| Arabic Grammar |
Article Index for Arabic |
Website Links For Arabic |
Information AboutArabic Grammar |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ARABIC GRAMMAR | |
| arabic language | |
| grammars of specific languages | |
|
HISTORY 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 '' Abi Ishaq '' (died AD 735 /6, AH 117). The efforts of three generations of grammarians culminated in the book of the Persian scholar '' Sibawayh '' (ca. 760 – 793 ). Traditionally, the grammatical sciences are divided into five branches:
PHONOLOGY See Also: Arabic phonology Classical Arabic has 28 .) List of phonemes as transliterated in this article (in DIN 31635 , see also Romanization Of Arabic ):
Note that Arabic is particularly rich in Uvular , Pharyngeal , and Pharyngealized (" Emphatic ") sounds. The emphatic sounds are generally considered to be , , , and . (Sometimes is wrongly included — wrongly, because only the four emphatics, and not , cause assimilation of emphasis to an adjacent non-emphatic consonant.) It is generally believed that Classical Arabic phonology is extremely conservative, and is close to that of Proto-Semitic ; only the South Arabian Languages are more conservative in their phonology. The six vowels are inherited without change from Proto-Semitic, and of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost (, which merged with ). In addition, various sounds have been changed. An original Voiceless Lateral Fricative became , restoring a previously lost sound. Another complex lateral sound, (voiced pharyngealized lateral fricative), became with loss of the lateral sound, although the original sound appears to have still existed at the time of the Qur'an. (Hence the Classical appellation '' or "language of the " for Arabic, where '' is the letter corresponding to this sound, which was considered by Arabs to be the most unusual sound in Arabic.) An original became , and became palatalized at the time of the Qur'an, and in the standard modern pronunciation of Classical Arabic. (The dialects variously have (Arabian Peninsula), (Cairo), (North Africa), (Persian Gulf area), and original (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 Reconstruct ed. The Syllable structure of Arabic is such that there may be clusters of two, but not of three consecutive consonants. A cluster of two consonants at the beginning of an utterance will be preceded by an auxiliary vowel (''''). NOUN State Noun s (and their modifying Adjective s) 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 Suffix ed Pronoun (kalbu-ha l-kabīr "her big dog"), if it is inherently definite by being a Proper Noun (, "old Cairo"), or if it is in a Genitive construction with a definite noun or nouns (bintu l-maliki, "the daughter of the king"). Article See Also: Al- The article (') ' 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 (''''), is volatile in the sense that it disappears in Sandhi , the article becoming mere '''' (although the is retained in orthography in any case for clarity). Also, the ' 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 ' is retained, and the gemination may be expressed by putting '''' on the following letter). The consonants causing assimilation (trivially including ') are: '', , , , , , , , , , , , , ''. These 14 letters are called 'solar letters' ('), while the remaining 14 are called 'lunar letters' (''''). The solar letters all have in common that they are Dental , Alveolar and Postalveolar Consonant s in the classical language, and the lunar consonants are not. (ج '''' 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 '''' is often spoken as if solar.) Inflection See Also: Iʿrāb Arabic has three grammatical s, never take the final ''n'', and have the suffix ' 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 ' or , where the '''' "sits" upon an added to the end of the word (the 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 has three numbers: Singular , Dual (denoting two of a given noun) and Plural . The dual is formed by suffixing ''-āni'' to the noun stem in the nominative and ''-ayni'' in the accusative and genitive. The "ni" is dropped in iḍāfa. The plurals are formed in two ways. The "sound plurals" are formed by the addition of a suffix. Masculine sound plurals take the forms "" in the nominative and "" in the genitive and accusative. These do not change whether the noun is definite or indefinite. Feminine ''indefinite'' sound plurals take "" in the nominative and "" in the accusative and genitive. Feminine ''definite'' sound plurals take "" in the nominative and "" in the accusative and genitive. The Broken Plural s 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 ' suffix, but some nouns without this marker also take feminine agreement (e.g. ' 'mother', '''' 'earth'). Already in Classical Arabic, the '''' marker was not pronounced in Pausa . It is written with a special letter ('''') indicating that a '''' sound is to be pronounced in Sandhi , but not in pausa. Genitive construction 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 (') governs the second term ('). E. g. '''' '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 genitive case. This construction is typical for a Semitic language. In many cases the two members become a fixed coined phrase, the being used as the equivalent of nominal composition in some Indo-European languages (which does not exist in Semitic). '''' thus may mean either 'house of the (certain, known) students' or 'the student hostel'. Nisba The ''Nisba'' (') is a common suffix to form adjectives of relation or pertinence. The suffix is ' for masculine and '''' for feminine gender (in other words, it is '''' and is inserted before the gender marker). E. g. '''' 'Lebanon', '''' 'Lebanese'. A construction noun + ''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 Enclitic pronouns Enclitic forms of the pronoun (') 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 ' after nouns (genitive) and '''' after verbs (accusative). Demonstratives There are two demonstratives (''''), Near-deictic ('this') and far-deictic ('that'):
NUMERALS Cardinal numerals Cardinal numerals (') from 1-10 (zero is ', from which the English words " Cipher " and " Zero " are ultimately derived)
The numerals 1 and 2 are adjectives; 3-10 are diptotes (the ending '''' 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. '''' '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 عشرة is always opposite that of the ones place. The noun counted takes indefinite accusative singular.
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.
Whole hundreds, thousands etc. appear as first terms of genitive constructions, e.g. '''' '1001 nights'.
Fractions of a whole smaller than "half" are expressed by the structure sg. '''', pl. ''''.
etc. Ordinal numerals Ordinal numerals (') higher than "first" are formed using the structure ', '''':
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 , for example, indicate 'write', indicate 'read', indicate 'eat' etc.; Words are formed by supplying the root with a vowel structure and with affixes. Traditionally, Arabic grammarians have used the root '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. Perfective In the perfective form, the perfective stem ' is affixed with a personal ending, e. g. ' 'he wrote', '''' '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. '''' 'he became big, he grew up'). Imperfective The imperfective expresses an action in progress, or incompleted, i.e. mostly present tense. There are several vowel patterns (', ','''') the root can take. The root takes a prefix as well as a suffix to build the verb form. E. g. '''' 'he is writing'. Note the co-incidence of 3rd f. sg. and 2nd m. sg. Mood Modal forms can be derived from the imperfective stem: the Subjunctive by (roughly speaking) replacing the final vowel by ', the Jussive by dropping this ' 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 ''''+jussive. For example: 2. sg. m.:
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:
Weak roots Roots containing one or two of the radicals ' ('), ' (') or ' (') 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 '''', these peculiarities are mainly orthographical, since '''' is not subject to elision (the orthography of '''' and '''' 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 ''''). For instance, verbs such as '', , , '' 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. Classical Arabic has a great number of derived stems, not all of which are still in use. 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. The exact vocalisation will be dependent on the word form. Common uses of those stems include:
A more complete list of meanings is found at . Participle Every verb has a corresponding active participle, and most have passive participles. E.g. ' 'teacher' is the active participle to stem II. of the root ' ('know').
Verbal Noun (المصدر) In addition to a participle, there is a Verbal Noun (in Arabic, مصدر ''maṣdar'', 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''''').
SYNTAX 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 Clitic s 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 "'ayy-" "any" require a following indefinite genitive noun. Elative (comparative/superlative) adjectives behave similarly: "ʾaṭwalu waladin" "the tallest boy". Numbers behave in a quite complicated fashion. "wāḥid-" "one" and "'iṯnān-" "two" are adjectives, following the noun and agreeing with it. "ṯalāṯat-" "three" through "`ašarat-" "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. "'aḥada `ašara" "eleven" through "tis`ata `ašara" "nineteen" require a following noun in the accusative singular, agree with the noun in gender, and are invariable for case, except for "'iṯnā `ašara/'iṯnay `ašara" "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. "`išrūna" "twenty" through "tis`ūna" "ninety" require the accusative singular; "mi'at-" "hundred" and up require the genitive singular. The numbers themselves decline in various fashions; for example, "`išrūna" "twenty" through "tis`ūna" "ninety" decline as masculine plural nouns, while "mi'at-" "hundred" declines as a feminine singular noun and "'alf-" "thousand" as a masculine singular noun. "mi'at-" "hundred" and "'alf-" "thousand" can themselves be modified by numbers (to form numbers such as 200 or 5,000) and will be declined appropriately. ("mi'atāni" and "200" "'alfāni" "2,000" with dual endings; "ṯalāṯatu 'ālāfin" "3,000" with "'alf" in the plural genitive, but "ṯalāṯu mi'atin" "300" since "mi'at-" 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.:
Adverbials are expressed using adjectives in the indefinite accusative, e.g.: '''', 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." NOTES SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS Software Online conjugators Learning resources |
|
|