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11. The Definite Article in Arabic
11. The Definite Article in Arabic. A noun or adjective is made definite by prefixing (الـ) to it.
a. an old house بيتٌ قديمٌ
b. the old house البيتُ قديمٌ
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12. The Arabic Morphology. At a very early date, the Arab grammarians invented a notation for the morphological patterns التصريف , which represented the three root radicals فعل For those grammarians, the task of morphology was the breakdown of words into radical and auxiliary consonants الزوائد. The grammarians set up methods to identify the radicals, of which the most important was الاشتقاق , the comparison of the form under scrutiny with morphologically-related words with the same semantic content. In line with the idea of the purity of the language, the semanticextension of an existing word was regarded as the most appropriate device for expansion of the lexicon. The model for this procedure was believed to have been given by the language of the Qur’an itself. Semantic extension became an accepted method of creating new terminology.
13. The Feminine Marker. As in many other languages, any Arabic noun/adjective has to be either masculine or feminine. With few exceptions, the general rule is to suffix the Taa’ MarbuTa (ـة/ة) to the masculine noun/adjective forms to derive the feminine ones. Examples are:
nouns استاذ/استاذة،مراسل/مراسلة،طالب/طالبة
adjectives قديم/قديمة، جميل/جميلة ،جديد/جديدة
However, you need to remember that the Taa’ Marbuta (ـة/ة) is used in certain ancient Arabic male proper names such as:
طلحة،معاوية،حمزة
Also, it is used on some broken plural patterns such as:
(giant )عملاق/عمالقة (professor/s)استاذ/استاذة
14. The Personal pronouns
14. The Personal pronouns are used to replace nouns. The following is a list of the singular (1-5) and plural forms (6-10):
. نحن6 . انا1
.انتم7 . انتَ2
8.انتنََّ . انتِ3
. هُم 9 . هو4
10. هُنَّ. هي5
15. All countries, towns, villages, etc. are treated as feminine. The exceptions to this rule are six Arab countries. These are:
الکويت , لُبنان , السودان , العراق , الأردُن , المغرب
16. Definiteness in Arabic. As you might have noticed in the phrases in point #11 above, adjectives in Arabic usually follow nouns and agree with them in terms of number, gender, case, and definiteness/indefiniteness.
a. small book کتابٌ صغيرٌ
b. the small book الکتابُ صغيرٌ
If an adjective completely agrees with its noun in every aspect, then you have a phrase, as in examples (a) and (b) below. However, if a noun (subject) is definite and its adjective (predicate) is indefinite you have a sentence, as in (c).
(a) a new house بيتٌ جديدٌ
(b) the new house البيتُ الجديدُ
(c) The house is newالبيتُ جديدٌ
17. The Nisba is an adjective that is created from a noun. The most common are those that refer to origin, nationality or country. The main device for making such adjectives from nouns is to suffix (يٌّ) for masculine and ( يَّة ٌ) for feminine to the noun. The noun must be first stripped off (a) the definite article, (b) feminine suffix, or (c) final position long vowel.
a. عراقيَّة،عراقيٌّ، (العراق)
b. سعوديَّة،سعوديٌّ، (السعودية)
c. سوريَّة،سوريٌّ، (سوريا)
18. Long vowel to a Diphthong. If any of the two long vowel و , اis proceeded by the short vowel –َ , the long vowel changes its character to a diphthong:
uu —> ou دَور،دور
ii —> eiدَين ،دين
19. The Possessive pronouns are suffixed to nouns to express possession and, consequently, make them definite.
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my house, your (f) house, our house ، بَيتي، بَيتُكِ بَيتُنا
The following is a list of the personal pronouns (singular 1-5 and plural 6-10), and their corresponding possessive ones:
6. نحن ـنا 1. انا ـي
2. انتَ ـكَ 7. انتم ـکم
3. انتِ ـكِ 8. انتنَّ ـکنَّ
4. هو ـهُ 9. هم ـهُم
5. هي ـها 10. هنَّ ـهنَّ
20. Sentences in Arabic. The closestequivalent in Arabic grammar to the Western notion of a ‘sentence’ is جملة, a syntactically complete string of words that expresses a semantically complete message. In a sentence, there is always one head word that relays or determines the sentential functions resulting in markers in the form of case endings. According to the Western analysis of Arabic sentence structure , there are two
types of sentence: nominal and verbal. The Arab Grammarians differ and suggest three types.
(a) الجملة الفعليةThe verbal sentence is the basic sentence. Its order is (object)<— subject <— verb. In this type of sentence, a verb is marked by the gender of its subject.
(b) الجملة الاسميةThe Nominal Sentence is where the subject takes an initial position for emphatic purposes, followed by the verb, (object)<— verb <— subject. Consequently, the verb is marked by the number and gender of its subject.
(c) جملة المبتدأ والخبرThe Equational Sentence is made of a subject and a predicate without any expressed verb. The verb “tobe” is understood, predicate<— subject. Both the subject and the predicate have to be in the nominative case.
21. The Vocative Particleيا is limited for use with people only. The noun it is used with becomes definite, and therefore would carry a short vowel, not Nunation.
يا استاذ ُ! O, professor!
22. Idaafa الاضافة. The Idaafa structure is usually made of two or more nouns that are semantically related and in a sequence. Sometimes it sounds like a sort of “possessive” relationship, where English could use “of” or “‘s” .The first term of the Idaafa might be in any case and should not take Nunation or a definite article. The Second term of the Idaafa, on the other hand, is always in the genitive case and may take Nunation or a definite article.
the language professor:
استاذ ُ اللغةِ ، استاذ َ اللغةِ ، استاذِ اللغةِ
a language professor:
استاذ ُ لغةٍ ، استاذ َ لغةٍ ، استاذ ِ لغةٍ