Archive for 'Grammar'
Arabic Grammar: Diptotes Posted by aziza on Feb 15, 2011
In this post, I explain the case marking system with special reference to diptotes or (الممنوع من الصرف). Diptotes refers to a category of nouns and adjectives that do not take tanween when they are indefinite and have special markings for cases. It should be remembered that when these words are definite, they take regular…
Identifying fronted predicates1 Posted by aziza on Jan 20, 2011
In this posting, the answer of the question presented yesterday about fronted predicates. Please find the fronted predicates underlined and the subjects marked in bold. كان للصالونات الأدبية دور هام فى الحياة الأدبية في مصر .. كان لها دور كبير ومؤثر .. فصالون مي مثلا، كان ينبض بالحرارة، لأن صاحبة الصالون كانت جميلة، وكان كل…
Identifying fronted predicates Posted by aziza on Jan 19, 2011
I got a request from one of the dear blog readers asking for examples on identifying fronted predicates and their subjects. First, allow me to remind of the cases in which we have fronted predicates and what conditions need to exist in a sentence so that it has a fronted predicate. We have a fronted…
Expressing frequency in Arabic: Adverbials of Time Posted by aziza on Dec 27, 2010
In this post, I give examples on the use of some adverbials of time that express frequency. These are adverbs that describe how often an action is done, e.g. always, sometimes, often, etc. Never = أبداً لا أدخن أبداً. “I never smoke.” الأستاذ لا يتأخر عن الدرس أبداً “The teacher is never late for his…
Arabic Negation Using ‘laa’ Posted by aziza on Dec 6, 2010
In my previous post, I explained how (لا) can be used to indicate categorical negation. In this post, I explain the difference between its use for negation (النفي) and prohibition (النهي). (لا) is used for negation (النفي) with present tense verbs, e.g. لا أشرب القهوة كثيراً. “I do not drink a lot of coffee.” لا…
Categorical Negation in Arabic Posted by aziza on Dec 3, 2010
The negative particle (لا) is typically used to negate verbal sentences in the present tense. In this way, it is used before the present tense verb to negate it, e.g. لا أشرب الكحول. “I do not drink alcohol.” There is another use of (لا) for categorical negation (لا النافية للجنس). In this way, (لا) negates…
Some constructions involving nouns Posted by aziza on Nov 2, 2010
In this post, I bring together some constructions that are based on nouns or that involve nouns in them. These can be confusing to new learners of Arabic. The reviewd constructions are nominal sentence (الجملة الاسمية), nouns and adjectives (الاسم والصفة) and idaafa constructions (الإضافة). The Nominal Sentence: A nominal sentence begins with a noun or a pronoun…