Arabic Adjective Clause – Arabic adjectives الْمُرَكَّبُ الْوَصْفِيُّ

Adjective Clause – الْمُرَكَّبُ الْوَصْفِيُّ

Introduction –مُقَدِّمَةٌ

• In this lesson we will In-Shā’-Allâh learn the following things:
  • The formation of a new expression called الْمُرَكَّبُ الْوَصْفِيُّ in Arabic (called “The Adjective Clause” in English). The Adjective Clause is an expression formed by two or more words to describe a pronoun.

• A new type of pronoun which shows reference or relation between the nouns. This pronoun is called a Conjunctive pronoun or Relative pronoun in English and الاِسْمُ الْمَوْصُولُ in Arabic. If the pronoun refers to a human being it is to be translated “who” and if it refers to non human beings or an object it is translated as “which (or that)”.

Continued

• In this lesson we will learn the formation of a new clause called الْمُرَكَّبُ الْوَصْفِيُّ in Arabic and “The Adjective Clause” in English, In-Shā’-Allâh (God-Willing).
• In Arabic the adjective (a word describing the noun – e.g. red book, large house etc) is either called “Naξt” نَعْتٌ or “Aŝ-ŝiffah” الصِّفَةُ, and the noun it qualifies is called “Manξūt مَنْعُوتٌ or “Al-mawŝūf” الْمَوْصُوفُ and the clause thus formed is called either النَّعْتُ والْمَنْعُوتُ  or الْمُرَكَّبُ الوَصْفِيُّ . We will also learn the rules for the formation of the Adjective Clause.
• Following are the rules pertained for the formation of the adjective clause:
  • In the English language, when we want to describe a noun we say for example, “Good boy” or “Lazy student” etc. – i.e., the adjective (description) comes before the noun. However in Arabic the word being used for the description (adjective) comes after the noun, e.g.  وَلَدٌ جَيِّدٌ or طَالِبٌ كَسْلانُ if translated linguistically means “Boy good” or “student lazy” but literally it means “Good boy” or “Lazy student”.

• The adjectives that express feelings normally end with (-an) and bear no Tanwīn on their ending letters e.g.:

• The adjective always follows the noun which it is describing in gender.  The adjective of a masculine noun is masculine and that of a feminine noun is feminine .e.g.: we sayوَلَدٌ صَغِيرٌ meaning “A young boy” and بِنْتٌ صَغِيرَةٌ meaning “A young girl”. 

• Both the adjective and the noun are either definite or indefinite. Therefore if the noun is definite, then the adjective which is describing the noun will also be definite e.g.  الْمَكْتَبُ الْقَدِيمُ  meaning “The old table” and when the noun is indefinite the adjective will also be indefinite e.g. كِتَابٌ جَدِيدٌ meaning “A new book”. 

• The adjective also has the same case as the noun i.e., if the noun is in the nominative case, the adjective will also be in the nominative case e.g., الدَّرْسُ الصَّعْبُ meaning “The difficult lesson”, if the noun is in the accusative case then the adjective will also be in the accusative case and if the noun is in the genitive case then the adjective will also be in the genitive case e.g. ذَهَبَ أَحْمَدُ إِلَىٰ صَدِيقٍ مَرِيضٍ Ahmad went to an ill friend.