Arabic grammar

The consonants include a so-called "emphatic" series ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, q peculiar to Semitic. The voiceless sounds ṣ, ṭ, q have clear equivalents in other Semitic languages, while it is not clear whether the voiced emphatic consonants are an Arabic innovation. Arabic has a tendency towards affrication. The fricatives ǧ, f clearly go back to occlusives g, p, while the fricatives ṯ, ḏ (corresponding to English thorn, eth) may be either old fricatives or an Arabic innovation.

The syllable structure of Arabic is such that there may be clusters of two, but not of three consecutive consonants. A cluster of two consonants at the beginning of an utterance will be preceded by an auxiliary vowel (alif al-waṣl).

Noun

State

The Arabic noun can take one of three states of definiteness: definite, indefinite or construct state. The definite state is marked by the article al-. The indefinite state is marked by an ending -n (nunation). The construct state is unmarked and occurs in the first member of a genitive construction.

Article

The article (adātu-t-taʿrīf) al- is indeclinable and expresses definite state of a noun of any gender and number. The initial vowel (hamzatu-l-waṣl), is volatile in the sense that it disappears in sandhi, the article becoming mere -l- (although the alif is retained in orthography in any case for clarity).

Also, the l is assimilated to a number of consonants (dentals and sibilants), so that in these cases, the article in pronunciation is expressed only by geminating the initial consonant of the noun (while in orthography, the writing alif lam is retained, and the gemination may be expressed by putting šadda on the following letter).

The consonants causing assimilation (trivially including l) are: t, ṯ, d, ḏ, r, z, s, š, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, l, n. These 14 letters are called 'solar letters' (ḥuruf šamsiyyat), while the remaining 14 are called 'lunar letters' (ḥuruf qamariyyat).

Inflection

An Arabic noun can take three cases: nominative, genitive and accusative, and three numbers: singular, dual and plural. Normally, nouns take the ending -u(n) in the nominative, -i(n) in the genitive and -a(n) in the accusative. The case endings are only present in formal or literary language. Technically, every noun has such an ending, although at the end of a sentence, no inflection is pronounced, even in formal speech, because of the rules of 'pause'.

The plural of a noun is formed by a suffix in some cases (sound plurals), but frequently, the vowel structure of a word is changed to form the plural (broken plurals). There are a number of patterns of how this is done. Some singular nouns take several plurals. There could be traces of broken plurals in other Semitic languages, but nowhere are they as widespread as in Arabic. The plurals of nouns representing humans usually use sound plurals. Masculine sound plurals take the forms "-ūn" in the nominative and "-īn" in the genitive and accusative. In the feminine, the ending is "-āt" and is limited in its declension to the nominative and genitive endings. For example, "-ātun" and "-ātin" are possible, but not "-ātan". This pattern can also be used with for plurals of non-human nouns.

Gender

Arabic has two genders, expressed by pronominal, verbal and adjectival agreement. Agreement with numerals shows a peculiar 'polarity', c.f. the section on numerals.

The genders are usually referred to as masculine and feminine, but the situation is more complicated than that. The 'feminine' singular forms are also used to express 'singulatives', which are plurals of inanimate objects of both grammatical genders.

The marker for the feminine gender is a -t- suffix, but some nouns without this marker also take feminine agreement (e. g. umm 'mother', ard 'earth'). Already in Classical Arabic, the -t marker was not pronounced in pausa. It is written with a special letter (ta marbuta) indicating that a t sound is to be pronounced in sandhi, but not in pausa.

Genitive construction (Iḍāfa)

A noun may be defined more closely by a subsequent noun in the genitive. The relation is hierarchical; the first term (al-muḍāf) governs the second term (al-muḍāf ilayhi). E. g. baytu raǧulin 'house of a man'. The construction as a whole represents a nominal phrase, the state of which is inherited from the state of the second term. The first term must be in construct state, and thus cannot be marked definite or indefinite. Genitive constructions of multiple terms are possible. In this case, all but the final term take construct state, and all but the first member take genitive case.

This construction is typical for a Semitic language. In many cases the two members become a fixed coined phrase, the iḍāfa being used as the equivalent of nominal composition in Indo-European languages (which does not exist in Semitic). baitu-ṭ-ṭalabati thus may mean either 'house of the (certain, known) students' or 'the student hostel'.

Nisba

The Nisba (an-nisbatu) is a common suffix to form adjectives of relation or pertinence. The suffix is -iyy- for masculine and -iyyat- for feminine gender (in other words, it is -iyy- and is inserted before the gender marker). E. g. lubnānu 'Lebanon', lubnāniyyun 'Lebanese'.

A construction noun + nisba-adjective is often equivalent to nominal composition in Indo-European languages.

Pronoun

A pronominal paradigm consists of 12 forms: In singular and plural, the 2nd and 3rd persons differentiate gender, while the 1st person does not. In the dual, there is no 1st person, and only a single form for each 2nd and 3rd person. Traditionally, the pronouns are listed in order 3rd, 2nd, 1st.

Personal pronouns

Person	Singular	Plural	Dual
3rd (m)	huwa	hum	humā
3rd (f)	hiya	hunna
2nd (m)	anta	antum	antumā
2nd (f)	anti	antunna
1st	ana	naḥnu	(n/a)

Enclitic pronouns

Enclitic forms of the pronoun (aḍ-ḍamāʾiru al-muttaṣilatu) may be affixed to nouns (representing genitive case, i. e. possession) and to verbs (representing accusative, i. e. a direct object). Most of them are clearly related to the full personal pronouns. They are identical in form in both cases, except for the 1st person singular, which is -ī after nouns (genitive) and -nī after verbs (accusative).

Person	Singular	Plural	Dual
3rd (m)	-hu	-hum	-humā
3rd (f)	-hā	-hunna
2nd (m)	-ka	-kum	-kumā
2nd (f)	-ki	-kunna
1st	-(n)ī	-nā	(n/a)

Demonstratives

There are two demonstratives (asmāʾu al-ʾišāratu), near-deictic ('this') and far-deictic ('that'):

• hāda, f. hādihi, pl. hāʾulāʾi 'this, these'
• dālika, f. tilka, pl. ʾulāʾika 'that, those'
  

  Numerals

  Cardinal numerals

• 1 waḥidun
• 2 iṯnānu
• 3 ṯalāṯatu
• 4 arbaʿatu
• 5 ḫamsatu
• 6 sittatu
• 7 sabʿatu
• 8 ṯamāniyatu
• 9 tisʿatu
• 10 ʿašaratu

Numerals 3-10 have a peculiar rule of agreement known as polarity: A feminine referrer agrees with a numeral in masculine gender and vice versa, e.g. ṯalāṯu fatayātin 'three girls'.

Numerals 11-19 are indeclinable, and they show gender agreement (not polarity). The noun counted takes accusative singular.

• 11 aḥada ʿašara
• 12 iṯnā ʿašara
• 13 ṯalāṯata ʿašara

• 20 ʿišrūna (dual of '10')
• 21 aḥadun wa ʿišrūna
• 22 iṯnāni wa ʿišrūna
• 23 ṯalāṯatu wa ʿišrūna
• 30 ṯalāṯūna
• 40 arbaʿūna

• 100 miʾatu
• 1000 alfu

Ordinal numerals

Ordinal numerals (al-aʿdād at-tartiyabiyyat) higher than "first" are formed using the structure fāʿilun, fāʿilatun:

• m. awwalu, f. ūlā "first"
• m. ṯānin, f. ṯāniyat "second"
• m. ṯāliṯun, f. ṯāliṯatun "third"
• m. rābiʿun, f. rābiʿatun "fourth"
  etc.

Verb

Like in many Semitic languages, the Arabic word formation is based on a (usually) triconsonantal root, which is not a word in itself but contains the semantic core. The consonants k-t-b, for example, indicate 'write', q-r-ʾ indicate 'read', ʾ-k-l indicate 'eat' etc.; Words are formed by supplying the root with a vowel structure and with affixes.

Traditionally, Arabic grammarians have used the root f-ʿ-l 'do' as a template to discuss word formation.

The personal forms a verb can take correspond to the forms of the pronouns, except that in the 3rd person dual, gender is differentiated, yielding paradigms of 13 forms.

Perfect

In the perfect conjugation, the perfect stem faʿal is affixed with a personal ending, e. g. kataba 'he wrote', qaraʾa 'he read'. The perfect expresses a completed action, i.e. mostly past tense.

Person	Singular	Plural	Dual
3rd (m)	faʿal-a	faʿal-ū	faʿal-ā
3rd (f)	faʿal-at	faʿal-na	faʿal-tā
2nd (m)	faʿal-ta	faʿal-tum	faʿal-tumā
2nd (f)	faʿal-ti	faʿal-tunna	--
1st	faʿal-tu	faʿal-nā	(n/a)

Imperfect

The imperfect expresses an action in progress, i.e. mostly present tense. There are several vowel patterns (a-a, a-u,a-i) the root can take. The root takes a prefix as well as a suffix to build the verb form. E. g. yaktubu 'he is writing'.

Note the co-incidence of 3rd f. sg. and 2nd m. sg.

Person	Singular	Plural	Dual
3rd (m)	ya-fʿal-u	ya-fʿal-ūna	ya-fʿal-āni
3rd (f)	ta-fʿal-u	ya-fʿal-na	ta-fʿal-āni
2nd (m)	ta-fʿal-u	ta-fʿal-ūna	ta-fʿal-āni
2nd (f)	ta-fʿal-īna	ta-fʿal-na	--
1st	a-fʿal-u	na-fʿal-u	(n/a)

Mood

From the imperfect stem, modal forms can be derived: the subjunctive by (roughly speaking) replacing the final vowel by a, the jussive by dropping this a of the subjunctive, the imperative (only 2nd persons) by also dropping the verbal prefix.

The subjunctive is used in subordinate clauses after certain cunjunctions. the jussive is used in negation, in negative imperatives and in the hortative li+jussive.

For example: 2. sg. m.:

Voice

Arabic has two verbal voices, active and passive. The passive voice is expressed by a change in vocalization and is normally not expressed in unvocalized writing.

For example:

Weak verbs

Roots containing one or two of the radicals w (wāw), y (yā) or ʾ (hamza) are subject to special phonological rules because these radicals can be influenced by their surroundings. Such verbs are called 'weak' (verba infirmae, 'verbs of weak [radical]) and their paradigms must be given special attention. In the case of hamza, these peculiarities are mainly orthographical, since hamza is not subject to elision (the orthography of hamza and alif is unsystematic due to confusion in early Islamic times).

According to the position of the weak radical in the root, these verbs are called primae infirmae, mediae infirmae or tertiae infirmae.

Another special class of roots are such that their second and third radicals are identical. These roots are called mediae geminatae.

Stem formation

Derived verbs are variations on the shape of the primary kataba stem, such as kattaba, kātaba, inkataba, takattaba. Semantically, these formations correspond to changes in meaning such as intensive, reflexive, and causative, though the exact meaning varies from verb to verb and needs to be recorded in the lexicon.

Classical Arabic has a great number of derived stems, not all of which are still in use. For the modern language, it is mostly sufficient to consider stems I-VI, VIII and X.

• I. faʿal- (the basic stem)
• II. faʿʿil- (gemination of the middle radical)
• III.fāʿil- (lenghtening of the vowel following the first radical)
• IV. afʿil- (clustering of first and second radical)
• V. tafaʿʿal- (prefix ta- and gemination of middle radical)
• VI. tafāʿal- (prefix ta- and lenghtening of the vowel following the first radical)

• VIII. iftaʿal- (infix -ta- after first radical)
• X. istafʿal- (prefix (i)st-)

Common uses of those stems include:

Participle

The Arabic participle is a verbal noun formed from one of the derived verbal stems. E.g. muʿallimun 'teacher' is the active participle to stem II. of the root ʿ-l-m ('know').

• The passive participle to Stem I is mafʿūlun
• Stems II-X take prefix mu- and nominal endings (e.g. II. mu-faʿʿil-un.)
  

  Infinitive

• infinitive formation to stem I is irregular.
• the infinitive to stem II is tafʿīlun.
• stems III-X simply take nominal endings (for stem III, the passive participle is often substituted).

Syntax

In Arabic, a word is classified as either a noun (ism), a verb (fiʿl), a pronoun or a preposition (ḥarf). Adverbials are expressed with nominal forms. Repetitive use of the same root in verb and noun in a sentence is considered good style, especially with derived forms of the same verb. Such as the root "'alm" which in Form I is "to know" but in form II "'allm" with the middle radical(letter) doubled, changing the meaning to "to teach". Also considered good form is constucting a long sentence joined together with connectors (Adawat al Rabt) which are like conjunctions which allow for many clauses to run on and run in the same sentance.

• For example: qaraʾa al-kitāba qirāʾatan baṭīʾatan, literally: "he read the book a slow reading", i.e., "He read the book slowly". This type of construction is known as the "absolute accusative."

• The Masdar, verbal nouns which are irregular for Form I and regular for all derived forms, functions sometimes like an infinitive and sometimes like the noun which encompasses the concept of the verb.

• Active and Passive partiples, called Ism Fa'l or Ism Mafa'ul after the pattern into which the roots are put, function sometimes like adjectives, sometimes present partiples, and sometimes like nouns such as "Doer" and "Doneto". So: KAtib is "reader" and maKtub is "written".

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