Chapter 1 Grammar

Sentence structure: SVO vs VSO

Arabic has two different types of sentence structures, verbal (جملة فعلية) and nominal (جملة اسمية).

Nominal sentences begin with a noun or a pronoun. While verbal sentences begin with a verb.

An example of this in English would be:

• Nominal: the boy walked to school
• Verbal: Walked the boy to school

The nominal sentence structure is often referred to as an English sentence structure, using the order of subject, verb, then object. An example would be: Sally went to the bookstore yesterday. In Arabic, the nominal sentence structure contains two parts, the subject (مبتدأ) and the predicate (خبر). The subject can be a noun or a pronoun and the predicate can be a noun, adjective, preposition, or verb.

In the above examples, the subjects are definite, but the subject can also be indefinite. This can be seen in the examples below.

Verbal sentences on the other hand begin with a verb (فعل) followed by a subject (قاعل). In a verbal sentence, the subject can be indicated through the conjugation of a verb or it can be written separately, for example:

What is the point of having two different types of sentences? In Arabic,  verbal sentences are usually considered to be more formal. As such, they are used when writing an academic paper or speaking in a news broadcast. However, that doesn’t mean that nominal sentences are incorrect or that you can’t use them. Whether you choose nominal or verbal sentences depends more on what part of the sentences you want to emphasize, for example:

While both sentences have the same meaning, the first sentence puts emphasis on the action of cooking, while the second sentence puts emphasis on the subject, my grandma.

Nonhuman plurals

In Arabic, there must always be an agreement between nouns and adjectives. For example, if a noun is plural, then the adjective must be plural or if a noun is feminine, then the adjective must be feminine, etc. For example:

However, there is an exception to this rule. When you have a plural, non-human object (such as apples, houses, cars, horses, etc) the adjective doesn’t always match the gender or number of the noun. The main rule in Arabic is that non-human plurals are always treated as if they were singular and feminine, so their adjectives are always singular and feminine. This is the case even if the word is masculine. The phrase I use to remember this rule is “non-human plurals are always singular feminine”. For example:

Verb conjugation

In Arabic there are two tenses:

1. Perfect or past tense (الماضي), which involves adding a suffix to the root of the verb.
2. Imperfect or present tense (المضارع),  which involves adding both prefixes and suffixes to the root of a verb:

Past Tense- (to eat) أكل (root ء-ك-ل)

Notice how the root to eat ( ء-ك-ل) in the past tenses receives suffixes (in red). This is the basic model to follow when conjugating any word to the past tense. Additionally, when conjugating into the past tense, make sure to pay attention to short vowels. Without the short vowels, you ate (both masculine and feminine) and she ate looks the same. Writing short vowels will not only help you distinguish masculine from feminine, but it will also aid with the correct pronunciation.

Past tense- to prepare حضّر  root ( ح-ض-ر)

Conjugations change depending on the wazin or the form of the verb. For example, you may have noticed in the above table that the root of “to prepare” only contains one ض, but the conjugated verbs contain two (as indicated by the w shape above the ض). This is called the wazin (الأوزان) or the verb form, which tells you what letters and short vowels to keep while conjugating. We will discuss this topic in detail in the next unit. For now, continue to conjugate past tense verbs based on the root given and the suffixes (in red) in the first chart.

Present tense- to eat  أكل (root ء-ك-ل)

Moving on to present tense, take note of how present tense conjugations contain both suffixes and prefixes (in red). Additionally, it should be noted that the verb to eat is unique when it comes to conjugating for “I”. When conjugating a verb to present tense “I”, you would normally add a أ to the beginning of the word. However, because the root أكل already contains a “ء”, it becomes an alif madda, which is written with a squiggly line above the alif  (آ). This means that there are two alifs next to each other, thus it is pronounced with a long “aa” sound. It would look wrong to write “I eat” like أأكل so it’s written آكل. Otherwise, all present tense “I” conjugations (where the root doesn’t start with “ء”) start with “أ”. Refer to the table below.

Present tense- to prepare  حضّر (root ح-ض-ر)

Future tense doesn’t require a negation chart. All you do is take the present tense verb and add a “س” to the beginning of the word. For example:

Negation

Now that we have learned how to conjugate a verb in the past, present, and future, it’s important to know how to negate those verbs. Each group, past, present, and future has a different form of negation and combines different verb tenses. While there are many different forms of negations, for this unit we will be focusing on the five main negation forms:

لا = La

لَم = Lam

ما = Ma

لن = Lan

لَيْس = Laisa (masc.) or ْلَيْسَت = Laisat (fem.)

The last negation form (ليس) is special because it is only used in nominal sentences and is often associated with the English conjunction Isn’t :

Time

In Arabic, there are two types of numbers, cardinal and ordinal. Cardinal numbers are used for counting while ordinal numbers are used for time. Both ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers have feminine and masculine forms, which one you use depends on the gender of the noun. In this case, when talking about the time, الساعة، the ordinal numbers will always be feminine as the word time or hour is feminine. Refer to the chart below for ordinal numbers 1-12 o’clock:

If you want to tell the time, you must include the hour and minutes. In Arabic, we use ‘و‘ after the hour to indicate the time that has passed. So half-past four in Arabic would be ‘four o’clock and a half’: الساعة الرابعة والنصف. َ

Additionally, to say a certain amount of time until the next hour, we use إلا. إلا is used for any time on the clock after 30 minutes, for example, if the time is 9:45 you would state in Arabic “a quarter (25 mintues) until ten” or  الساعة العاشرة إلا الربع. The next hour comes first followed by the current amount of time left until that hour

Examples of Reading a Clock

الساعة الحادية و الربع

الساعة التاسعة إلا الربع

الساعة خامسة