Arabic Grammar

السلام عليكم,

By now we have tools to help us quickly identify اسم’s and فعل’s .  One last thing before we move on to meatier stuff, and that’s how to tell if a word is a حرف.

In a nutshell:
و الْحَرْفُ ما لا يَصْلُحُ مَعَهُ دَلِيلُ الاِسْمِ وَ لَا دَلِيْلُ الْفِعْلِ

“… and the حرف is whatever evidence of the اسم or فعل does not apply to…”

The حرف distinguishes itself from the اسم and the فعل, in that it doesn’t make sense for a sign of the اسم or فعل to come with it.  In other words, whatever doesn’t make sense for a sign of اسم or فعل to come with is a حرف.  

[Read more…] about The sign of the حرف

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله,

We’ve looked at the signs of the ism and even taken a slight detour and looked at some special حرف’s that come with them.  Now we’re going to continue on and look at some signs that tell us that a word is a fi’l (verb).  If you remember from here, a فِعْل (fi’l) is something that happens in time.  From the Ajurroomiyyah are 4 signs that tell us that we’re looking at a fi’l:

وَالْفِعْلُ يُعْرَفُ بِقَدْ وَالسِّينِ وَسَوْفَ وَتَاءِ التَّأنِيْثِ السَّاكِنَةِ

The fi’l is recognized using:

1. قَدْ
2. The letter س
3. سَوفَ
4. The silent ت used for the feminine

[Read more…] about Signs of the فِعْل

Earlier, in  Signs of the اسم, we learned that if we see one of the حروف الجرّ (particles of jarr) before a word, we know that word’s an ism.  Some people like to translate حروف الجَرّ as “prepositions”, but I don’t because not every preposition is a particle of jarr and not every particle of jarr is a preposition.  A particle of jarr is simply a word that:

1. adds a meaning to other words (as we learned in Verbs and Particles)
2. causes jarr in the word after it

From the Ajurroomiyyah:

وَهِيَ مِنْ وَإلى وَعَنْ وَعَلَى وَ فِيْ وَرُبَّ وَالْباءُ وَالْكَافُ وَالَّلامُ وَحُرُوْفُ الْقَسْمِ, وَهِيَ الْواوُ وَالْباءُ وَالتَّاءُ

And they (the particles of jarr) are مِنْ (min), إلى (ilaa), عَنْ (‘an), عَلى (‘alaa), فِيْ (fee), رُبَّ (rubba), the letter ب, the letter ك, the letter ل, and the particles of taking oath, and they are the letter و, the letter ب, and the letter ت. 

Below are particles of jarr, along with some of their meanings.  It’s not an exhaustive list, but it should give you a good idea.

مِنْ

• Starting or beginning, such as in سافَرتُ مِنَ القاهِرَةِ (I traveled from Cairo).

إلى

• Ending, such as in سافَرتُ إلى الإسكَندَرِيَّةِ (I traveled to Alexandria).

عَنْ

• Going past/beyond something, such as in رَمَيتُ السَهمَ عَنِ القَوسِ (I shot the arrow past the bow).

عَلى

• Rising or going up, such as in صَعِدتُ عَلى الجَبَلِ (I climbed up the mountain).

فِيْ

• Frame of time or place, such as in الماءُ فِي الكُوزِ (Water is in the jug)

رُبَّ

• Reducing or lessening, such as in رُبَّ رَجُلٍ كَريمٍ قابَلَنِي (But few a generous man has met me)

بِ

• Used to give an object to a verb that normally doesn’t take an object, such as in مَرَرتُ بِالوادِي (I passed by the river bed)
• Verbs that don’t take an object are called “intransitive” (they don’t transition over to an object), and we have that in English too.  Running, thinking, smiling are all intransitive (don’t actually need something to do them to).  Hitting and eating are transitive because you need something to do them to.
• The verb مَرَّ (to pass on) is intransitive.  By using the particle ب, we can make it transitive.

كَ

• Resemblance, such as in لَيلَى كَالبَدرِ (Layla is like the full moon)

لِ

• Ownership, as in المالُ لِمُحَمَّدٍ (The wealth belongs to Muhammad)
• Specification, as in البابُ لِلدارِ (The door is for the house) as الحَصِيرُ لِلمَسجِدِ (The mat is specifically for the masjid).
• Deservingness, as in الحَمدُ لِلّهِ (Allah deserves the praise)

[Read more…] about حُرُوْفُ الجَرّ (The particles of jarr)

السلام عليكم

We’ve looked at the three types of words that exist in Arabic.  Now we’re going to look at how to tell which kind a word is.  For each type there are certain signs that tell you immediately that a word is that type.

First, we’re going to look at the signs that tell us that a word is an اسم.  There are some new words here, but don’t be alarmed because we’ll break it down for you.

فَالاسْمُ يُعْرَفُ: بَالْخَفْضِ وَالتَّنْوِيْنِ وَدَخُوْلِ الأَلِفِ وَالََلامِ وَحُرُوْفِ الْخَفْضِ

The ism is recognized by خَفْض, tanwin, the entrance of ا and ل, the particles of خَفْض.

[Read more…] about Signs of the اسم

The فِعل (Verb)

We’ve mentioned that there are only three kinds of words and gone over the first kind (the اسم/noun).  Now, we’re going to look at the second type: the فِعل (verb). We’ve said previously that an اِسْم is a word that indicates a meaning that is not associated with any time period.

[Read more…] about Verbs and Particles

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله

We’ve gone into what counts as “proper speech”.  Now we’re going to look at the three kinds of words in Arabic.

From the Ajurroomiyyah:

وَأقْسَامُهَا ثَلاثَةٌ: اسْمٌ وَفِعْلٌ وَحَرْفٌ جَاءَ لِمَعْنىً

And its (i.e. speech) divisions are three: اسم (ism), فِعْل (fi’l) and حَرْف (harf) that comes to give a meaning.

There are three kinds of words.  We’ll go a little more into each, but they are:

1. اسْم (Noun)
2. فِعْل (Verb)
3. حَرْف (Particle)

That’s it.  You will never find an Arabic word that isn’t one of these three.  First, we’ll look at اسم’s

[Read more…] about Types of words