ALI139 – Arabic Grammar I

ALI139 – Arabic Grammar I Week 1

Outline • Introduction to Arabic Grammar • Every Word is a Noun, Verb or Particle • Nouns: Types of Nouns • Definiteness and Indefiniteness • Masculinity and Femininity • Singular and Plural (Sound & Broken) • Importance of Definiteness, Gender and Number Agreement in Nouns

Qur’anic Language Made Easy Hafiza Iffath Hasan Review of Lesson 1.1

Every Word is a Noun, Verb or Particle Arabic Word (كلمة) Noun (اسم) Verb (فعل) Particle (حرف) Common & Proper Nouns Adjectives Pronouns Adverbs Etc. Past Tense Present Tense Future Tense Prepositions & Conjunctions e.g. ‘with’, ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘by’, ‘from’, etc.

أقسام الكلام

أقسام الكلام الاسم : هو ما دل على معنى في نفسه ولم يقترن بزمان مثل : رجل، بيت، فرس، جبل، شجرة الفعل : هو ما دل على معنى في نفسه واقترن بزمان مثل : قام، يقوم، قم . الحرف : هو ما دل على معنى في غيره ولم يقترن بزمان مثل : هل ، قد ، من .

The Broader Meaning of اسم • Types of اسم • Nouns • Adjectives • Pronouns • Adverbs • Etc.

Key Features of Nouns • Definite (المعرفة) or Indefinite (النكرة) • Masculine (المذكر) or Feminine (المؤنث) • Singular (المفرد) or Plural (الجمع )

Qur’anic Language Made Easy Hafiza Iffath Hasan Review of Lesson 1.9 & Lesson 1.10

Definiteness (المعرفة) and Indefiniteness (النكرة) • What Asma (pl. of Ism) are definite? • Those that begin with “ال” • Proper Names e.g. Muhammad, John, Madina, New York, Toronto, etc. • Pronouns – they represent definite nouns • The Article “ال” makes an indefinite noun definite e.g. طالب -> الطالب. While you can assume that all words with ال are definite (unless it’s a part of the original word), you cannot assume that words without ال are indefinite. For example, a proper noun may not have ال. Or a pronoun is definite without ال. Or nouns in some grammatical constructions we shall learn later (e.g. Idafa Structures) can also be definite without the ال. • In English, singular nouns can have “a/an” for indefinite, “the” for definite, or no article at all. E.g. A Boy, The Boy, Literature / Poetry / History / Arab Culture / Political Expression. In Arabic, this 3rd type doesn’t exist. By default, we use “ال” for the 3rd type i.e. we say “The Literature” (الأدب) • Singular nouns that are indefinite usually end with tanween. Once ال is added, the tanwin must change to a single vowel. E.g.كتابٌ -> الكتابُorطويلٌولدٌ -> الطويلُالولدُ

المعرفة

Masculine (المذكر) and Feminine (المؤنث) • Nouns and Adjectives in Arabic always carry a gender • Arabic distinguishes between the gender of human and non-human nouns • Human nouns like “teacher”, “friend”, “doctor”, change gender depending on the human they refer to. • Non-Human nouns like “chair”, “pen”, “Sun”, “office”, “library”, etc. have a fixed gender that never changes • There is no neutral gender “It” in Arabic. Everything that you wish to refer to as “It” will be referred to as “he” or “she” • You must learn the gender of non-human nouns as you go. But for singular nouns, almost always, Taa Marbutah (ة) indicates a feminine noun e.g. مدرسة, جامعة, قهوة • Names of Cities are usually feminine because they follow the gender of مدينة (city). Foreign countries are feminine. Arab countries vary and have to be learnt individually.

المذكر والمؤنث

Qur’anic Language Made Easy Hafiza Iffath Hasan Review of Lessons 1.14, 1.15 and Appendix A

Singular (المفرد), Dual (المثنى) and Plural (الجمع) • In Arabic, any thing in twos has a separate category called “المثنى” (dual). Plural refers to more than 2. • When you change a singular noun to dual, usually you add the ending “ان-” (aani) or “ين-” (ayni). Dual for verbs will not be covered in this course. • English has one regular plural pattern. You simply add “s” or “es” to a singular noun to make it plural. Arabic has over 10 plural patterns. • Human plurals in Arabic can be Masculine Sound Plural, Feminine Sound Plural, or Broken Plural. When you change a human singular noun to plural, the rules are as follows: • If it’s a masculine noun that can have a sound (i.e. standard) plural, it ends with “ون-” (uuna) or “ين-” (iina). E.g. مسلم -> مسلمون or مسلمين. • If it’s a feminine noun that can have a sound plural, the ta marbutah (ة) is dropped and is replaced with the ending “ات-” E.g. مسلمة -> مسلمات • If it’s a noun that doesn’t follow a sound pattern for plural, it changes in structure using one of almost 21 patterns and this is called “Broken” plural. E.g. صاحب -> اصحاب. رجل -> رجال. طالب -> طلاّب. • Non-Human Plurals can be Feminine Sound Plural or Broken Plural.

المفرد و المثنى و الجمع

Importance of Definiteness, Gender and Number Agreement • It is important to pay attention to the gender of nouns because the gender of adjectives, pronouns and verbs that refer to them must agree, whether in phrases or in sentences. • Agreement in definiteness between nouns and the adjectives that describe them is very important as it can change words from being a phrase to being a sentence. Generally, adjectives must match nouns in definiteness. (Unlike in English, adjectives always follow nouns, and they don’t precede them i.e. “A tall, dark, handsome man” is written in Arabic as “A man tall, dark, handsome”. • It is also important for adjectives, pronouns and verbs to agree with the nouns in number except in special circumstances e.g. if the noun is plural and non-human or if the verb precedes the plural noun. • Important: Non-Human Plurals are treated as Singular Feminine words for agreement purposes i.e. the pronoun, adjectives, verbs, etc. treat the non-human plural as if it was feminine singular E.g. “الكبيرةالكتب”, “الواسعةالشوارع”, and so on.

ALI139 – Arabic Grammar I