Articles – الْحُرُوفُ
- All articles In Arabic are indeclinable without any exception.
- We cannot study all the Arabic articles in one lesson; rather we will learn each type of article in its own grammatical topic and lesson. Here we will gain a general idea about how they are indeclinable.
- There is no rule for the vowel ending on which the article is indeclinable (some of them are indeclinable on fatħah, others on sukūn, others on long vowel, etc.) Therefore you have to memorize the vowel ending of each new article you learn. The following table contains some examples of each type of article and their sign of indeclension:
|
Category |
Sign of indeclension |
Meaning |
Article |
|
Preposition حَرْفُ جَرٍّ |
Sukūn |
From |
مِنْ |
|
Sukūn |
About |
عَنْ |
|
|
Sukūn of long vowel |
To |
إلَى |
|
|
Sukūn of long vowel |
On |
عَلَى |
|
|
Sukūn of long vowel |
In |
فِي |
|
|
Kasrah |
With |
بِـ |
|
|
Kasrah |
For |
لِـ |
|
|
Coordinating articles حَرْفُ عَطْفٍ |
Fatħah |
And |
وَ |
|
Sukun |
Or |
أَوْ |
|
|
Sukun |
Rather, but |
بَلْ |
|
|
Sukun |
But |
لَكِنْ |
|
|
Annular article (sisters of /inna/) حَرْفٌ نَاسِخٌ |
Fatħah |
Indeed |
إنَّ |
|
Fatħah |
If only! (Would that!) |
لَيتَ |
|
|
Fatħah |
But |
لَكِنَّ |
|
|
Fatħah |
I hope (it is hoped) |
لَعَلَّ |
|
|
Interrogative Article حَرْفُ اسْتِفْهَامٍ |
Sukun |
Is…? |
هَلْ؟ |
|
Fatħah |
Is…? |
أَ؟ |
|
|
Conditional article حَرْفُ شَرْطٍ |
Sukūn |
If |
لَوْ |
|
Sukūn |
If |
إنْ |
|
|
Accusative article حَرْفُ نَصْبٍ |
Sukūn |
To |
أَنْ |
|
Sukūn |
Will not |
لَنْ |
|
|
Jussive article حَرْفُ جَزْمٍ |
Sukūn |
Did not |
لَمْ |
|
Answering article حَرْفُ جَوَابٍ |
Sukūn |
Yes |
نَعَمْ |
|
Negating article حرْفُ نَفْيٍ |
Sukūn of long vowel |
No |
لا |
- N.B.: Exceptionally, the vowel ending of some articles may change when followed by a sukūn on the first letter of the following word as in the following examples:
|
Note |
Example |
|
|
English |
Arabic |
|
|
The vowel ending of /minn/ is changed from sukūn into fatħah, because the following sound is sukūn |
From home |
مِنَ الْبَيْتِ |
|
The vowel ending of /ξann/ is changed from sukūn into kasrah, because the following sound is sukūn |
About the moon |
عَنِ الْقَمَرِ |
|
The vowel ending of /Aw/ is changed from sukūn into kasrah, because the following sound is sukūn |
The night or the day |
اللَّيلُ أَوِالنَّهارُ |
|
The vowel ending of /hal/ is changed from sukūn into kasrah, because the following sound is sukūn |
Is the square far? |
هَلِ الْمَيْدَانُ بَعِيدٌ؟ |
- In the above mentioned examples the articles are indeclinable with virtual signs which were found on the single article before the structure and the vowel ending is changed (for phonetic reasons).