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    • Archive for April, 2008

    The Nominal Sentence

    Saturday, April 26th, 2008

    The simplest Arabic sentence is the nominal sentence. It has a mubtada (a first part), and a khabr (a description of that first part). They must match in number and gender, and the mubtada must be definite and marfoo’. The khabr can also be more complicated than this. We explain and expound through some basic sentences.

    Intermediate Topics in Masdar

    Saturday, April 19th, 2008

    Some intermediate topics in masdar–for example, you can replace the masdar with the particle “an” and the equivalent verb. You can translate the masdar two ways–as a verbal noun, or even as a noun. In either case, the meaning is more or less the same. Why? Because of the formula: verb + the particle “an” = masdar, which holds true in Arabic.

    Masdar: The Verbal Noun

    Saturday, April 12th, 2008

    In English, we have something called “the verbal noun.” This is when you have adverb, and you refer to the act of doing that verb. Since we’re talking about the act of that verb, the verbal noun is a noun. In Arabic, this is called the masdar (مَصدَر). The masdar takes the pattern of فُعُول (fu’ool). And, like in English, the masdar is a noun, not a verb. It can take any tanween, can be definite or indefinite, can be maf’ool bihi, mudaaf, etc.

    Al-Maqsuwr

    Friday, April 4th, 2008

    Arabic has a class of words called “Maqsuwr” (meem qaaf saad waw ra). Maqsuwr words end with alif-maqsuwr, the ya with no dots. This letter is special–it has a sukoon on it, and that’s understood. So it doesn’t show case via a change of tashkeel, unlike other words. So how can you add a possessive-case ya with kasra on the previous letter? The answer is, you write a ya with fatha!