
السلام عليكم and welcome back!
We’re doing the second of the 15 types of nouns in نَصْب, which is the مَصْدَر (infinitive) when it comes as the مَفْعُوْل مُطْلَق (the absolute object) of a verb. Read on for more!
The infinitive
المَصْدَرُ هُوَ: الاسْمُ، المَنْصُوْبُ، الّذِيْ يَجِيْءُ ثالِثاً فِيْ تَصْرِيْفِ الْفِعْلِ، نَحْوُ: ضَرَبَ يَضربُ ضَرْباً
The masdar (infinitive) is the noun in nasb that comes third in the conjugation of the verb, like ضَرَبَ (“he hit”), يَضْرِبُ (“he hits”), ضَرْبًا (“hitting”)
What’s meant by the masdar being “third in the conjugation” is that if someone tells you to conjugate the verb ضَرَبَ (“he hit”), you would first give the past tense as ضَرَبَ (“he hit”), followed by the present tense as يَضْرِبُ (“he hits”), then the masdar as ضَرْبًا (“hitting”). It kind of makes sense to translate the masdar as the “infinitive” because it is a noun and is not tied to a finite period of time (past, present or future) like verbs are.
This conjugation (past/present/infinitive) is something that should be memorized for any new verb you encounter, but I won’t go further into that because that’s a morphology issue and this series is focusing on grammar. [Read more…] about المَصْدَر (The absolute object)