title: Glossary of Arabic Linguistic Terms modified: 2022-11-01 Tue author: Musa Al-hassy email: alhassy@gmail.com filetags: arabic fileimage: arabic-irab.png 100% 100% description: Definitions, and discussions, of jargon relating to learning the Arabic language. ▼ Abstract : ignore : Definitions, and discussions, of jargon relating to learning the Arabic language. ▼ COMMENT Template_and_TODOs : ignore : doc:temp documentation temp :label (This_is_optional Axiomatic_Semantics Operational_Semantics) :show t :color blue documentation ◦ Root :: The sequence of (usually 3) Arabic letters that carry the underlying meaning of a word, for example ش−ر−ب “to drink” and ح−م−ل “to carry”. ◦ Pronoun :: A word replacing a noun, for example هيَ “she” or أنتَ “you”. ◦ Verb :: A word describing an action or a state of being, for example سأكون “I will be”. ◦ Compound tense :: A tense made by combining two different verbs. ◦ Conjugation :: Changing the verb to agree with the subject, for example ازور “I visit” and یزور “he visits”. ◦ Derived Form :: Variation of the Arabic verbal root that modifies the meaning. ◦ Tense :: The tense of a verb tells you when the action takes place. ◦ Past tense :: A verb form showing something has happened in the past. ◦ Present/Future tense :: A verb form showing something is happening now, routinely, or in the future. ◦ Imperative :: A /mood/, or variation, of the present tense verb used for commands or instructions. ◦ Subjunctive :: A /mood/, or variation, of the present tense verb used after certain particles (short words). ◦ Jussive :: A /mood/, or variation, of the present tense verb used in certain structures. It's a form of negation with a past-tense meaning. ◦ Case :: Case refers to the form a noun or adjective takes depending on its function in a sentence. For example, “myself” becomes “I” when it is a subject, but becomes “me” when it is an object. Arabic has 3 cases, which are indicated as vowels at the end of words. – Arabic cases are not applied to pronouns, such as انا or انت, nor singular demonstratives هٰذا/هٰذه, nor question words such as اين or مَن. ▼ Idafa, إظافة doc:idafa documentation إظافة :label (idafa) :show t :color green Idafa, إظافة, is Arabic's version of the English /possessive 's/, a way of quickly introducing the preposition “of”: English has /Jim's apple/, whereas Arabic would say /the apple (of) Jim/. Incidentally, English also simply places two nouns next to each other to form possession: “the kitchen table” ---or طبلةُ المطبخِ. This is because English's possessive /'s/ is only used with animate non-things. Idafa is a noun phrase, and so can be iterated onto itself to create complex possessions: For example, سَرْقةُ جَوازِ سَفَرِ أِحَدِ اللاعِبِينَ /the theft of the passport [literally "license of journey"] of one of the athletes/ *Case endings for Idafa: Only one of “a/the/my”!* The first term of an Idafa will be in any case the sentence requires; and /only the last term/ in an Idafa (however complex) can have the definite article /or/ nunation /or/ an attached possessive pronoun ---this is like English, /“a X's Y”/ or /“the X's Y”/ or /“my X's Y”/--- and this choice determines the definiteness of the Idafa. Also, all terms of an Idafa, other than the first term, *must* be in the genitive case: Ending with ـِـ or ـٍـ . | *a* nurse's book | كتابُ مُمرّضةٍ | | *the* nurse's book | كتابُ ٱلْمُمرظةِ | | *my* nurse's book | كتابُ مُمرّضتي | Note that nunnation is indefinite, whereas الـ and possessive-pronouns are definite. documentation # <!-- Since the genitive, مجرور, is used for words after prepositions, it is the case # used for all words after the first word in an Idaafa. --> ▼ Noun doc:noun documentation noun :show t :color green A word naming a person, object, or idea; for example: /House, boy, freedom./ In Arabic, words are classified into 3 categories ---in contrast to English's 8. | *Kind* | *Description* | | اسم | Nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc | | فعل | Verbs: action words | | حرف | Particles, such as prepositions في and علی | As such, the word “noun” when talking about Arabic will sometimes mean the more general category اسم. documentation ▼ Roots doc:arabic-root documentation root :label arabic-root :show t :color blue The Arabic language is based on “roots” that link words of related meanings. An Arabic “root” is the sequence of (usually 3) Arabic letters that carry the underlying meaning of a word, for example ش−ر−ب “to drink” and ح−م−ل “to carry”. Vowels and consonants are added around the roots to create related words. /Roots are the building blocks of the Arabic language and are helpful for guessing the meaning of vocabulary./ Generally foreign loan words, such as /internet/ انترنت, fall outside the root system. For more, see www.alhassy.com/arabic-roots documentation ▼ Vowels, Short & Long doc:arabic-vowels documentation vowels :label arabic-vowels :show t :color green Arabs /infer/ vowels from context, otherwise words alone such as حمل are ambigious: It could mean حَمَلَ “he carried” or حُمِلْ “he was carried”. As an example sentence with vowels written, Prophet Muhammad is known to have said: | أنَا مَدِينَةُ الْعِلْمِ وَعَلَيٌ بَابُهَا | | /I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate/ | Incidentally, Ali was the one who commissioned the system of vowels. https://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/the-beginning-of-dotting-and-diacritics-in-arabic/ Arabic has only three short vowels, or حركات (literally: “movements”), which are written as small symbols above/below letters. | Vowel name | Vowel sound | Arabic | English example | | Fatha; فتحة | /a/ | ـَ | /mat/ | | Dhamma; ظمّة | /u/ | ـُ | /sugar/ | | Kasra; كسرة | /i/ | ـِ | /bit/ | The “no vowel” marker is suukun/سكون: While هههه has its vowels guessed to be هَهَهَهَ “hahahah”, we obtain “hhhh” by using sukkun, هْهْهْهْ. It is important for consonant-vowel-consonant syllables, such as بَابْ “bab” which means /door./ Incidentally, when a sound needs to be repeated twice, it is usually written once with a /Shadda/ ـّـ to indicate the doubling. For example, فَهِمَ /fahima/ “he understood” but فَهَّمَ /fahhama/ “he explained”. Shadda is used with الـ + ‘sun letters’. Unlike the other short vowels, the Shadda is usually written even in informal Arabic, to avoid ambiguity. Arabic has 3 long vowels, which are formed using specific letters /after/ the short vowels: | Long vowel sound | Arabic | English example | | /aa/ | ـَا | /far/ | | /ii/ | ـِي | /meet/ | | /uu/ | ـُو | /boot/ | Since short vowels are normally not written, letters ا ي و play two roles: They behave as long vowels /aa,ii,uu/ (when preceded by short vowels) and also behave as consonant sounds /a,y,w/. ◦ For example, as a consonant, ي makes an English “y” sound; but as a long vowel it makes an “ii” sound. ◦ Occasionally, /aa/ is written using ی (which is like ي but without the dots), or یٰ, rather than an /alif/. This always happens at the end of a word and is called /alif maqsuura/ “broken alif”; for example علی “on” and موسیٰ “Musa”. The following video reads all Arabic letters, where each letter is vowelised by one of the 3 short vowels. It's a really nice video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/U1Cl6W8EEBQ?start=6. documentation ▼ Pronoun doc:arabic-pronouns documentation pronoun :label (arabic-pronouns arabic-pronoun) :show t :color blue A /pronoun/ is a word that stands-in for a noun. For example, below we refer to someone in 3 different ways: /“His” cat saw “him”, and “he” jumped!/ ◦ A /personal pronoun/ replaces a noun that refers to a person (e.g., Jasim ate ≈ /he/ ate), ◦ while a /possessive pronoun/ replaces a noun that involves ownership (e.g., Jasim's book ≈ /his/ book), ◦ and an /objective pronoun/ replaces a noun that is having an action done to it (e.g., I saw Jasim ≈ I saw /him/.) <hr> Below are Arabic's /personal pronouns/ alongside their English translations. | | singular | plural | | 1 | أنا I | نَحْن we | | 2m | أَنْتَ you | أَنْتُم you | | 2f | أَنْتِ you | أَنتُن you | | 3m | هُوَ he/it | هُم they | | 3f | هِيَ she/it | هُنَّ they | <hr> In Arabic, /possessive and object pronouns/ are /attached pronouns/; they are *joined to the end* of a word: For example, /house/ بیت becomes /my house/ بیتِي, and from /he helped/ نَصَرَ we get نَصَرَني /he helped me/. Arabic's object & possessive pronouns are the same, except for the “my/me” case. | | singular | plural | | 1 | ـِي my | ـنَا our | | 2m | ـكَ your | ـكُمْ your | | 2f | ـكِ your | ـكُنَّ your | | 3m | ـَهُ his | ـهُمْ their | | 3f | ـَهَا hers | ـهُنَّ their | documentation When *I* am talking, the speaker is the “first person” (“1”); when taking *about you*, then you are the “second person” and may be masculine (“2m”) or feminine (“2f”), or a group of you (“plural”); finally, when talking about someone who is *not here* in the conversation, they are in the “third person” (“3m, 3f”). ▼ Passive doc:arabic-passive documentation passive :label arabic-passive :show t :color blue A “passive” verb is one where the subject undergoes the action of the verb rather than carries out the action, for example حُملت “she was carried” and يُستخدم “it is used”. documentation ▼ Transitive doc:arabic-transitive documentation transitive :label arabic-transitive :show t :color green A “transitive” verb is a verb that requires an object to express a complete thought, otherwise it is “intransitive”. Some verbs are both transitive and intransitive. A “transitive” verb needs to /transfer its action/ to something or someone ---the object. In essence, transitive means “to affect something else.” For example, “Please bring coffee.” would not be a complete thought without the object “coffee”. That is, “Please bring.” is an incomplete thought: What or whom should we bring? As such, “bring” is a transitive verb. In contrast, “Please sing.” is a complete thought, and so “sing” is an intransitive verb ---actually, it's also transitive. In Arabic, the Form-4 أفْعَلَ pattern turns intransitive verbs into transitive ones; and turns transitive verbs into doubly-transitive verbs ---which means it takes two objects: E.g., “I gave the boy the ball”, here “gave” is doubly-transitive. E.g., in Form-4, ر−س−ل “to send” gives the transitive verb أرْسَلَ which means it can be followed by two objects: أرْسَلَ الولد لكتاب “The boy sent the book”. documentation