Overview of Arabic Grammar.

Written by Fz.

Overview of Grammar

Noun

The word “doctor” is a “noun”; so are “dog”, and “book”. A “noun” is word that represent things. They also represent things that are not really things but can be said to be thing-like: feelings, idea, concept.

Articles

The word “the” in “the doctor” is called a “definite article”. The word “a” in “a doctor” is called an “indefinite article”.

Subject-Predicate

The doctor is beautiful.

A sentence is made up of two parts: the “subject” and the “predicate”. In the sentence above, “The doctor” is called the “subject”, meaning the thing or topic we wish to talk about; whereas, “is beautiful” is called the “predicate”, meaning the part that explains the “subject”. By the way, the word “predicate” itself means “declaration”.

Adjective

The doctor is beautiful.

The beautiful doctor is tall.

The word “beautiful” in both the sentences above is called an “adjective”. An “adjective” is a word that describes other nouns, in this case it describes “the doctor”. To easily differentiate between the word “beautiful” in both sentences, the “beautiful” in the first sentence is called a “predicate adjective”, because it is in the “predicate” part of the sentence. Whereas, the word “beautiful” in the second sentence is called just an “adjective” (because it is in the “subject” part of the sentence).

Subject-Verb-Object

The doctor striked the patient.

The word “The doctor” in the sentence above, is the “subject”, meaning the thing we wish to talk about. It may also be called the “actor” or the “agent” of the action in the sentence, in this case “striked”. The word “striked” is called a “verb”, meaning a word that represents an “action”, done by the “subject”. The word “the patient” is called the “object of the verb” or just the “object”, meaning the thing that receives the action of the “verb”.

Adverb

The doctor striked the patient beautifully.

The word “beautifully” is called an “adverb”. It describes how the “action” was done. Notice that “beautifully” is just the adjective “beautiful” with a “ly” tacked on its end. The description of a “noun” is called an “adjective”; the description of a “verb” is called an “adverb”.

Particles

From, to, behind, in front of, today – are words that are not nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs. They are almost always followed by a “noun” (eg. “from the school”; where “the school” is a “noun”).

In conclusion:

Noun = thing word

Adjective = thing description word (which is in the subject)

Predicate Adjective = thing description word (which is in the predicate)

Verb = action word

Adverb = action description word

Object = thing word that receives action

Subject = something we wish to talk about

Predicate = explanation about the something (we wish to talk about)

Arabic Grammar

From the word “thabba” which means “he treated (someone) medically”, we can get the “doer” that is “thabiybun” which means “the treat-er”. It can be seen that Arabic does not use an “affix” like English’s “er” but it uses a template-like method. In this case the template –a-iy- is used. To obtain the “doer”, the “-“ in the template is replaced by the three letters of the root. Also interesting to note, in Arabic the root word is a “verb” in the “past tense”.

From the word “jamula” which means “he was beautiful” we can obtain the “doer” “jamiylun” which means “a beautiful-er”. A more accurate translation would be “a beautiful person” or “a beautiful thing” or “a beautiful one” (depending on context). Notice that the verb is not a normal verb; it does not represent an “action” but instead it represents a “state”. These kinds of verbs are usually called a “state-verb”, and is not available in English.

From the word “thawula” which means “he was tall” we can obtain the “doer” which is “thawiylun” which can be translated as “a tall person/thing/one”.

From the word “maridha” which means “he was ill” we can obtain the “doer” “mariydh” whichs means “an ill person/thing/one”.

The following are the translation of the examples given above:

althabiybu jamiylun

= the-doctor a-beautifulPerson

= The doctor is beautiful.

althabiybu aljamiylu thawiylun

= the-doctor the-beautifulOne a-tallPerson

= The beautiful doctor is tall.

althabiybu dharaba almariydha

= the-doctor striked the-patient

= The doctor striked the patient.

althabiybu dharaba almariydha jamiylan

= the-doctor striked the-patient a-beautifulPerson

= the-doctor striked the-patient (as) a-beautifulPerson

= The doctor striked the patient beautifully.