Arabic grammar

All you want to know about Arabic grammar

Arabic is a Semitic language. See Arabic language for more information on the language in general. This article describes the grammar of Classical Arabic.

Contents

History

The identity of the oldest Arabic grammarian is disputed with some sources saying Ibn Abi Ishaq and medieval sources saying Abu-Aswad al-Du'ali, the oldest known Arabic grammarian, established diacritical marks and vowels for Arabic in the mid-600s. The schools of Basra, Kufa, Sibawaih further developed grammatical rules in the late 700s.[1][2]

Due to the rapid expansion of Islam in the 8th century, many people learned Arabic as a lingua franca. For this reason, the earliest grammatical treatises on Arabic are often written by non-native speakers. The earliest grammarian who is known to us is ʻAbd Allāh ibn Abī Isḥāq (died AD 735/6, AH 117). The efforts of three generations of grammarians culminated in the book of the Persian scholar Sibāwayhi (ca. 760–793).

Traditionally, the grammatical sciences are divided into five branches:

  • al-luġah (lexicon) concerned with collecting and explaining vocabulary
  • at-taṣrīf (morphology) determining the form of the individual words
  • an-naḥw (syntax) primarily concerned with inflection (iʻrāb) which had already been lost in dialects.
  • al-ištiqāq (derivation) examining the origin of the words
  • al-balāġah (rhetoric) which elucidates construct quality

The grammar or grammars of contemporary varieties of Arabic are a different question. Said M. Badawi, an expert on Arabic grammar, divided Arabic grammar into five different types based on the speaker's level of literacy and the degree to which the speaker deviated from Classical Arabic. Badawi's five types of grammar from the most colloquial to the most formal are Illiterate Spoken Arabic ('āmmiyat al-'ummiyyin), Semi-literate Spoken Arabic ('āmmiyat al-mutanawwirin), Educated Spoken Arabic ('āmmiyat al-'muthaqqafin), Modern Standard Arabic (fushā al-asr), and Classical Arabic (fushā al-turāth).[3] This article is concerned with the grammar of Classical Arabic exclusively.

Phonology

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Classical Arabic has 28 consonantal phonemes, including two semi-vowels, originally corresponding to the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. However, by the 8th century the letter alif no longer represented a glottal stop, but a long /aː/. As a result, a diacritic symbol, hamza, was introduced to represent this sound. In addition, some of these phonemes have coalesced in the various modern dialects, while new phonemes have been introduced through borrowing or phonemic splits.

Arabic has six vowel phonemes (three short vowels and three long vowels); they appear as various allophones, depending on the preceding consonant. Short vowels are not usually represented in written language, although they may be indicated with diacritics. (See: Arabic alphabet.)

List of phonemes as transliterated in this article (in DIN 31635, see also Romanization of Arabic):

  • 26 consonants: ʼ (hamza:ء), b (ب), t (ت), ṯ (ث), ǧ (ج), ḥ (ح), ḫ (خ), d (د), ḏ (ذ), r (ر), z (ز), s (س), š (ش), ṣ (ص), ḍ (ض), ṭ (ط), ẓ (ظ), ʻ (ع), ġ (غ), f (ف), q (ق), k (ك), l (ل), m (م), n (ن), h (ه)
  • 2 semi-vowels: w (و), y (ي)
  • 6 vowels: a ā i ī u ū

Note that Arabic is particularly rich in uvular, pharyngeal, and pharyngealized ("emphatic") sounds. The emphatic sounds (ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, and ẓ) cause assimilation of emphasis to an adjacent non-emphatic consonant.

The six vowels are inherited without change from Proto-Semitic, and of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost (/ʃ/, which merged with /s/). In addition, various sounds have been changed. An original voiceless lateral fricative /ɬ/ became /ʃ/. Another complex lateral sound, /ɮˁ/ (voiced pharyngealized lateral fricative), became /dˤ/ with loss of the laterality, although the original sound appears to have still existed at the time of the Qur'an. (Hence the Classical appellation 'luġatu l-ḍād' or "language of the ḍād" for Arabic, where 'ḍād' is the letter corresponding to this sound, which was considered by Arabs to be the most unusual sound in Arabic.) An original *p became /f/, and *g became palatalized to /ɡʲ/ at the time of the Qur'an (this is /dʒ/ in the standard modern pronunciation). (The dialects variously have [dʒ] (Arabian Peninsula), [ɡ] (Cairo), [ʒ] (North Africa), [j] (Persian Gulf area), [ɡʲ] (a few isolated pockets here and there)). Other changes may have occurred as well, especially in the emphatic consonants, depending on how Proto-Semitic is reconstructed.

Noun

State

Nouns (and their modifying adjectives) are either definite or indefinite (there is an article for the definite state only). A noun is definite if it has the definite article prefix (al-), if it has a suffixed pronoun (kalbu-ha l-kabīr "her big dog"), if it is inherently definite by being a proper noun (Miṣru l-qadīmah, "old Cairo"), or if it is in a genitive construction (Iḍāfa, status constructus) with a definite noun or nouns (bintu l-maliki, "the daughter of the king").

Article

Main article: Al-

The article (adātu-t-taʻrīf) al- is indeclinable and expresses definite state of a noun of any gender and number. It is also prefixed to each of that noun's modifying adjectives. The initial vowel (hamzatu-l-waṣl), is volatile in the sense that it disappears in sandhi, the article becoming mere -l- (although the alif is retained in orthography in any case as it is based on pausal pronunciation).

Also, the l is assimilated to a number of consonants (dentals and sibilants), so that in these cases, the article in pronunciation is expressed only by geminating the initial consonant of the noun (while in orthography, the writing alif lam is retained, and the gemination may be expressed by putting šadda on the following letter).

The consonants causing assimilation (trivially including l) are: t, ṯ, d, ḏ, r, z, s, š, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, l, n. These 14 letters are called 'solar letters' (ḥuruf šamsiyyāt), while the remaining 14 are called 'lunar letters' (ḥuruf qamariyyāt). The solar letters all have in common that they are dental, alveolar and postalveolar consonants in the classical language, and the lunar consonants are not. (ج ǧīm is pronounced postalveolar in most varieties of Arabic today, but was actually a palatalized voiced velar plosive in the classical language, and is thus considered a lunar letter; nevertheless, in colloquial Arabic, the ج ǧīm is often spoken as if solar.)

Inflection

Main article: Iʻrāb

Arabic has three grammatical cases roughly corresponding to: nominative, genitive and accusative, and three numbers: singular, dual and plural. Normally, singular nouns take the ending -u(n) in the nominative, -i(n) in the genitive and -a(n) in the accusative. (Some exceptional nouns, known as diptotes, never take the final n, and have the suffix -a in the genitive except when preceded by the definite article al-.) However, case is not shown in standard orthography, with the exception of indefinite accusative nouns ending in any letter but ta marbuta or hamza, where the -a(n) "sits" upon an alif added to the end of the word (the alif still shows up in unvowelled texts). When speaking or reading aloud, articulating the case ending is optional. Technically, every noun has such an ending, although at the end of a sentence, no inflection is pronounced, even in formal speech, because of the rules of 'pause'.

Number

Arabic distinguishes between nouns based on quantity. All nouns are either singular when there is one, dual when there are two, and plural if there are three or more.

The dual is formed by adding -āni to the noun stem in the nominative and -ayni in the accusative and genitive.[4] The final "-ni" is dropped in the iḍāfa construct form (Status constructus).

The plurals are formed in two ways. The "sound plurals" are formed by the addition of a suffix. Masculine sound plurals take the forms "-ūna" in the nominative and "-īna" in the genitive and accusative. These do not change whether the noun is definite or indefinite. Feminine indefinite sound plurals take "-ātun" in the nominative and "-ātin" in the accusative and genitive. Feminine definite sound plurals take "-ātu" in the nominative and "-āti" in the accusative and genitive. The broken plurals are formed by altering the vowel structure according to one of about five established patterns. Some nouns have two or more plural forms, usually to distinguish between different meanings.

Gender

Arabic has two genders, expressed by pronominal, verbal and adjectival agreement. Agreement with numerals shows a peculiar 'polarity', c.f. the section on numerals. The genders are usually referred to as masculine and feminine, but the situation is more complicated than that. The 'feminine' singular forms are also used to express 'singulatives', which are singulars of collective nouns meaning irrationals of both grammatical genders.

The marker for the feminine gender is a -t- suffix, but some nouns without this marker also take feminine agreement (e.g. ʼumm 'mother', ʼarḍ 'earth'). Already in Classical Arabic, the -t marker was not pronounced in pausa. It is written with a special letter (ta marbuta) indicating that a t sound is to be pronounced in sandhi, but not in pausa.

Genitive construction (Iḍāfa)

A noun may be defined more closely by a subsequent noun in the genitive (Iḍāfa, literally "an addition"). The relation is hierarchical; the first term (al-muḍāf) governs the second term (al-muḍāf ilayhi). E. g. baytu raǧulin 'the house of a man', 'a man's house'. The construction as a whole represents a nominal phrase, the state of which is inherited from the state of the second term. The first term must "be in construct state", namely, it cannot carry the definite article nor the tanween. Genitive constructions of multiple terms are possible. In this case, all but the final term take construct state, and all but the first member take the genitive case.

This construction is typical for a Semitic language. In many cases the two members become a fixed coined phrase, the iḍāfa being used as the equivalent of nominal composition in some Indo-European languages (which does not exist in Semitic). baytu-ṭ-ṭalabati thus may mean either 'house of the (certain, known) students' or 'the student hostel'.

Nisba

Further information: Nesbat (Arabic)

The Nisba (an-nisbatu) is a common suffix to form adjectives of relation or pertinence. The suffix is -iyy- for masculine and -iyyat- for feminine gender (in other words, it is -iyy- and is inserted before the gender marker). E. g. lubnānu "Lebanon", lubnāniyy "Lebanese (singular masculine)", lubnāniyya "Lebanese (singular feminine)", lubnāniyyūn "Lebanese (plural masculine)" lubnāniyyāt "Lebanese (plural feminine)".

A construct noun and nisba-adjective is often equivalent to nominal composition in English and other languages (solar cell is equivalent to sun cell).

Pronoun

A pronominal paradigm consists of 12 forms: In singular and plural, the 2nd and 3rd persons differentiate gender, while the 1st person does not. In the dual, there is no 1st person, and only a single form for each 2nd and 3rd person. Traditionally, the pronouns are listed in order 3rd, 2nd, 1st.

Personal pronouns

Person Singular Dual Plural
1st ana (أنا) naḥnu (نحن)
2nd masculine anta (أنت) antumā (أنتما) antum (أنتم)
feminine anti (أنت) antunna (أنتنّ)
3rd masculine huwa (هو) humā (هما) hum (هم)
feminine hiya (هي) hunna (هنّ)

Enclitic pronouns

Enclitic forms of the pronoun (aḍ-ḍamāʼiru al-muttaṣilatu) may be affixed to nouns (representing genitive case, i. e. possession) and to verbs (representing accusative, i. e. a direct object). Most of them are clearly related to the full personal pronouns. They are identical in form in both cases, except for the 1st person singular, which is -ī after nouns (genitive) and -nī after verbs (accusative).

Person Singular Dual Plural
1st -(n)ī/-ya ـي- -nā ـنا-
2nd masculine -ka ك -kumā ـكما -kum كم
feminine -ki ك -kunna كن
3rd masculine -hu ـه -humā هما -hum هم
feminine -hā ها -hunna هن

Demonstratives

There are two demonstratives (asmāʼu al-ʼišārati), near-deictic ('this') and far-deictic ('that'):

  • hādha (هذا), f. hādhihi (هذه), pl. hāʼulāʼi (هؤلاء ) 'this, these'
  • dhālika (ذلك), f. tilka (تلك), pl. ʼulāʼika (أولئك) 'that, those'

Numerals

Cardinal numerals

Cardinal numerals (al-aʻdād al-aṣliyyatu (الأعداد الأصليّة)) from 1-10 (zero is ṣifr, from which the English words "cipher" and "zero" are ultimately derived)

  • 1 waḥidun (واحدٌ)
  • 2 iṯnāni (إثنانِ)
  • 3 ṯalāṯatun (ثلاثةٌ)
  • 4 arbaʻatun (أربعةٌ)
  • 5 ḫamsatun (خمسةٌ)
  • 6 sittatun (ستّةٌ)
  • 7 sabʻatun (سبعةٌ)
  • 8 ṯamāniyatun (ثمانيّةٌ)
  • 9 tisʻatun (تسعةٌ)
  • 10 ʻašaratun (عشرةٌ)

The numerals 1 and 2 are adjectives; 3-10 are diptotes (the ending -(t)un is dropped in oral usage).

Numerals 3-10 have a peculiar rule of agreement known as polarity: A feminine referrer agrees with a numeral in masculine gender and vice versa, e.g. ṯalāṯu fatayātin (ثلاثُ فتياتٍ) 'three girls'. The noun counted takes indefinite genitive plural (as the attribute in a genitive construct.)

Numerals 11-19 are indeclinable, perpetually in the indefinite accusative. Numbers 11 and 12 show gender agreement in the ones, and 13-19 show polarity in the ones. The gender of عشر in numbers 11-19 agrees with the counted noun (unlike the standalone numeral 10 which shows polarity). The counted noun takes indefinite accusative singular.

  • 11 aḥada ʻašara (أحدَ عشر)
  • 12 iṯnā ʻašara (إثنا عشر)
  • 13 ṯalāṯata ʻašara (ثلاثةَ عشر)

The numerals 20-99 are followed by a noun in the indefinite accusative singular as well. There is agreement in gender with the numerals 1 and 2, and polarity for numerals 3-9.

  • 20 ʻišrūna (عشرون) (dual of '10')
  • 21 wāḥidun wa ʻišrūna (واحد وعشرون)
  • 22 iṯnāni wa ʻišrūna (إثنان وعشرون)
  • 23 ṯalāṯatu wa ʻišrūna (ثلاثة وعشرون)
  • 30 ṯalāṯūna (ثلاتون)
  • 40 arbaʻūna (أربعون)

Whole hundreds, thousands etc. appear as first terms of genitive constructions, e.g. alfu laylati wa laylatu (ألف ليلة وليلة) '1001 nights'.

  • 100 miʼatu (مئة)
  • 1000 alfu (ألف)

Fractions of a whole smaller than "half" are expressed by the structure sg. fuʻl (فعل), pl. afʻāl (أفعال).

  • niṣfun (نصف) "half"
  • ṯulṯun (ثلث) "one third"
  • ṯulṯāni (ثلثان) "two thirds"
  • rubʻun (ربع) "one quarter"
  • ṯalaṯatu arbāʻin (ثلاثة أرباع) "three quarters"

etc.

Ordinal numerals

Ordinal numerals (al-aʻdād at-tartiyabiyyat) higher than "first" are formed using the structure fāʻilun, fāʻilatun:

  • m. awwalu, f. ūlā "first"
  • m. ṯānin, f. ṯāniyat "second"
  • m. ṯāliṯun, f. ṯāliṯatun "third"
  • m. rābiʻun, f. rābiʻatun "fourth"
  • m. ḫāmisun, f. ḫāmisatun "fifth"

etc.

They are adjectives, hence, there is agreement in gender with the noun, not polarity as with the cardinal numbers.

Verb

As in many other Semitic languages, Arabic verb formation is based on a (usually) triconsonantal root, which is not a word in itself but contains the semantic core. The consonants k-t-b, for example, indicate 'write', q-r-ʼ indicate 'read', ʼ-k-l indicate 'eat' etc.; Words are formed by supplying the root with a vowel structure and with affixes. Traditionally, Arabic grammarians have used the root f-ʻ-l 'do' as a template to discuss word formation. The personal forms a verb can take correspond to the forms of the pronouns, except that in the 3rd person dual, gender is differentiated, yielding paradigms of 13 forms.

Prefixes and suffixes

In Arabic the grammatical person and number as well as the mood is designated by a variety of prefixes and suffixes. Most Arabic verbs are regular and follow the pattern detailed below.

NOTE:The Arabic example below is the Arabic verb kataba (كتب), "to write". Only the prefixes and suffixes of the verb have been vocalised, the vocalisation of the stems (كَتَب for the past and كْتُب for the present) has been omitted for reasons of legibility.

Prefixes and suffixes of the Arabic verb
Perfective Imperfective Subjunctive and Jussive
Singular
1st STEM-tu a-STEM no written change
كتبْتُ َأكتب
2nd masculine STEM-ta ta-STEM no written change
كتبْتَ تَكتب
feminine STEM-ti ta-STEM-īna ta-STEM-ī
كتبْتِ تَكتبِينَ تَكتبِي
3rd masculine STEM-a ya-STEM no written change
كتبَ يَكتب
feminine STEM-at ta-STEM no written change
كتبَتْ تَكتب
Dual
2nd masculine
& feminine		 STEM-tumā ta-STEM-āni ta-STEM-ā
كتبْتُمَا تَكتبَانِ تَكتبَا
3rd masculine STEM-ā ya-STEM-āni ya-STEM-ā
كتبَا يَكتبَانِ يَكتبَا
feminine STEM-atā ta-STEM-āni ta-STEM-ā
كتبَتَا تَكتبَانِ تَكتبَا
Plural
1st STEM-nā na-STEM no written change
كتبْنَا نَكتب
2nd masculine STEM-tum ta-STEM-ūna ta-STEM-ū
كتبْتُم تَكتبُونَ تَكتبُوا
feminine STEM-tunna ta-STEM-na no written change
كتبْتُنَّ تَكتبْنَ
3rd masculine STEM-ū ya-STEM-ūna ya-STEM-ū
كتبُوا يَكتبُونَ يَكتبُوا
feminine STEM-na ya-STEM-na no written change
كتبْنَ يَكتبْنَ

Perfective

In the perfective (occasionally called 'perfect') form, the perfective stem faʻal is affixed with a personal ending, e. g. kataba 'he wrote', qaraʼa 'he read'. The perfective expresses a completed action, i.e. mostly past tense. The second vowel is /a/ in most verbs, but /i/ in some verbs (especially intransitive) and /u/ in a few (especially verbs whose meaning is "be X" or "become X" where X is an adjective, usually naming a permanent or semi-permanent quality, e.g. kabura 'he became big, he grew up').

Person Singular Plural Dual
1st faʻal-tu faʻal-nā
2nd masculine faʻal-ta faʻal-tum faʻal-tumā
feminine faʻal-ti faʻal-tunna
3rd masculine faʻal-a faʻal-ū faʻal-ā
feminine faʻal-at faʻal-na faʻal-atā

Imperfective

The imperfective expresses an action in progress, or incompleted, i.e. mostly present tense. There are several vowel patterns (a-a, a-u,a-i) the root can take. The root takes a prefix as well as a suffix to build the verb form. E. g. yaktubu 'he is writing'. Note the co-incidence of 3rd f. sg. and 2nd m. sg.

Person Singular Plural Dual
1st a-fʻal-u na-fʻal-u
2nd masculine ta-fʻal-u ta-fʻal-ūna ta-fʻal-āni
feminine ta-fʻal-īna ta-fʻal-na
3rd masculine ya-fʻal-u ya-fʻal-ūna ya-fʻal-āni
feminine ta-fʻal-u ya-fʻal-na ta-fʻal-āni

Mood

Modal forms can be derived from the imperfective stem: the subjunctive by (roughly speaking) replacing the final vowel by a, the jussive by dropping this a of the subjunctive, and the imperative (only 2nd person) also by dropping the verbal prefix.

The subjunctive is used in subordinate clauses after certain conjunctions. The jussive is used in negation, in negative imperatives, and in the hortative li+jussive. For example: 2. sg. m.:

  • imperfect indicative tafʻalu 'you are doing'
  • subjunctive an tafʻala 'that you do'
  • jussive lā tafʻal 'do not!'
  • imperative ifʻal 'do!'.

Voice

Arabic has two verbal voices, active and passive. The passive voice is expressed by a change in vocalization and is normally not expressed in unvocalized writing. For example:

  • active faʻala 'he did', yafʻalu 'he is doing' فَعَلَ
  • passive fuʻila 'it was done', yufʻalu 'it is being done' فُعِلَ

Weak roots

Roots containing one or two of the radicals w (wāw), y (yā) or ʼ (hamza) often lead to verbs with special phonological rules because these radicals can be influenced by their surroundings. Such verbs are called 'weak' (verba infirma, 'weak verbs') and their paradigms must be given special attention. In the case of hamza, these peculiarities are mainly orthographical, since hamza is not subject to elision (the orthography of hamza and alif is unsystematic due to confusion in early Islamic times). According to the position of the weak radical in the root, the root can be classified into four classes: first weak, second weak, third weak and doubled, where both the second and third radicals are identical. Some roots fall into more than one category at once.

Stem formation

"Derived" verbs are those which do not have just three consonants in the perfect tense, namely, all verbs except the primary verbs (those like kataba). For instance, verbs such as kattaba, kātaba, inkataba, takattaba are called "derived" verbs. Semantically, we would like to be able to say that the meaning of the "derived" verbs somehow "derives" from the meaning of their primary verbs, by operations like the intensive, reflexive, and causative, but in fact the actual meaning of all verbs is unpredictable and needs to be recorded in the lexicon[citation needed]. Classical Arabic has a great number of derived stems, not all of which are still in use[citation needed]. For the modern language, it is mostly sufficient to consider stems I-VIII and X, plus IX for verbs meaning "whiten", "blacken", "yellowen" and so on.

Sound verbs[5]
Active voice Passive voice
Past (3rd sg. masc.) Present (3rd sg. masc.) Past (3rd sg. masc.) Present (3rd sg. masc.)
I faʻala yafʻalu fuʻila yufʻalu
II faʻʻala yufaʻʻilu fuʻʻila yufaʻʻalu
III fāʻala yufāʻilu fūʻila yufāʻalu
IV ʼafʻala yufʻilu ʼufʻila yufʻalu
V tafaʻʻala yatafaʻʻalu tufuʻʻila yutafaʻʻalu
VI tafāʻala yatafāʻalu tufūʻila yutafāʻalu
VII infaʻala yanfaʻilu n/a
VIII iftaʻala yaftaʻilu uftiʻila yuftaʻalu
IX ifʻalla yafʻallu n/a
X istafʻala yastafʻilu ustufʻila yustafʻalu

The exact vocalization depends on the word form.

Common uses of those stems include:

  • faʻʻala is often used to make an intransitive verb transitive. Eg: karuma is "be noble" but karrama is "make (someone) to be noble", or, more idiomatically, to "honor".
  • infaʻala gives a passive meaning. Eg: kasara "break" and inkasara "be broken".
  • ifʻalla is used only to render stative verbs meaning "to be or become X" where X is a color or physical defect, eg: iḥmarra "turn red, blush" or iṭrašša "go deaf".

A more complete list of meanings is found at Wiktionary's appendix on Arabic verb forms.

Participle

Every verb has a corresponding active participle, and most have passive participles. E.g. muʻallim 'teacher' is the active participle to stem II. of the root ʻ-l-m ('know').

  • The active participle to Stem I is fāʻilun, and the passive participle is mafʻūlun.
  • Stems II-X take prefix mu- and nominal endings for both the participles, active and passive. The difference between the two participles is only in the vowel between the last two root letters, which is -i- for active and -a- for passive (e.g. II. active mu-faʻʻil-un, and passive mu-faʻʻal-un').

Verbal noun (Masdar)

In addition to a participle, there is a verbal noun (in Arabic, maṣdar, literally meaning "source") sometimes called a gerund, which is similar to English gerunds and verb-derived nouns of various sorts (e.g. 'running' and 'a run' from 'to run'; 'objection' from 'to object'). As shown by the English examples, its meaning refers both to the act of doing something and (by frequent semantic extension) to its result. One of its syntactic functions is as a verbal complement of another verb, and this usage it corresponds to the English gerund or infinitive (He prevented me from running or He began to run).

  • verbal noun formation to stem I is irregular.
  • the verbal noun to stem II is tafʻīlun. For example: taʼrīḫun 'date, history' is the verbal noun to stem II. of ʼ-r-ḫ ('date').
  • stem III often forms its verbal noun with the feminine form of the passive participle, so for sāʻada, "he helped", produces the verbal noun musāʻadatun. There are also some verbal noun of the form fiʻālun: jāhada, "he strove", yields jihādun (a struggle for a cause or purpose).
  • the following are the verbal noun of the remaining common derived stems: IV, afʻala, ifʻālun; V, tafaʻʻala, tafaʻʻulun; VI, tafāʻala, tafāʻulun; VII, infaʻala, infiʻālun; VIII, iftaʻala, iftiʻālun; IX, ifʻalla, ifʻilālun; X, istafʻala, istifʻālun.

Syntax

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Please improve this article if you can. (January 2007)

Classical Arabic tends to prefer the word order VSO (verb before subject) rather than SVO (subject before verb). However, the word order is fairly flexible, since words are tagged by case endings. MSA tends to use SVO word order and allow less word order variation, consistent with modern dialects. (The exception is in relative clauses, where the verb is usually first.) Subject pronouns are normally omitted except for emphasis or when using a participle as a verb (participles are not marked for person). Auxiliary verbs precede main verbs, and prepositions precede their objects.

Adjectives follow the noun they are modifying, and agree with the noun in case, gender, number, and state: For example, "bintun jamīlatun" "a beautiful girl" but "al-bintu l-jamīlatu" "the beautiful girl". (Compare "al-bintu jamīlatun" "the girl is beautiful".) Elative adjectives, however, precede their modifying noun, do not agree with it, and require that the noun be in the genitive case (see below).

Subjects are marked with the nominative case, as are objects in non-verbal sentences. Objects are marked with the accusative, even when they are objects of "kāna/yakūnu" "be". Hence, "al-bintu jamīlatun" "the girl is beautiful" but "al-bintu kānat jamīlatan" "the girl was beautiful". The genitive case is used for nouns that modify other nouns and for the objects of prepositions. There is no dative case; instead, the preposition "li-" is used.

Object pronouns are clitics and are attached to the verb, e.g. arā-hā "I see her". Possessive pronouns are likewise attached to the noun they modify, e.g. "kitābu-hu" "his book". The definite article "al-" is a clitic, as are the prepositions "li-" "to" and "bi-" "in/with" and the conjunctions "ka-" "as" and "fa-" "thus, so".

The subject of a sentence can be topicalized and emphasized by moving it to the beginning of the sentence and preceding it with the word "inna". Examples are "innaka anta jamīlun" "YOU are beautiful" or "inna s-samā’a zarqā’u" "THE SKY is blue". (In older texts, "inna" was translated "verily".)

"inna", along with its "sister" terms "anna" ("that", as in "I think that ..."), "inna" ("that" after qāla/yaqūlu "say"), "walakinna" "but" and "ka’anna" "as if" require that they be immediately followed by a noun or attached pronominal suffix, and a following noun must be in the accusative case.

Some other words also govern unexpected cases. For example, "kam" "how many" and "ʼayy-" "any" require a following indefinite genitive noun. Elative (comparative/superlative) adjectives behave similarly: "ʼaṭwalu waladin" "the tallest boy".

Numbers behave in a quite complicated fashion. "wāḥid-" "one" and "ʼiṯnān-" "two" are adjectives, following the noun and agreeing with it. "ṯalāṯat-" "three" through "ʻašarat-" "ten" require a following noun in the genitive plural, but agree with the noun in gender, while taking the case required by the surrounding syntax. "ʼaḥada ʻašara" "eleven" through "tisʻata ʻašara" "nineteen" require a following noun in the accusative singular, agree with the noun in gender, and are invariable for case, except for "ʼiṯnā ʻašara/ʼiṯnay ʻašara" "twelve". Numbers above this behave entirely as nouns, showing case agreement as required by the surrounding syntax, no gender agreement, and a following noun in a fixed case. "ʻišrūna" "twenty" through "tisʻūna" "ninety" require the accusative singular; "miʼat-" "hundred" and up require the genitive singular. The numbers themselves decline in various fashions; for example, "ʻišrūna" "twenty" through "tisʻūna" "ninety" decline as masculine plural nouns, while "miʼat-" "hundred" declines as a feminine singular noun and "ʼalf-" "thousand" as a masculine singular noun. "miʼat-" "hundred" and "ʼalf-" "thousand" can themselves be modified by numbers (to form numbers such as 200 or 5,000) and will be declined appropriately. ("miʼatāni" and "200" "ʼalfāni" "2,000" with dual endings; "ṯalāṯatu ʼālāfin" "3,000" with "ʼalf" in the plural genitive, but "ṯalāṯu miʼatin" "300" since "miʼat-" appears to have no plural.) In compound numbers, the last number dictates the declension of the associated noun. Large compound numbers can be extremely complicated, e.g.:

  • "'alfun wa-tis`u mi'atin wa-tis`u sineen(a)" "1,909 years"
  • "ba`da 'alfin wa-tis`i mi'atin wa-tis`i sineen(a)" "after 1,909 years"
  • "'arba`atun wa-tis`ūna 'alfan wa-ṯamānu-mi'atin wa-ṯalāṯatun wa-sittūna sanat(an)" "94,863 years"
  • "ba`da 'arba`atin wa-tis`īna 'alfan wa-ṯamānī-mi'atin wa-ṯalāṯatin wa-sittīna sanat(an)" "after 94,863 years"
  • "'iṯnā `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atāni wa-ṯnāni wa-`išrūna sanat(an)" "12,222 years"
  • "ba`da 'iṯnay `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atayni wa-ṯnayni wa-`išrīna sanat(an)" "after 12,222 years"
  • "'iṯnā `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atāni wa-sanatān(i)" "12,202 years"
  • "ba`da 'iṯnay `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atayni wa-sanatayn(i)" "after 12,202 years"


Adverbials are expressed using adjectives in the indefinite accusative, e.g.: qara’a al-kitāba qirā’atan baṭīʼatan, literally: "he read the book a slow reading", i.e., "He read the book slowly". This type of construction is known as the "absolute accusative."

References

  1. ^ Goodchild, Philip. Difference in Philosophy of Religion, 2003. Page 153.
  2. ^ Sayce, Archibald Henry. Introduction to the Science of Language, 1880. Page 28.
  3. ^ Alaa Elgibali and El-Said M. Badawi. Understanding Arabic: Essays in Contemporary Arabic Linguistics in Honor of El-Said M. Badawi, 1996. Page 105.
  4. ^ Haywood and Nahmad (1965) 'A new Arabic Grammar' 2nd edition, p.40
  5. ^ In 'sound' verbs, the root consonants (radicals) appear unchanged in inflected forms; verbs which are not sound are called 'weak', and either have hamza (ﺀ), wāw (و), or yāʼ (ي) as one of their radicals, or have the same radical in the middle and final position.

See also

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