Tag Archives: Arabic grammar
Expressing prohibition (Part 2) Posted by aziza on Aug 26, 2010
In a previous post, I explained how to form prohibition (don’t) in Arabic using prohibitive (لا) followed by the appropriate form of the present tense verb. It should be noted that after prohibitive (لا), verbs are in the jussive case. This means that if in the present tense, the verb ends in a suffix like…
Almanqoos (Part 2) Posted by aziza on Aug 12, 2010
In the previous post, I introduced (الاسم المنقوص) which is a noun that ends in (ي) preceded by a letter with kasra (ـِ). It is special in its form, as the final (ي) is deleted when the noun is indefinite. The case marking (الإعراب) of this category of nouns is special as well. The final…
Almanqoos Posted by aziza on Aug 6, 2010
(الاسم المنقوص) is a noun that ends in a long i: (ي) with a kasra (ـِ) on the letter before last, e.g. (النادي) “club”, (القاضي) “judge”, etc. These nouns are very tricky to master in Arabic because they are often confused with other nouns and adjectives that end in (ي), e.g. nisba adjectives for nationalities…
Direct and Indirect Objects in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jul 27, 2010
In Arabic, just like English some verbs take two objects; in English they are called direct and indirect objects, while in Arabic they are called first and second objects (مفعول به أول) and (مفعول به ثانٍ). Some of the verbs that take two objects are: (أعطى) ‘to give”, (أهدى) ‘to present’, (ظن) ‘to think’, etc…
The Absolute Object Posted by aziza on May 25, 2010
The Absolute Object (المفعول المطلق) is a special type of object that serves to emphasize the meaning of the main verb. It is typically formed by using the verbal noun (المصدر) derived from the main verb in the accusative form, e.g. انتصر الجيش انتصاراً. ‘The army has achieved victory.’ The absolute objects can be modified…
Tricky Dual (both) Posted by aziza on May 23, 2010
Dual can be very tricky at times. The word (كِلا) in Arabic means ‘both’ in English. It is used mainly as part of an idaafa construction, either with a definite noun (كِلا الطالبان) ‘both students’ or a pronoun, e.g. (كِلاهما) ‘both of them’. Many people erroneously use (كِلا) with both masculine and feminine, without realizing…
A Confusing Arabic Word Pair: An and Anna Posted by aziza on May 20, 2010
There are two words that are written in the same way and that are often confusing for learners of Arabic. These words are (أنّ) ‘anna’, (أنْ) ‘an’. They are functional words that differ in the way they are used. These two words collocate with different verbs, e.g. with (عرف) ‘knew’, we must use (أنّ) which…