Archive for 'Grammar'
Arabic Irregular Verbs: Hollow Verbs (Part 1) Posted by aziza on Feb 3, 2010
This post deals with conjugation of verbs that have a medial vowel (ا). They are called hollow verbs(الفعل الأجوف), e.g. (نام) ‘slept’, (باع) ‘sold’, (قام) ‘got up’, etc. In the present tense, the medial vowel can change, as it becomes like its root. The three examples below give examples of three verbs that behave differently…
Irregular Verbs in Arabic (Part 4): Conjugating Verbs that Begin with a Vowel Posted by aziza on Jan 30, 2010
This post deals with conjugation of verbs that begin with the vowel (و) – (الفعل المثال الواوي), e.g. (وصل) ‘arrived, (وعد) ‘promised, etc. In the present tense, which usually involves the use of prefixes, the first vowel of the verb is substituted by the prefix, i.e. the vowel which occurs in the beginning of the…
Irregular Verbs in Arabic (Part 3): Verbs Beginning with Vowels Posted by aziza on Jan 27, 2010
This post deals with verbs that begin with a vowel (الفعل المثال), e.g. (وصل) ‘arrived, (وعد) ‘promised, (يئس) ‘gave up hope’, etc. In the past tense, they take the same endings like any other verb, this is mainly because past tense verbs are conjugated with suffixes, or endings. Therefore, the beginning of the verbs, i.e…
Irregular Verbs in Arabic (Part 2): Doubled Verbs in Present Tense Posted by aziza on Jan 12, 2010
In this post, I present doubled verbs (الفعل المضعف) in the present tense. Examples of doubled verbs are (شدّ) ‘pulled’, (ظنّ) ‘thought’, (استعدّ) ‘got prepared’, (استمرّ) ‘continued’, etc. Just like past tense verbs, with some pronouns the doubled letter has to be repeated twice, while with others, it remains one letter with shadda. The table…
Irregular Verbs in Arabic (Part 1): Doubled Verbs Posted by aziza on Jan 9, 2010
Doubled verbs (الفعل المضعف) in Arabic end in a doubled letter, i.e. one with shadda (ـّ), e.g. (شدّ) ‘pulled’, (ظنّ) ‘thought’, (استعدّ) ‘got prepared’, (استمرّ) ‘continued’, etc. What is special about these verbs is that with some pronouns, the doubled letter has to be repeated twice, while with others, it remains one letter with shadda…
Arabic nouns: Proper nouns vs. Generic nouns Posted by aziza on Jan 6, 2010
There are 2 types of Arabic nouns, with sub-types of each type. The first type is proper nouns (اسم عَلَم) which refer to a particular person, place, etc. Examples of these are (محمد), (يوسُف), (مَكّة), (فلسطين), etc. These nouns are definite because they are names of particular people or places; therefore, they cannot be made…
One Letter Words in Arabic Posted by aziza on Dec 23, 2009
In Arabic, there is a limited number of words that are made up of one letter only, for example (و) ‘and’, and (ف) which is used to link sentences explaining each other. In addition, there are some prepositions, e.g. (ب) ‘with/by’, (ك) ‘as/like’, (ل) ‘to/for’. What we should note about all these is that they…