Ultimate Arabic

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله,

We’ve talked about the two of the seven reasons why a noun will be in رفع (raf’).  Today we’re going to talk about two more at the same time, because they come together.  They are called the مُبْتَدَأ (mubtada’) and the خَبَر (khabar).

When you have a جُمْلة فِعْلِية (a verbal sentence), the sentence will start with a fi’l (verb) and will have a doer (or its substitute) after the verb or inside it.  In other words:

Verb (فِعْل) + Doer (فاعِل) + Object (مَفُعُوْل) = Verbal sentence (جُمْلَة فعْلِيَّة) 

Now, instead of starting with a verb, if you start with a noun, it’s not a verbal sentence anymore.  It’s called a nominal sentence (جُمْلَة اسْمِيَّة) because it starts with a noun.  The structure would be:

Beginning (مُبْتَدَأ) + Information (خَبَر) = Nominal sentence (جُمْلَة اسْمِيَّة)

To illustrate further, I’ll give you two sentences with the same information that are built completely differently from each other, both telling us that “Muhammad rejoiced”.  One starts with a verb, and the other starts with a noun.

• فَرِحَ مُحَمَّدٌ – Verb followed by its doer.  This is the normal way to express it.
• مُحَمَّدٌ فَرِحَ – It gives us the same information, but stresses that it’s Muhammad who rejoiced.  We cannot say that ٌمُحَمّد is the doer of فَرِحَ because we have learned that the doer always comes after the verb.  Instead we say that مُحَمَّدٌ is the mubtada’ (subject/topic of the sentence), and that فَرِحَ (“he rejoiced”) is the khabar (the information or news about that subject).

Having said that, the definition of the mubtada’ and khabar:

المُبْتَدَأُ: هُوَ الاِسْمُ المَرْفُوْعُ العَارِيْ عَنِ الْعَوَامِلِ اللَفْظِيَّةِ, وَالْخَبَرُ هُوَ الاِسْمُ الْمَرْفُوْعُ الْمُسْنَدُ إِلَيْهِ, نَحْوُ قَوْلِكَ “زَيْدٌ قائِمٌ وَ”الْزَيْدَانِ قَائِمَانِ” وَالزَيْدُوْنَ قَائِمُوْنَ

The mubtada’ is the raf’-ized noun that is bare of any utterable influences, and the khabar is the raf’-ized noun that refers back to it, like your saying زَيْدٌ قائِمٌ (“Zayd is standing”),  الْزَيْدَانِ قَائِمَانِ (“The 2 Zayds are both standing”), and الزَيْدُوْنَ قَائِمُوْنَ (“The Zayds are all standing”).

So, three things to remember for a mubtada’:

1. It’s a noun (so it can’t be a verb or particle)
2. It’s in raf’ (so it can’t be in nasb or jarr)
3. Nothing is affecting it, such as:
   • a verb before it that would make it the doer, or
   • some special verb from the كانَ family before it .  In that case, it wouldn’t be a mubtada’ anymore.  It would be called the ism of كان instead (there is a whole section on that later)

As for the khabar:

1. It’s also a noun,
2. also in raf’,
3. that refers back to the mubtada’ and is carried by it, so that the sentence is complete

Let’s look a very basic nominal sentence:

[Read more…] about The مُبْتَدَأ and the خَبَر

السلام عليكم ورَحمة الله وبركاته,

We’re looking at the seven situations when a noun will be in the state of رَفْع (raf’), and this is the second one: the نائب الفاعِلِ (substitute for the doer).  You’ll know what that means after we explain it…

بابُ المَفْعُوْلِ الَّذِيْ لَمْ يُسَمَّ فاعِلُهُ: وَهُوَ الاسْمُ الْمَرْفُوْعُ الَّذِيْ لَمْ يُذْكَرْ مَعَهُ فاعِلُهُ

The section on the “object whose doer is not named”, and it is the noun in raf’ whose doer is not mentioned with it.

Sometimes a sentence will have a verb, a doer and an object.  In the examples below, you have a verb, followed by a doer in رَفْع (raf’), followed by an object in نَصْب (nasb).  This is the normal way to have a verb in a sentence, and it’s called مَعْرُوْف (active), because the doer is mentioned.

• قَطَعَ مَحْمُوْدٌ الغُصْنَ (“Mahmood cut the branch”)
• حَفِظَ خَلِيْلٌ الدَرْسَ (“Khaleel memorized the lesson”)
• يَقْطَعُ إبراهِيْمُ الغُصْنَ (“Ibrahim is cutting the branch”)
• يَحْفَظُ عَلِيٌّ الدَرْسَ (“Ibrahim is memorizing the lesson”)

Other times, someone will leave out the doer, and he’ll just mention the verb and the object.  When you leave out the doer this is called مَجُهُوْل (passive), and the verb and the object will have to change form.  We’ll talk about how the verb will change in a little bit, but first let’s see how the object will change.

The object, which should normally be in nasb, will have to be put in raf’ and follow the same rules that the doer would follow.  It’s going to step up and fulfill the rules that the doer was going to meet.  We covered these rules in The فاعل (Doer), but I’ll repeat them here:

1. It has to be a noun
2. In the state of raf’
3. Comes after the verb (doesn’t necessarily have to be immediately after)

That’s why “the object whose doer is not named” is also called “the substitute for the doer”, because if the doer isn’t there, something has to step up and assume its place.  Now let’s see how the verb will change …

[Read more…] about The نائب الفاعِلِ (substitute for the doer)

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله

In 7 types of nouns in رفع, we learned that they are 7 situations when an Arabic noun will be in raf’.  Today we’re going to look at the first one: the فاعل (or doer) of a sentence

The فاعل (doer)

الفاعِلُ هُوَ: الاسْمُ المَرْفْوْعُ المَذْكُوْرُ قَبْلَهُ فِعْلُهُ

The فاعِل (doer) is: The raf’-ized noun whose verb is mentioned before it.

The word فاعِل has two meanings, one that goes back to the normal meaning in the language and one that is specifically when we’re talking about grammar.  In the language, it just means “whoever made the فِعْل (action) happen”.  When we’re talking about grammar, the meaning is exactly what’s above: “The raf’-ized noun whose verb is mentioned before it”.

That means three things when we’re looking for what could be the doer in a sentence:

1. It has to be a noun (so it can’t be a verb or a particle).  It can be:
   • an outright noun, as in قالَ نُوْحٌ (“Noah said”) and وَإذْ يَرْفَعُ إبراهِيمُ (“And when Abraham raised”)
   • something that’s not a noun, but can be interpreted as one.  Three quick examples:
     • أوَلَمْ يَكْفِهِمْ أنَّا أنْزَلْنا (“Hasn’t it sufficed them that we sent down…?”  – The word أنَّا (“that we”) together along with the verb أنْزَلْنا (“We sent down”) could be understood as the verbal noun إنْزالُنا (“our sending down of …”).  If we set that as the doer, then the we can understand it to mean “Hasn’t our sending down sufficed them?”  If you don’t understand this one fully, just move on because we’ll be talking more about the إنََ family more when we talk about the situations when a noun will be nasb-ized.
     • يَسُرُّنِيْ أنْ تَتَمَسَّكَ بِالْفَضائِلِ (“It makes me happy that you adhere to virtues”) – We see the nasb-izer أنْ along with the verb تَتَمَسَّكَ (“you adhere”).  Together they are understood as the noun تَمَسُّكُكَ (“your adherence”), and that will be the doer.  The meaning can be “Your adherence to virtues makes me happy”.
     • أعْجَبَنِيْ ما صَنَعْتَ (“What you manufactured amazed me”) – We can take ما (“what”) and صَنَعْتَ (“you manufactured”) together to mean صُنْعُكَ (“your manufacturing”) and set that as the doer.  The meaning can be “Your manufacturing amazed me”.
2. It has to be in raf’ (i.e. it can’t be in nasb or jarr)
3. Its verb has to be before it (i.e. the doer has to come after the verb) – If you find a raf’-ized noun before the verb, then you’re not looking at a verbal sentence.  It’s a nominal sentence, which has a mubtada` (or whatever modifies it) and a khabar.

The intent of “verb” here also includes whatever resembles a verb such as the:

• اسم الفعل (noun that acts like a verb), like هَيهاتَ العَقِيق (“how far off is the canyon!”) and شتّانَ زَيدٌ وَعَمْروٌ (“How different are Zayd and `Amr!”) – The words العقيق and زيد (along with عمرو who’s connected to زَيد) to it are all doers.
• اسم الفاعل (noun with the meaning of the doer of an action), like أقادِمٌ أبُوكَ (“Is your father standing?”) – The word أبوك is the doer of قادِمٌ (“one who stands”)

[Read more…] about The فاعل (Doer)

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله,

Things are starting to pick up now in our Arabic grammar series.  We’ve gone through all the status indicators and how words look like in their different statuses.  Then we started looking at why status changes will happen, starting with what causes nasb and jazm in a verb.

Today, we’re going to move on to what causes an اسم (noun) to have a particular status.  As a refresher, a noun can have one of three possible statuses:

1. رَفْع (raf’) – Usually represented by a dhammah at the end
2. نَصْب (nasb) – Usually represented by a fathah at the end
3. جَرّ (jarr), otherwise known as خَفْض (khafdh) – Usually represented by a kasrah at the end

Each of these positions has influences that demand it. We start with raf’, because it is the most honorable.

عَدَدُ الْمَرْفُوْعاتِ  وَأمْثالُها (The number of  nouns in رَفْع and their examples)

بابُ مَرْفُوْعاتِ الأسْماءِ – المَرْفُوْعاتُ سَبْعَةٌ وَهِيَ: الْفَاعِلُ وَالْمَفْعُوْلُ الَّذِيْ لَمْ يُسَمَّ فَاعِلُهُ وَالْمُبْتَدَأُ وَخَبَرُهُ وَاسْمُ “كانَ” وَأخَوَاتِها وَخَبَرُ “إنَّ” وَأخَواتِها وَالتَّابِعُ لِلْمَرْفُوْعِ, وَهُوَ أربَعَةُ أشْيَاء: النََعْتُ وَالْعَطْفُ وَالتَّوْكِيْدُ وَالْبَدَلُ

Chapter on the nouns in رفع status – The nouns put in raf’ are 7:

1. الفاعِل – the doer of an action
2. المَفعُولُ الذِي لَم يُسَمَّ فاعِلُه -The object of an action whose doer has not been mentioned
3. المُبتَدَأ – The Subject of a nominal sentence
4. خَبَرُه – Information about the subject
5. The اسم of كان and its siblings
6. The خَبَر of إن and its siblings
7. A grammatical follower of a word in رفع status, which can be a:
   1. نَعْت – Description
   2. عَطْف – Conjunction
   3. تَوْكِيْد – Emphasis
   4. بَدَل – Substitute

A noun will be in raf’ in the following seven situations.  Each of them is going to be covered in detail in a later post إنْ شاء الله, so don’t worry if you haven’t come across them yet. [Read more…] about 7 types of nouns in رَفْع