Arabic The Interrogation الاسْتِفْهَامُ

The Interrogation – الاسْتِفْهَامُ

• In this part of lesson 4 we will learn about the formation of the interrogative (questioning) expressions, In-Shā’-Allâh (God-Willing).
• We know that “Interrogative expression” is the term used to refer to a group of words which are used to ask a question (e.g. Where is the book? What is on the book? Is the key on the book? Who is on the rock? etc are all interrogative expressions and the words which are used to ask a question are called the “Interrogative Articles” which we cover below:

• Take a look of the following examples of interrogative expressions:

• The following are the rules governed for the use of the interrogative articles (i.e. words used for asking questions such as where?, what? etc.):
• When an interrogative article comes before a noun, it will take the nominative case – i.e. the last letter will be changed to a /đammah/ (if it is not already a /đammah/).

• A definite noun preceded by an interrogative article will take one /đammah/ and the indefinite noun will take two /đammahs/).
• However when a preposition is preceded by an interrogative article, it will not take the nominative case and its last letter will remain with the same ending sound. This is because the preposition is indeclinable meaning it does not change its ending – this is an important principle – we will learn in Arabic that some rules take precedence (priority over other rules).
• Please take a careful look to the ending vowels of the nouns in both the interrogative (questioning) sentences and the answering expressions in the text below.  

Please click on the words to hear speech, i.e. how the words should be pronounced.

• In the next part of the lesson we will have multiple questions /In-Shā’-Allâh/ (God-Willing) to test your understanding of the principles we have learnt so far.