Basic Arabic Grammar a Prev

Course Code: TAS004A

Saqib Hussain

© Saqib Hussain 2009. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored or transm transmitte itted d in any form form or by any means means,, electr electroni onicc or otherw otherwise ise,, includ including ing photoc photocopy opying ing,, recording, Internet, or any storage or retrieval system without prior written permission from the copyright holder.

Contents Introduction.......... Introduction................................. .............................................. .............................................. .............................................. ................................................2 .........................2 1

Definite and Indefinite Indefinite Nouns, and the Nominal Sentence........................... Sentence.................................................. .........................3 ..3

2

Adjectives and Definiteness Definiteness Agreement.............. Agreement..................................... .............................................. ................................... ......................9 ..........9

3

Gender.............................. Gender..................................................... .............................................. .............................................. .............................................. ...................................15 ............15

4

The Grammatical Grammatical Cases and Prepositions........ Prepositions............................... .............................................. .............................................22 ......................22

5

Verbs - The Perfect Tense............................... ense...................................................... .............................................. ............................................ ..........................30 .....30

6

Dual Nouns................................ Nouns....................................................... .............................................. .............................................. .............................................. ..........................38 ...38

7

Plural Nouns................................ Nouns....................................................... .............................................. .............................................. ......................................... .......................43 .....43

8

The Detached Pronouns and the Irregular Irregular Nominal Sentence.......................................... Sentence...........................................51 .51

9

The Imperfect Imperfect Tense and Negative Verbal Sentences....................... Sentences..................................................... ...................................56 .....56

10

Using verbs and adjectives adjectives correctly................ correctly....................................... .............................................. .............................................. .......................61 61

1

Introduction This is the first part of a series of four courses ( Basic Arabic Grammar: Parts A - D ). By the end of  the fourth course students should be able to recognise almost all of the grammatical constructions in any Arabic text, and understand the text with the use of an appropriate dictionary.

This first part focuses on correctly forming basic nominal and verbal sentences.

There are are ten video lessons lessons and which accompany accompany this textbook. Students Students will also need the following texts to derive the maximum benefit from this course: ●

Basic Arabic Grammar: Part A - Answer Key

●

Vocabulary Tickets Pack 

This grammar course assumes an understanding of the Arabic alphabet and vowel system, and the  basic rules for reading and writing Arabic, as covered in the course  Reading and Writing the Arabic

Script  (TAS001A).

It is suggested that students work through the ten chapters in this course in the following manner: 1. Read Read thr throu ough gh each each chap chapter ter;; 2. Watch atch the vide video o lesson lesson for the the chapt chapter; er; 3. Re-read the the chapter chapter - you should should now now have a thoroug thorough h understan understanding ding of the the main grammar  grammar   points covered; 4. Memorise Memorise the vocabulary vocabulary for for the chapter chapter using the the Vocabu Vocabulary lary Tickets Tickets Pack; Pack; 5. Attemp Attemptt all of the translat translation ion exercis exercises es in writing writing,, and check your answers answers in the Answer  Answer  Key. Key. Make sure you've understood any mistakes that you made. 6. As you work work through through the textboo textbook, k, periodically periodically review review the translati translation on exercises exercises from prior  prior  chapters until you're able to complete them orall y, without hesitation.

Before beginning this grammar course, students should read through the course  Introduction to

 Learning Arabic (TAS003A), which explains how the vocabulary lists are organised, and gives a vocabulary memorization technique.

2

1 Definite Definite and Indefinite Indefinite Nouns, Nouns, and and the Nominal Nominal Sentence Sentence A The The Nou Noun n in in Arabi rabic c Arabic nouns are either indefinite or definite .

Indefinite Indefinite nouns take a tanwīn on their final letter, letter, and are generally generally translated into English using the word 'a':

‫د‬ ‫ل‬‫و‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ا‬‫كت‬  ‫ج‬‫ر‬

a boy a book  a man

To make these nouns definite, we remove the tanwīn and fix the word

1 

to the beginning of the

word. This is generally translated using the word 'the':

‫د‬‫ل‬ ‫ل‬ ‫تاب‬‫ل‬ ‫ج‬ ‫ل‬

the boy the book  the man

Unlike in English, adjectives in Arabic are also either definite or indefinite, just like the nouns. We'll We'll come back to this point in the next chapter.

B The The Nom Nomin inal al Sen Sente tenc nce e The most basic sentence in Arabic is called the nominal sentence . This is of the form 'X is/are Y', such as 'The boy is tall', or 'The books are big.'

X is usually a definite noun, and is known as the  subject . Y is usually an indefinite noun or an indefinite adjective, and is called the predicate .

This is illustrated below. Note that in Arabic we don't have a word for 'is/are' in the nominal sentence. 3

The Nominal Sentence

PREDICATE

is/are

SUBJECT

English Example Example

tall

is

The boy

Arabic Example

‫يل‬‫و‬‫ط‬

‫ل‬‫ج‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ا‬

Consider the following nominal sentences:

‫ي‬‫ك‬ ‫اب‬‫ل‬ ‫اذ‬‫ست‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ج‬ ‫ل‬

The door is door is big  big The man is a teacher 

C The The Sin Singul gular ar Deta Detache ched d Pron Pronou ouns ns We can replace the subject of a nominal sentence with a  pronoun. For example, rather than saying 'The man is tall', we might want to say, 'He is tall.' The Arabic pronouns we use for this replacement are called the detached pronouns .

Detached pronouns are fully covered in Chapter 8; only the singular forms are given here. Note there are different words for 'you' in Arabic for addressing a male and a female person. We'll differentiate in English by using SRm (singular masculine) and SRf (singular feminine) in subscript.

‫ا‬‫ن‬‫أ‬  ‫ن‬‫أ‬  ‫ن‬‫أ‬ ‫ه‬ ‫ه‬ 1

I youSRm youSRf  he/it2 she/it

 of 1 ‫ا‬‫ن‬‫ أ‬is silent, so it is pronounced as if it were: 1‫ أ‬.

1

Th e

2

Note that that there there is no no separate separate pronoun pronoun for 'it'. 'it'. Instead, Instead, we we just use

1‫ه‬ or 1‫ ه‬depending on whether the subject

 being referred to is masculine or feminine respectively (see Chapter 3).

4

Consider the following sentences:

 ‫ط‬  ‫ن‬‫أ‬ ‫ي‬‫قص‬ ‫ه‬ ‫ي‬‫غ‬ ‫ا‬‫أن‬

YouSRm are tall He is short I am young

D Usin Using g 'And 'And'' in the the Nomi Nomina nall Sent Senten ence ce The word for 'and' in Arabic is

1‫ و‬. Its use in the nominal sentence is very intuitive. Consider the

following nominal sentences, each of which has more than one predicate:

‫ي‬‫جم‬ ‫ و‬‫ي‬‫ك‬ ‫اب‬‫ل‬  ‫ل‬‫طا‬ ‫ و‬‫اذ‬‫ست‬ ‫ أ‬‫ج‬‫ل‬ ‫س‬‫ و‬‫ و‬ ‫ط‬ ‫ع‬‫شار‬ ‫ل‬

The door is door is big  big and beautiful and beautiful The man is a teacher and teacher and a student The street is long and wide 'And' can also be used to link two nominal sentences together: The sea is big is big

and

The man is a teacher  and The chair is chair is old

and

‫ي‬‫غ‬  ‫ل‬ ‫ و‬‫ي‬‫ك‬ ‫ح‬‫ل‬ ‫ل‬‫طا‬ ‫لد‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ و‬‫اذ‬‫ست‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ج‬ ‫ل‬  ‫د‬ ‫جد‬ ‫اب‬‫ل‬ ‫ و‬ ‫قد‬ 7‫س‬  ‫ل‬

the river is river is small the boy is a student the door is door is new

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Vocabulary

 ‫ا‬‫رج‬  | ‫رج‬  ‫و‬ | ‫د‬‫ول‬ ‫ة‬ ‫سا‬ ‫أ‬ | ‫تاذ‬‫س‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ط‬ ، ‫ب‬B ‫ط‬ | ‫ال‬‫ط‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ا‬‫ن‬‫أ‬ | ‫ن‬ ‫ح‬ ‫أ‬ ، ‫حار‬  | ‫ح‬   ‫ت‬‫ك‬  | ‫تاب‬‫ك‬ 4‫ع‬‫ر‬  | ‫ع‬‫ار‬ 7 ‫س‬‫ك‬  | G‫س‬ ‫ك‬ ‫ب‬  ‫أ‬ | ‫ب‬ ‫اب‬  ‫ي‬H‫ل‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ا‬‫ك‬  | ‫ي‬‫ك‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ا‬‫غ‬ | ‫ي‬‫غ‬  I‫اء‬ ‫قد‬ |  ‫قد‬ ‫د‬ ‫ج‬ ، ‫د‬ ‫ج‬  | ‫د‬ ‫جد‬  ‫ط‬  |  ‫ط‬ ‫ر‬ ‫صا‬ ‫ق‬ | ‫ي‬‫قص‬  ‫ا‬‫جم‬  | ‫ي‬‫جم‬

man | PL  boy, son |

PL

teacher | PL student | 2PLS3 river | PL sea | 2PLS  book |

PL

street | PL chair | PL door; chapter | PL the Nile  big, great |

5

PL

small, young |

PL

old, ancient | PL new | 2PLS long, tall | PL short | PL  beautiful, handsome | 3

PL

A single single Arabic word word may have have a number of plurals. plurals. This is true of of a few English English words too (e.g. (e.g. the plurals plurals of 

antenna are antennas and antennae, the plurals of  fungus  fungus are fungi and funguses), but is much more common in Arabic. 4

Notice Notice that that unlik unlikee most most of of the the words words,,

1‫رع‬  doesn't have a tanwīn ending. Such words are called diptotes, and will

 be covered in  Basic Arabic Grammar: Part B. For now, treat treat such words like any other, except except that they must never have a tanwīn ending. You You will also encounter other odd-looking plurals in the vocabulary lists (e.g.

in Chapter 3 and

1 ‫ى‬O‫ق‬

1L‫ض‬‫أر‬

in Chapter 10); these words should of course be learnt, but will be dealt with in  Basic Arabic

Grammar: Part B. 5

Many Arabic adjecti adjectives ves have plurals. plurals. This This is needed for agreemen agreementt between nouns nouns and adjectives adjectives (see (see Chapter Chapter 7).

6

‫ر‬    ‫س‬ ‫و‬

 broken  broad, wide

Translation Exercises  Exercise 1A

.‫د‬‫ول‬  ‫و‬  ‫ج‬ ‫ر‬ . ‫ل‬‫ا‬B ‫ل‬ ‫و‬ ‫ذ‬ ‫تا‬‫س‬ I .‫د‬ ‫جد‬  ‫اذ‬ ‫ت‬‫س‬I  . ‫ا ط‬‫أن‬ . ‫د‬‫ق‬ ‫ي‬H‫ل‬ . ‫ن‬ ‫ي‬H‫ل‬ .‫ي‬‫ك‬  ‫ح‬ ‫ل‬ .‫ر‬   ‫و‬   ‫قد‬ ‫اب‬‫ل‬ .‫ي‬‫جم‬  ‫و‬  ‫قد‬ ‫اب‬ ‫ت‬‫ل‬ .‫ي‬‫قص‬ ‫ه‬  .‫ي‬‫غ‬  ‫ال‬B‫ل‬ .‫مي‬ ‫ج‬  ‫ه‬ . ‫ط‬ 7‫س‬   ‫ل‬ .‫ي‬‫جم‬  ‫و‬ ‫ي‬‫غ‬ ‫د‬‫ل‬ ‫ل‬ .‫مي‬ ‫ج‬  ‫و‬ ‫س‬ ‫و‬ ‫و‬ ‫ي‬‫ك‬ ‫اب‬‫ل‬ .‫د‬‫ل‬‫نا و‬‫أ‬ ‫و‬ ‫رج‬  ‫أن‬ . ‫ط‬  ‫و‬  ‫د‬‫ق‬  ‫ل‬ ‫و‬ ‫ي‬‫قص‬ ‫و‬ ‫د‬ ‫جد‬  ‫ع‬‫ار‬‫لش‬  Exercise 1B 1. The The rive riverr and and the the sea. sea. 2. A book book and and a chair chair.. 3. The The str stree eett is is lon long. g. 4. He is a boy. oy.

7

١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩ ١٠ ١١ ١٢ ١٣ ١٤ ١٥

5. The The Nil Nilee is is anc ancie ient nt.. 6. I am a stu stude dent nt and and you youSRm are a teacher. te acher. 7. The The door door is tall tall.. 8. The The sea is is smal smalll and bea beaut utifu iful. l. 9. The door door is beauti beautiful ful.. It is big. big. 10. The boy is young young and short. short. 11. 11. The man is big big and the boy is tall. 12. YouSRm are tall and he is short. 13. The chair chair is big, old and and broken6. 14. The teacher teacher is tall and the student student is short. 15. The book is small and new, new, and the chapter is short and beautiful.

6

This should should be translat translated ed as as if it it were: were: 'The chair chair is big big and old and broken.' As a general rule, in Arabic we use to separate items in a list like the three predicates in this example, where in English we would use commas.

8

1‫و‬

2 Adject Adjective ives s and Defini Definiten teness ess Agreem Agreement  ent  A Adjec djecti tiva vall Agree greeme ment  nt  There are two things we must remember about adjectives in Arabic:

Firstly, Firstly, they come after  the nouns that they describe, unlike in English, where they occur before the nouns. So, whereas in English we would say 'a narrow sword', in Arabic we say 'a sword narrow':

1H‫ي‬H ‫ف‬  ‫ي‬‫ س‬. Secondly, Secondly, the adjective must 'agree' with the noun it describes in four wa ys:

1. Defini Definiten teness ess

If the noun is definite, its adjective must also be definite; if the noun is indefinite, its adjective must also be indefinite.

2. Gender   [See Chapter 3]

3. Case [See Chapter 4]

4. Number   [See Chapters 6 and 7]

This chapter will focus on definiteness agreement. Consider the following phrases, in which the adjectives agree with their nouns in being definite or indefinite.

HH‫ي‬ ‫ف‬  ‫ي‬‫س‬ HH‫ي‬‫ل‬ ‫ف‬‫ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ف‬  ‫ظي‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ا‬ ‫يف‬‫ظ‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ا‬  ‫ل‬ ‫خ‬ ‫س‬ ‫و‬  ‫ي‬‫ق‬ HH‫ي‬  ‫ي‬

a narrow sword the narrow sword a clean cup the clean cup a narrow, ugly, dirty house

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‫خ‬ ‫س‬  ‫ل‬ ‫ي‬‫ل‬ HH‫ي‬‫ل‬ ‫ي‬‫ل‬

the narrow, ugly, dirty house

 Note that when there is a series of adjectives, as in the last two examples, each one must agree with its noun in the four ways described above.

B Adjec Adjectiv tives es in in the the Nomi Nominal nal Sen Sente tenc nce e We can now make our nominal sentences more sophisticated, by giving the subject and/or the  predicate their own adjectives. This is illustrated below:

The Nominal Sentence (with adjs)

PREDICATE + ADJ.

is/are

SUBJECT + ADJ.

English Example Example

a  good  teacher 

is

The tall  man

Arabic Example

 ‫ب‬‫ط‬

 B‫ل‬ ‫ل‬‫ج‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ا‬

Consider the following sentences:

‫ف‬‫نظ‬ H H‫ي‬‫ل‬ ‫ت‬‫ب‬‫ا‬ ‫لح‬ ‫ذ‬‫س‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ر‬‫ص‬‫ ق‬ ‫خ‬‫س‬ ‫ و‬ %‫ ح‬‫ي‬‫ل‬   ‫ب‬‫ا‬

The narrow house is clean The good teacher is short The ugly garden is hot and dirty

C Form Formin ing g Quest uestio ions ns By putting the particle

1‫ه‬

or the particle

1‫أ‬

in front of a statement, we turn that statement into a

question:

 ‫ط‬  ‫ن‬‫أ‬ ‫؟‬  ‫ط‬  ‫أن‬ ‫ه‬

YouSRm are tall Are youSRm tall?

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‫ي‬‫قص‬ ‫ه‬ ‫؟‬  ‫ي‬‫قص‬ ‫ه‬  ‫أ‬ ‫ف‬  ‫ظي‬ ‫ ن‬HH‫ي‬ ‫ل‬  ‫ي‬‫ل‬ ‫؟‬ ‫ف‬  ‫ي‬‫نظ‬ HH‫ي‬‫ل‬  ‫ي‬‫ل‬ ‫ه‬ ‫ي‬‫ص‬ ‫ق‬  ‫ح‬ ‫ل‬ ‫اذ‬‫ت‬‫س‬I  ‫؟‬ ‫ي‬‫قص‬  ‫لح‬ ‫تاذ‬‫س‬ I  ‫ه‬

He is short Is he short? The narrow house is clean Is the narrow house clean 7? The good teacher is short Is the good teacher short?

In response to such questions, the word for 'yes' is

1 ‫ ن‬, and the word for 'no' is 1 .

Questions are fully covered in Chapter 19.

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1‫ه‬ in front of a word which begins with a connecting hamzah, such as 1 , we ‫ه‬ and the  of 1 both have a sukūn, and they are consecutive encounter the double-sukūn problem: the  of 1 When When we put put the the parti particl clee

letters (remember, we're ignoring the connecting hamzah). To make the word pronounceable, we have to give the first

 a kasrah, which turns it into: 1‫ه‬ . This is the default way to avoid double-sukūns: change the first sukūn to

a kasrah.

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Vocabulary garden | PL stone | PL house | PL wall | PL  pen | PL cup | PL  plate | PL lesson | PL sword | PL clean | PL dirty good, beautiful |

PL

 bad, wicked ugly | PL hard, strong, powerful [thing]; stern [person] |

PL

distant | PL  present | PL narrow hot dead | PL

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‫ي‬‫ا‬     ‫تا‬   ‫ر‬ ‫ا‬‫أ‬ |      ‫ي‬ |  ‫ي‬  ‫ا‬ ‫ي‬ |  ‫ئ‬‫ا‬ ‫ق‬‫أ‬ | ‫ق‬ ‫جي‬ ‫ا‬ |  ‫ا‬  ‫ح‬ | ‫ح‬  ‫و‬ ‫ر‬  |  ‫ر‬   ‫ي‬‫س‬  | ‫ف‬  ‫ي‬‫س‬ I‫اء‬ ‫ظ‬‫ن‬ | ‫ف‬  ‫ي‬‫نظ‬ ‫خ‬ ‫س‬ ‫و‬  ‫ا‬   |   H‫ي‬H‫س‬  ‫ا‬‫ق‬ | ‫ي‬‫ق‬ ‫د‬ | ‫د‬ ‫د‬ I‫ء‬‫د‬  | ‫د‬ ‫ي‬  ‫ر‬   |  ‫ا‬ HH‫ي‬ ‫ر‬G ‫ا‬   ‫أ‬ | H ‫ي‬H

Translation Exercises  Exercise 2A

.‫ي‬‫ص‬ ‫ل‬  ‫ر‬ ‫د‬ ‫ل‬ .‫ا‬ ‫ه‬ ‫و‬  ‫ا‬ ‫ا‬‫أن‬ ،‫ن‬ ‫؟‬ ‫ا‬ ‫د‬‫ل‬‫ل‬ ‫ه‬ . ‫د‬‫ل‬ ‫ل‬ .‫ي‬‫غ‬   ‫ح‬ .‫يد‬ ‫يف‬‫ظ‬ ‫ل‬ ‫تا‬  ‫ل‬ .‫ر‬   ‫ه‬ ،‫ر؟ ن‬   ‫ر‬7 ‫ا‬‫لح‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ه‬ .HH‫ي‬  ‫ي‬‫ل‬ ‫ي‬‫ل‬ . ‫ط‬ ‫ه‬  ،‫ن‬ ‫؟‬ ‫ط‬ ‫ه‬  ‫أ‬ .‫س‬ ‫و‬  ‫ن‬ ‫ي‬H‫ل‬ .   ‫د‬‫ل‬‫نا و‬‫أ‬ ،‫؟ ن‬   ‫د‬‫ول‬  ‫أن‬ ‫أ‬ .H‫ي‬  ‫ج‬ ‫ر‬ ‫تاذ‬‫س‬I  ‫ر؟‬     ‫ه‬ ‫أ‬ .‫سخ‬ ‫و‬   BB‫ل‬ ‫د‬‫د‬ ‫ل‬ ‫يف‬ ‫ل‬ .‫ي‬‫جم‬  ‫د‬ ‫د‬‫لش‬ ‫ي‬‫ل‬   ‫ح‬ ‫ل‬ .  ‫ه‬ ، ‫؟‬‫ي‬‫ق‬ H‫ي‬H‫س‬  ‫د‬‫ول‬  ‫ال‬B ‫ل‬ ‫ه‬ . ‫ط‬  ‫ي‬‫جم‬  ‫تاذ‬‫س‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ج‬‫ل‬ .‫ي‬‫ص‬ ‫ق‬ ‫و‬ HH‫ي‬  ‫د‬‫ل‬ ‫د‬ ‫شد‬ ‫ل‬ ‫حائ‬ ‫ل‬  Exercise 2B 1. A good good less lesso on. 2. The lon long wal wall. l. 3. A brok broken en pen pen. 4. The hot hot sto stone ne.. 5. Is the the new new chai chairr dirty dirty?? No, No, it is clea clean. n. 6. The The stro strong ng doo doorr is nar narro row w. 7. The The big big gard garden en is far. far.

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١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩ ١٠ ١١ ١٢ ١٣ ١٤ ١٥

8. The teacher teacher is a man. man. He is a small small man. man. 9. Is the the Nile Nile a sea? sea? No, No, it is is a big big river river.. 10. The beautiful beautiful student student is dead. 11. The old house house is ugly and and the short street is bad. 12. The big wide cup is clean and new new.. 13. The ugly old book is long long and bad. 14. The beautiful, distant distant sea is hot and powerful. powerful. 15. The good, small small sword is dirty dirty and broken.

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