
[edit] History
Due to the rapid expansion of Islam in the 8th century, many people learned Arabic as a lingua franca. For this reason, the earliest grammatical treatises on Arabic are often written by non-native speakers. The earliest grammarian who is known to us is ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Isḥāq (died AD 735/6, AH 117). The efforts of three generations of grammarians culminated in the book of the Persian scholar Sibāwayhi (ca. 760–793).
Traditionally, the grammatical sciences are divided into five branches:
- al-luġah (lexicon) concerned with collecting and explaining vocabulary
- at-taṣrīf (morphology) determining the form of the individual words
- an-naḥw (syntax) primarily concerned with inflection (iʿrab) which had already been lost in dialects.
- al-ištiqāq (derivation) examining the origin of the words
- al-balāġah (rhetoric) which elucidates construct quality
[edit] Phonology
Classical Arabic has 28 consonantal phonemes (including two semi-vowels), originally corresponding to the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. (By Qur'anic times, however, the letter alif no longer represented a glottal stop, but a long [a:]. As a result, a diacritic symbol, hamza, was introduced to represent this sound. In addition, some of these phonemes have coalesced in the various modern dialects, while new phonemes have been introduced through borrowing or phonemic splits.) Arabic has six vowel phonemes (three short vowels and three long vowels); they appear as various allophones, depending on the preceding consonant. Short vowels are not usually represented in written language, although they may be indicated with diacritics. (See: Arabic alphabet.)
List of phonemes as transliterated in this article (in DIN 31635, see also Romanization of Arabic):
- 26 consonants: ʾ b t ṯ ǧ ḥ ḫ d ḏ r z s š ṣ ḍ ṭ ẓ ʿ ġ f q k l m n h
- 2 semi-vowels: w y
- 6 vowels: a ā i ī u ū
Note that Arabic is particularly rich in uvular, pharyngeal, and pharyngealized ("emphatic") sounds. The emphatic sounds are generally considered to be ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, and ẓ. (Sometimes q is wrongly included — wrongly, because only the four emphatics, and not q, cause assimilation of emphasis to an adjacent non-emphatic consonant.)
It is generally believed that Classical Arabic phonology is extremely conservative, and is close to that of Proto-Semitic; only the South Arabian languages are more conservative in their phonology. The six vowels are inherited without change from Proto-Semitic, and of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost (/ʃ/, with merged with /s/). In addition, various sounds have been changed. An original lateral fricative /ɬ/ became /ʃ/, restoring a previously lost sound. Another complex lateral sound, /ɮˁ/ (voiced pharyngealized lateral fricative), became /ðˁ/ (later /dˁ/, in urban dialects) with loss of the lateral sound, although the original sound appears to have still existed at the time of the Qur'an. (Hence the Classical appellation 'luġatu l-ḍād' or "language of the ḍād" for Arabic, where 'ḍād' is the letter corresponding to this sound, which was considered by Arabs to be the most unusual sound in Arabic.) An original /p/ became /f/, and /ɡ/ became palatalized /ɡʲ/ at the time of the Qur'an, and /ʤ/ in the standard modern pronunciation of Classical Arabic. (The dialects variously have /ʤ/ (Arabian Peninsula), /ɡ/ (Cairo), /ʒ/ (North Africa), /j/ (Persian Gulf area), and original /ɡʲ/ (a few isolated pockets here and there).) Other changes may have occurred as well, especially in the emphatic consonants, depending on how Proto-Semitic is reconstructed.
The syllable structure of Arabic is such that there may be clusters of two, but not of three consecutive consonants. A cluster of two consonants at the beginning of an utterance will be preceded by an auxiliary vowel (alif al-waṣl).
[edit] Noun
[edit] State
Nouns (and their modifying adjectives) are either definite or indefinite (there is an article for the definite state only). A noun is definite if it has the definite article prefix (al-), if it has a suffixed pronoun (kalbu-ha l-kabīr "her big dog"), if it is inherently definite by being a proper noun (Miṣru l-qadīmah, "old Cairo"), or if it is in a genitive construction (Iḍāfa) with a definite noun or nouns (bintu l-maliki, "the daughter of the king").
[edit] Article
The article (adātu-t-taʿrīf) al- is indeclinable and expresses definite state of a noun of any gender and number. It is also prefixed to each of that noun's modifying adjectives. The initial vowel (hamzatu-l-waṣl), is volatile in the sense that it disappears in sandhi, the article becoming mere -l- (although the alif is retained in orthography in any case for clarity).
Also, the l is assimilated to a number of consonants (dentals and sibilants), so that in these cases, the article in pronunciation is expressed only by geminating the initial consonant of the noun (while in orthography, the writing alif lam is retained, and the gemination may be expressed by putting šadda on the following letter).
The consonants causing assimilation (trivially including l) are: t, ṯ, d, ḏ, r, z, s, š, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, l, n. These 14 letters are called 'solar letters' (ḥuruf šamsiyyat), while the remaining 14 are called 'lunar letters' (ḥuruf qamariyyat). The solar letters all have in common that they are dental, alveolar and postalveolar consonants in the classical language, and the lunar consonants are not. (ج ǧīm is pronounced postalveolar in most varieties of Arabic today, but was actually a palatalized voiced velar plosive in the classical language, and is thus considered a lunar letter.)
[edit] Inflection
Arabic has three grammatical cases roughly corresponding to: nominative, genitive and accusative, and three numbers: singular, dual and plural. Normally, nouns take the ending -u(n) in the nominative, -i(n) in the genitive and -a(n) in the accusative. However, with important exceptions, case is not shown in standard orthography, and it is optional whether to articulate a case ending when speaking or reading aloud. Technically, every noun has such an ending, although at the end of a sentence, no inflection is pronounced, even in formal speech, because of the rules of 'pause'.
The plural of a noun is formed by a suffix in some cases (sound plurals), but frequently, the vowel structure of a word is changed to form the plural (broken plurals). There are a number of patterns of how this is done. Some singular nouns take several plurals. The plurals of nouns representing humans usually use sound plurals. Masculine sound plurals take the forms "-ūn" in the nominative and "-īn" in the genitive and accusative. In the feminine, the ending is "-āt" and is limited in its declension to two forms; one for the nominative and another for both other cases. For example, "-ātun" and "-ātin" are possible, but not "-ātan". This pattern can also be used with for plurals of non-human nouns.
[edit] Gender
Arabic has two genders, expressed by pronominal, verbal and adjectival agreement. Agreement with numerals shows a peculiar 'polarity', c.f. the section on numerals.
The genders are usually referred to as masculine and feminine, but the situation is more complicated than that. The 'feminine' singular forms are also used to express 'singulatives', which are singulars of collective nouns meaning irrationals of both grammatical genders.
The marker for the feminine gender is a -t- suffix, but some nouns without this marker also take feminine agreement (e.g. ʾumm 'mother', ʾarḍ 'earth'). Already in Classical Arabic, the -t marker was not pronounced in pausa. It is written with a special letter (ta marbuta) indicating that a t sound is to be pronounced in sandhi, but not in pausa.
[edit] Genitive construction (Iḍāfa)
A noun may be defined more closely by a subsequent noun in the genitive. The relation is hierarchical; the first term (al-muḍāf) governs the second term (al-muḍāf ilayhi). E. g. baytu raǧulin 'the house of a man', 'a man's house'. The construction as a whole represents a nominal phrase, the state of which is inherited from the state of the second term. The first term must "be in construct state", namely, it cannot carry the definite article nor the tanween. Genitive constructions of multiple terms are possible. In this case, all but the final term take construct state, and all but the first member take genitive case.
This construction is typical for a Semitic language. In many cases the two members become a fixed coined phrase, the iḍāfa being used as the equivalent of nominal composition in some Indo-European languages (which does not exist in Semitic). baytu-ṭ-ṭalabati thus may mean either 'house of the (certain, known) students' or 'the student hostel'.
[edit] Nisba
The Nisba (an-nisbatu) is a common suffix to form adjectives of relation or pertinence. The suffix is -iyy- for masculine and -iyyat- for feminine gender (in other words, it is -iyy- and is inserted before the gender marker). E. g. lubnānu 'Lebanon', lubnāniyyun 'Lebanese'.
A construction noun + nisba-adjective is often equivalent to nominal composition in English and other languages (solar cell is equivalent to sun cell).
[edit] Pronoun
A pronominal paradigm consists of 12 forms: In singular and plural, the 2nd and 3rd persons differentiate gender, while the 1st person does not. In the dual, there is no 1st person, and only a single form for each 2nd and 3rd person. Traditionally, the pronouns are listed in order 3rd, 2nd, 1st.
[edit] Personal pronouns
| Person | Singular | Plural | Dual |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3rd (m) | huwa | hum | humā |
| 3rd (f) | hiya | hunna | " |
| 2nd (m) | anta | antum | antumā |
| 2nd (f) | anti | antunna | " |
| 1st | ana | naḥnu | (n/a) |
[edit] Enclitic pronouns
Enclitic forms of the pronoun (aḍ-ḍamāʾiru al-muttaṣilatu) may be affixed to nouns (representing genitive case, i. e. possession) and to verbs (representing accusative, i. e. a direct object). Most of them are clearly related to the full personal pronouns. They are identical in form in both cases, except for the 1st person singular, which is -ī after nouns (genitive) and -nī after verbs (accusative).
| Person | Singular | Plural | Dual |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3rd (m) | -hu | -hum | -humā |
| 3rd (f) | -hā | -hunna | " |
| 2nd (m) | -ka | -kum | -kumā |
| 2nd (f) | -ki | -kunna | " |
| 1st | -(n)ī/-ya | -nā | (n/a) |
[edit] Demonstratives
There are two demonstratives (asmāʾu al-ʾišārati), near-deictic ('this') and far-deictic ('that'):
- hādha, f. hādhihi, pl. hāʾulāʾi 'this, these'
- dhālika, f. tilka, pl. ʾulāʾika 'that, those'
[edit] Numerals
[edit] Cardinal numerals
Cardinal numerals (al-aʿdād al-aṣliyyatu) from 1-10 (zero is ṣifr, from which the English words "cipher" and "zero" are ultimately derived)
- 1 waḥidun
- 2 iṯnānu
- 3 ṯalāṯatu
- 4 arbaʿatu
- 5 ḫamsatu
- 6 sittatu
- 7 sabʿatu
- 8 ṯamāniyatu
- 9 tisʿatu
- 10 ʿašaratu
The numerals 1 and 2 are adjectives; 3-10 are diptotes (the ending -(t)u is dropped in oral usage).
Numerals 3-10 have a peculiar rule of agreement known as polarity: A feminine referrer agrees with a numeral in masculine gender and vice versa, e.g. ṯalāṯu fatayātin 'three girls'.
Numerals 11-19 are indeclinable, and they show gender agreement (not polarity). The noun counted takes accusative singular.
- 11 aḥada ʿašara
- 12 iṯnā ʿašara
- 13 ṯalāṯata ʿašara
The numerals 20-99 are followed by a noun in the accusative singular as well. There is agreement in gender with the numerals 1 and 2, and polarity for numerals 3-9.
- 20 ʿišrūna (dual of '10')
- 21 aḥadun wa ʿišrūna
- 22 iṯnāni wa ʿišrūna
- 23 ṯalāṯatu wa ʿišrūna
- 30 ṯalāṯūna
- 40 arbaʿūna
Whole hundreds, thousands etc. appear as first terms of genitive constructions, e.g. alfu laylati wa laylatu '1001 nights'.
- 100 miʾatu
- 1000 alfu
Fractions of a whole smaller than "half" are expressed by the structure sg. fuʿl, pl. afʿāl.
- niṣfun "half"
- ṯulṯun "one third"
- ṯulṯāni "two thirds"
- rubʿun "one quarter"
- ṯalaṯatu arbāʿin "three quarters"
etc.
[edit] Ordinal numerals
Ordinal numerals (al-aʿdād at-tartiyabiyyat) higher than "first" are formed using the structure fāʿilun, fāʿilatun:
- m. awwalu, f. ūlā "first"
- m. ṯānin, f. ṯāniyat "second"
- m. ṯāliṯun, f. ṯāliṯatun "third"
- m. rābiʿun, f. rābiʿatun "fourth"
etc.
They are adjectives, hence, there is agreement in gender with the noun, not polarity as with the cardinal numbers.
[edit] Verb
As in many other Semitic languages, Arabic verb formation is based on a (usually) triconsonantal root, which is not a word in itself but contains the semantic core. The consonants k-t-b, for example, indicate 'write', q-r-ʾ indicate 'read', ʾ-k-l indicate 'eat' etc.; Words are formed by supplying the root with a vowel structure and with affixes. Traditionally, Arabic grammarians have used the root f-ʿ-l 'do' as a template to discuss word formation. The personal forms a verb can take correspond to the forms of the pronouns, except that in the 3rd person dual, gender is differentiated, yielding paradigms of 13 forms.
[edit] Prefixes and suffixes
In Arabic, the grammatical person and number as well as the mood is designated by a variety of prefixes and suffixes. Most Arabic verbs are regular and follow the pattern detailed below.
NOTE:The Arabic example below is the Arabic verb kataba (كتب), "to write". Only the prefixes and suffixes of the verb have been vocalised, the vocalisation of the stems (كَتَب for the past and كْتُب for the present) has been omitted for reasons of legibility.
| Prefixes and suffixes of the Arabic verb | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Past | Present | Subjunctive and Jussive | |
| Singular | |||
| 3rd (m.) | STEM-a | ya-STEM | no written change |
| كتبَ | يَكتب | ||
| 3rd (f.) | STEM-at | ta-STEM | no written change |
| كتبَتْ | تَكتب | ||
| 2nd (m.) | STEM-ta | ta-STEM | no written change |
| كتبْتَ | تَكتب | ||
| 2nd (f.) | STEM-ti | ta-STEM-īna | ta-STEM-ī |
| كتبْتِ | تَكتبِينَ | تَكتبِي | |
| 1st | STEM-tu | a-STEM | no written change |
| كتبْتُ | َأكتب | ||
| Dual | |||
| 3rd (m.) | STEM-ā | ya-STEM-āni | ya-STEM-ā |
| كتبَا | يَكتبَانِ | يَكتبَا | |
| 3rd (f.) | STEM-atā | ta-STEM-āni | ta-STEM-ā |
| كتبَتَا | تَكتبَانِ | تَكتبَا | |
| 2nd (m. & f.) | STEM-tumā | ta-STEM-āni | ta-STEM-ā |
| كتبْتُمَا | تَكتبَانِ | تَكتبَا | |
| Plural | |||
| 3rd (m.) | STEM-ū | ya-STEM-ūna | ya-STEM-ū |
| كتبُوا | يَكتبُونَ | يَكتبُوا | |
| 3rd (f.) | STEM-na | ya-STEM-na | no written change |
| كتبْنَ | يَكتبْنَ | ||
| 2nd (m.) | STEM-tum | ta-STEM-ūna | ta-STEM-ū |
| كتبْتُم | تَكتبُونَ | تَكتبُوا | |
| 2nd (f.) | STEM-tunna | ya-STEM-na | no written change |
| كتبْتُنَّ | يَكتبْنَ | ||
| 1st | STEM-nā | na-STEM | no written change |
| كتبْنَا | نَكتب | ||
[edit] Perfect
In the perfect form, the perfect stem faʿal is affixed with a personal ending, e. g. kataba 'he wrote', qaraʾa 'he read'. The perfect expresses a completed action, i.e. mostly past tense.
| Person | Singular | Plural | Dual |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3rd (m) | faʿal-a | faʿal-ū | faʿal-ā |
| 3rd (f) | faʿal-at | faʿal-na | faʿal-atā |
| 2nd (m) | faʿal-ta | faʿal-tum | faʿal-tumā |
| 2nd (f) | faʿal-ti | faʿal-tunna | -- |
| 1st | faʿal-tu | faʿal-nā | (n/a) |
[edit] Imperfect
The imperfect expresses an action in progress, i.e. mostly present tense. There are several vowel patterns (a-a, a-u,a-i) the root can take. The root takes a prefix as well as a suffix to build the verb form. E. g. yaktubu 'he is writing'. Note the co-incidence of 3rd f. sg. and 2nd m. sg.
| Person | Singular | Plural | Dual |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3rd (m) | yaf-ʿa-lu | yaf-ʿa-lū-na | yaf-ʿa-lā-ni |
| 3rd (f) | taf-ʿa-lu | yaf-ʿal-na | taf-ʿa-lā-ni |
| 2nd (m) | taf-ʿa-lu | taf-ʿa-lū-na | taf-ʿa-lā-ni |
| 2nd (f) | taf-ʿa-lī-na | taf-ʿal-na | -- |
| 1st | af-ʿa-lu | naf-ʿa-lu | (n/a) |
[edit] Mood
From the imperfect stem, modal forms can be derived: the subjunctive by (roughly speaking) replacing the final vowel by a, the jussive by dropping this a of the subjunctive, and the imperative (only 2nd person) also by dropping the verbal prefix.
The subjunctive is used in subordinate clauses after certain conjunctions. The jussive is used in negation, in negative imperatives, and in the hortative li+jussive. For example: 2. sg. m.:
- imperfect indicative tafʿalu 'you are doing'
- subjunctive an tafʿala 'that you do'
- jussive lā tafʿal 'do not!'
- imperative ifʿal 'do!'.
[edit] Voice
Arabic has two verbal voices, active and passive. The passive voice is expressed by a change in vocalization and is normally not expressed in unvocalized writing. For example:
- active faʿala 'he did', yafʿalu 'he is doing' فَعَلَ
- passive fuʿila 'it was done', yufʿalu 'it is being done' فُعِلَ
[edit] Weak verbs
Roots containing one or two of the radicals w (wāw), y (yā) or ʾ (hamza) are subject to special phonological rules because these radicals can be influenced by their surroundings. Such verbs are called 'weak' (verba infirmae, 'verbs of weak [radical]) and their paradigms must be given special attention. In the case of hamza, these peculiarities are mainly orthographical, since hamza is not subject to elision (the orthography of hamza and alif is unsystematic due to confusion in early Islamic times). According to the position of the weak radical in the root, these verbs are called primae infirmae, mediae infirmae or tertiae infirmae. Another special class of roots are such that their second and third radicals are identical. These roots are called mediae geminatae.
[edit] Stem formation
"Derived" verbs are those which do not have just three consonants in the perfect tense, namely, all verbs unless the primary verbs (those like kataba). As for instance, verbs such as kattaba, kātaba, inkataba, takattaba are called "derived" verbs. Semantically, we would like to be able to say that the meaning of the "derived" verbs somehow "derives" from the meaning of the primary, by operations like the intensive, reflexive, and causative, but in fact the actual meaning of all verbs is unpredictable and needs to be recorded in the lexicon. Classical Arabic has a great number of derived stems, not all of which are still in use. For the modern language, it is mostly sufficient to consider stems I-VIII and X, plus IX for verbs meaning "whiten", "blacken", "yellowen" and so on.
| Sound verbs <ref>In 'sound' verbs, the root consonants (radicals) appear unchanged in inflected forms; verbs which are not sound are called 'weak', and either have hamza (ﺀ), wāw (و), or yāʾ (ي) as one of their radicals, or have the same radical in the middle and final position.</ref> | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active voice | Passive voice | |||||
| Past (3rd sg. masc.) | Present (3rd sg. masc.) | Past (3rd sg. masc.) | Present (3rd sg. masc.) | |||
| I | faʿal-a | ya-fʿal-u | fuʿil-a | yu-fʿal-u | ||
| II | faʿʿal-a | yu-faʿʿil-u | fuʿʿil-a | yu-faʿʿal-u | ||
| III | fāʿala | yufāʿilu | fūʿila | yufāʿalu | ||
| IV | ʾafʿala | yufʿilu | ʾufʿila | yufʿalu | ||
| V | tafaʿʿala | yatafaʿʿalu | tufuʿʿila | yutafaʿʿalu | ||
| VI | tafāʿala | yatafāʿalu | tufūʿila | yutafāʿalu | ||
| VII | infaʿala | yanfaʿilu | n/a | |||
| VIII | iftaʿala | yaftaʿilu | uftiʿila | yuftaʿalu | ||
| X | istafʿala | yastafʿilu | ustufʿila | yustafʿalu | ||
The exact vocalisation will be dependent on the word form.
Common uses of those stems include:
- faʿʿala is often used to make an intransitive verb transitive. Eg: karuma is "be noble" but karrama is "make (someone) to be noble", or, more idiomatically, to "honor".
- infaʿala to give a passive meaning. Eg: kasara "break" and inkasara "be broken".
[edit] Participle
The Arabic participle is a verbal noun formed from one of the derived verbal stems. E.g. muʿallimun 'teacher' is the active participle to stem II. of the root ʿ-l-m ('know').
- The active participle to Stem I is fāʿilun, and the passive participle is mafʿūlun.
- Stems II-X take prefix mu- and nominal endings for both the participles, active and passive. The difference between the two participles is only in the vowel between the last two root letters, which is -i- for active and -a- for passive (e.g. II. active mu-faʿʿil-un, and passive mu-faʿʿal-un').
[edit] Infinitive
There is a second type of verbal noun besides the participle that is referred to as 'infinitive' because it often translates to infinitive constructions in Indo-European languages. It is strictly speaking not an infinitive, it would be more correct to speak of "verbal noun I" and "verbal noun II", but the name infinitive is too widespread to abandon it. It is popularly referred to as "masdar".
- infinitive formation to stem I is irregular.
- the infinitive to stem II is tafʿīlun. For example: taʾrīḫun 'date, history' is the infinitive to stem II. of ʾ-r-ḫ ('date').
- stem III often forms its infinitive with the feminine form of the passive participle, so for sāʿada, "he helped", produces the infinitive musāʿadatun. There are also some infinitives of the form fiʿālun: jāhada, "he strove", yields jihādun.
- the following are the infinitives of the remaining common derived stems: IV, afʿala, ifʿālun; V, tafaʿʿala, tafaʿʿulun; VI, tafāʿala, tafāʿulun; VII, infaʿala, infiʿālun; VIII, iftaʿala, iftiʿālun; X, istafʿala, istifʿālun
[edit] Syntax
In Arabic, word order is less important than in English, and more stylistic than semantic. Verbs often start sentences and sometimes come after the subject.
- <Verb><Subject><Object>
- <Subject><Verb><Object>
The first one is classified as the default word order. The second one is used when putting greater attention to the subject, this usually happens when the answer to the question is the subject. It is often claimed that in the several vernaculars the default word order is <Subject><Verb><Object>, a claim which is very difficult to disprove because one can just dismiss all VSO sentences spoken by a native as being "non-default". Unlike in English, subject pronouns need not be used (the conjugation already indicates which pronoun would be said, though there is some ambiguity). Subject pronouns may be included for emphasis (e.g. 'ana aqtulu ar-rajula; "I kill the man")
Auxiliary verbs always go before main verbs just like in English.
Adjectives or nouns acting as adjectives go after the nouns they modify, and carry the definite article if the noun is definite. For example: "many tasty dishes" could be constructed like "dishes many tasty", however, "the many tasty dishes" is constructed like "the dishes the many the tasty." Another, simpler example would be: "the girl the beautiful," which is equivalent to "the beautiful girl." Thus, the general rule is that, when the noun is definite, the adjective (which always follows the noun) must be definite also; same for genitive pronouns.
Accusative (Object) pronouns are suffixed to the verb, and are written as part of the conjugated verb form. For instance, "I see her" in Arabic is written ´araahaa, as one word. If the same were done in English "I see her" would instead be "Iseeher", but in fact in English the object pronouns are of course written as separate words.
Case Endings differentiate the doer of the action (u, or un), the object of the action (a, or an), the object of a preposition or genetive/possessive (i or in). For Dative there is no ending instead, there is a preposition "li" which becomes "la" when a preposition is affixed example li+hu=> "lahū" and li +al=> lil- .
"inna" is a word that often starts sentences and any word right after it takes the accusative case. It has "sisters", that act in the same way. In modern Arabic, "inna" is mostly dispensed with in translations, but in religious and older texts one translates it with the ugly English archaic term "verily". E.g. "Innaka anta jamîlun." - "Verily, thou art beautiful." A simpler example would be "Inna s-samaa´a zarqaa´a", = how blue the sky is; in a religious context this would be translated by something like "verily the sky is blue", but in modern translations we can settle for a plain "the sky is blue".
In Arabic, a word is classified as either a noun (ism), a verb (fiʿl), or anything else (ḥarf). Adverbials are expressed with nominal forms. Repetitive use of the same root in verb and noun in a sentence is considered good style, especially with derived forms of the same verb. Such as the root " `alm " which in Form I is " `alama " meaning "to know" but in form II " `allama " with the middle radical(letter) doubled, changing the meaning to "to teach". Also considered good form is constructing a long sentence joined together with connectors (Adawaat al RabT) which are like conjunctions which allow for many clauses to run on and on in the same sentence.
- For example: qara’a al-kitāba qirā’atan baṭīʾatan, literally: "he read the book a slow reading", i.e., "He read the book slowly". This type of construction is known as the "absolute accusative."
- The Masdar, verbal nouns which are irregular for Form I and regular for all other forms. It functions sometimes like an infinitive and sometimes like the noun which encompasses the concept of the verb.
- Active and Passive partiples, called Ism Fa`l or Ism Maf`ūl after the pattern into which the roots are put, function sometimes like adjectives, sometimes present partiples, and sometimes like nouns such as "Doer" and "Doneto". So: kātib is "writer" and maktūb is "written".
There are many types of sentences:
- the nominal sentence, consisting of a subject then a predicate (al-bayt kabir - "the house big" viz., "the house is big")
- the verbal sentence, which usually follows the VSO pattern (yafhamu aiman al-muh.ad.arat => Ayman understands the lecture);
- the amma... fa-sentence
[edit] Notes
[edit] See also
- Al-
- Arabic language
- Varieties of Arabic
- Arabic alphabet
- Romanization of Arabic
- Elative
- WikiBook: Learn Arabic
