User:Adamsa123/Arabic and Hebrew grammar

Arabic and Hebrew.

Singular
Arabic & Hebrew have no word which is equal to the English word "is" which is referred to as a “copula” in grammar. We can see this rule demonstrated above where we see the words for and the noun/predicate  being referred to without any copula. i.e.,. If read literally this sentence would read "This a mosque", however, the word "is" can be implied in this sentence so that it reads "This is a mosque".

There is no word in Arabic corresponding to "a" in English as in: "This is a book". The n-sound, i.e. the /tanwīn/ (doubled vowel sign) at the end of the Arabic noun (kitābu-n, baitu-n, masĴidu-n) is the Arabic indefinite article corresponding to the English "a/an".

Plural
There are two demonstratives ( asmā’ al-ishārah), near-deictic ('this') and far-deictic ('that'):

Definiteness
Arabic's definite article  corresponds to the word 'The' in the English Language (known as the definite article in grammar as it refers to a specific object).

Take particular note of the change in the vowel ending when a word is changed to its definite form, i.e. the /tanwīn/ (double vowel) which represents indefinite form e.g. (a house) has been changed to a single /đammah/. It is hence also important to remember that a word can never take /alif lām/ at the beginning and /tanwīn/ at the same time (i.e. it can never be both indefinite and definite at the same time).

Prepositions
The following rules are applied for the use of prepositions:
 * A preposition (حَرْفُ الْجَرِّ) is a single letter or a word which connects two nouns, or a verb and a noun to form a sentence. As above this is generally showing the position of one word to another. It always precedes a word and never follows the word.
 * A preposition always comes before a noun and it does not come before a verb.
 * The noun following a preposition is changed from nominative case to genitive case. This means that the last letter of the word will be changed from a /đammah/ or /đammatain/ to a /kasrah/ or /kasratain/.
 * The noun following a preposition is called /Maĵrūr/ مَجْرُورٌ which means the preposition has caused a change in its case (from nominative to genitive case) as mentioned in the previous rule.

We can see in the following table that the preposition has caused the last letter of to change to. When a preposition precedes an indefinite noun, the two /đammahs/ change to two /kasrahs/.

Which
In this lesson we will learn a new word and the rules for its use. is an interrogative article - i.e. it is used to ask questions. In we have already learnt the use of some of the interrogative articles. However unlike the other interrogative articles, meaning "Which…?" is used as a /Muđâf/ (possessed), so any word that follows will be treated as /Muđâf Ilaihi/ and will therefore take the genitive case with a /kasratain/. E.g.:

However, the word will take different cases in different situations, i.e.:
 * will take a nominative case with a /đammah/, if it appears as - i.e. in a nominal sentence, for example:


 * will take a genitive case with a /Kasrah/, if it is preceded by a preposition, e.g.:


 * will take an accusative case with a fatħah/, if it appears as مَفْعُولٌ بِهِ ( the object of a verbal sentence) e.g.:

Gender
Arabic has two genders (جِنْسٌ ǧins): masculine (مُذَكَّرٌ muḏakkar) and feminine (مُؤَنَّثٌ muʼannaṯ).

Most feminine nouns end in ـَة -at-, but some do not (e.g. أُمّ ʼumm "mother", أَرْض ʼarḍ "earth"). Most words ending in ـَا are also feminine (and are indeclinable).

The letter ة used for feminine nouns is a special form known as tāʼ marbūṭah "tied T", which looks like the letter hāʼ (h) with the two dots that form part of the letter tāʼ (t) written above it. This form indicates that the feminine ending -at- is pronounced -ah- in pausa (at the end of an utterance). Words with the ending ـَة never take alif ending for the indefinite accusative. Thus, اِبْنًا ibnan ("son", acc sg indef) has final alif, but اِبْنَةً ibnatan ("daughter", acc sg indef) does not.

Number (Plurality)
Arabic distinguishes between nouns based on number ( ʻadad). All nouns are singular ( mufrad) dual ( muṯannā), or plural ( ǧamʻ).

Nouns take either a sound plural or broken plural. The sound plural is formed by adding endings, and can be considered part of the declension. The broken plural, however, is a different stem. It may belong to a different declension (see below), and is declined as a singular noun. For example, the plural of the masculine triptote noun kitāb "book" is  kutub, which is declined as a normal singular triptote noun: indefinite nominative  kutubun; indefinite accusative  kutuban; indefinite genitive  kutubin; etc. On the other hand, the masculine triptote noun  maktab "desk, office" has the plural  makātib, which declines as a singular diptote noun: indefinite nominative  makātibu; indefinite accusative/genitive  makātiba; etc.

Generally, the only nouns that have the "masculine" sound plural ـُونَ, ـِينَ -ūn, -īn are nouns referring to male human beings (e.g. muhandis "engineer"). On the other hand, the feminine sound plural -āt occurs not only on nouns referring to female human beings, but also on many nouns referring to objects, whether masculine or feminine (e.g. masculine imtiḥān "exam", feminine  sayyārah "car"). Note that all inanimate objects take feminine singular or feminine plural agreement in the plural, regardless of their "inherent" gender and regardless of the form of the plural.

Sound Plural جَمْعٌ سَالِمٌ: Broken Plural جَمْعُ تَكْسِيرٍ:

In English, adjectives have no plural form. So when an adjective is used to describe a singular noun, the same word is used to describe the plural noun e.g., if we say "Good boy" for a singular noun then in the same manner we say "Good boys" for the plural nouns. In Arabic however even the adjectives have plural form, e.g., when we express the quality of a teacher by saying (A good teacher), it will become  i.e., Good teachers for the plural nouns. So the noun as well as the adjective becomes plural and both change form.

English and Arabic both have two kinds of plural: The Sound Plural is the plural form of a word in which the word keeps its original form and is simply extended:
 * Sound Plurals
 * Broken Plurals
 * E.g., For English Nouns
 * Chair  ======> Chairs
 * School ======> Schools
 * Girl ======> Girls


 * For Arabic Nouns and Adjectives:

In order to convert a Arabic singular feminine noun or adjective to plural the following steps should be taken: The last letter ة of the feminine word is replaced with ات

Noun cases
Arabic has 3 noun cases which are called nominative, accusative and genitive cases. The 3 noun cases are designated by the vowel of the last letter of the word.

The nominative case is used for highlighting the subjects of a verbal sentence. The The accusative case is used for: The genitive case is used for:
 * Subjects of a verbal sentence.
 * Objects of a verbal sentence.
 * The subject of an equational (non-verbal) sentence, if it is initiated with 'inna, or one of its "sisters".
 * The predicate of or  "be" and its "sisters". Hence,  "the girl is beautiful" but  "the girl was beautiful".
 * The object of a transitive verb.
 * Most adverbs.
 * Objects of prepositions.
 * Objects of "any".
 * Owners or possessors.

Ownership
In this part we will learn the expression which shows ownership of one thing over another - e.g., "The teacher's car". This is called The Possessive Expression in English and /Muđâf and Muđâf  Ilaihi/ in Arabic:

The /Iđâfa/ literally means (adding or annexing). It means adding one noun to another to form a relationship of possession or belonging (one noun being owned or belonging to the other noun – e.g. teacher’s book). Consider the following examples showing the difference between the possession and the belonging in the /Iđâfa/:


 * This principle is applied when two nouns are joined together to make one structure.
 * In the possessive expression, one noun is the "possessor" called /Muđâf  Ilaihi/ while the other is the "possessed" called /Muđâf/ in Arabic. For example, if we say “the teacher's book”, "the teacher" is the possessor and "the book" is possessed.
 * In English this type of expression is constructed with the preposition (of) or using the letter (s) with an apostrophe before it i.e., 's. The examples of such type of constructions are:
 * The book of Hamid
 * Hamid's book.
 * In Arabic however, the possessed noun (e.g., book) comes before the possessor so it would literally read "Book teacher's".

Adjectives
In Arabic the adjective (a word describing the noun – e.g. red book, large house etc) is either called "Naξt" or "Aŝ-ŝiffah", and the noun it qualifies is called "Manξūt  or "Al-mawŝūf"  and the clause thus formed is called either  or . We will also learn the rules for the formation of the Adjective Clause.

Following are the rules pertained for the formation of the adjective clause:
 * In the English language, when we want to describe a noun we say for example, "Good boy" or "Lazy student" etc. - i.e., the adjective (description) comes before the noun. However in Arabic the word being used for the description (adjective) comes after the noun, e.g. or  if translated linguistically means "Boy good" or "student lazy" but literally it means "Good boy" or "Lazy student".
 * The adjectives that express feelings normally end with (-an) and bear no Tanwīn on their ending letters e.g.:
 * The adjective always follows the noun which it is describing in gender. The adjective of a masculine noun is masculine and that of a feminine noun is feminine .e.g.: we say   meaning “A young boy” and   meaning “A young girl”.
 * Both the adjective and the noun are either definite or indefinite. Therefore if the noun is definite, then the adjective which is describing the noun will also be definite e.g.  meaning "The old table" and when the noun is indefinite the adjective will also be indefinite e.g.   meaning "A new book".
 * The adjective also has the same case as the noun i.e., if the noun is in the nominative case, the adjective will also be in the nominative case e.g., meaning "The difficult lesson", if the noun is in the accusative case then the adjective will also be in the accusative case and if the noun is in the genitive case then the adjective will also be in the genitive case.

Personal Pronouns
In Arabic, personal pronouns have 12 forms. In singular and plural, the 2nd and 3rd persons have separate masculine and feminine forms, 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 the order 3rd, 2nd, 1st.

Informal Arabic tends to avoid the dual forms antumā أَنْتُمَا and humā هُمَا. The feminine plural forms antunna أَنْتُنَّ and hunna هُنَّ are likewise avoided, except by speakers of conservative colloquial varieties that still possess separate feminine plural pronouns.

The plural of both the masculine and the feminine personal as well as possessive pronouns are used to refer only to human beings, e.g.:

Possessive pronouns
The enclitic forms of personal pronouns (اَلضَّمَائِر الْمُتَّصِلَة aḍ-ḍamā’ir al-muttaṣilah) are used both as accusative and genitive forms of the pronouns. As genitive forms they appear in the following contexts:


 * After the construct state of nouns, where they have the meaning of possessive determiners, e.g. "my, your, his"
 * After prepositions, where they have the meaning of objects of the prepositions, e.g. "to me, to you, to him"

As accusative forms they appear:


 * Attached to verbs, where they have the meaning of direct object pronouns, e.g. "me, you, him"
 * Attached to conjunctions and particles like أَنَّ anna "that ...", لِأَنَّ li-anna "because ...", وَ)لٰكِنَّ)) (wa)lākinna "but ...", إِنَّ inna (topicalizing particle), where they have the meaning of subject pronouns, e.g. "because I ...", "because you ...", "because he ...". (These particles are known in Arabic as akhawāt inna أَخَوَات إِنَّ (lit. "sisters of inna".)

Only the first person singular makes a distinction between the genitive and accusative function. As a possessive it takes the form -ī while as an object form it has the form -nī.

Most of the enclitic forms are clearly related to the full personal pronouns.

Relative pronouns
A new type of pronoun which shows reference or relation between the nouns. This pronoun is called a Conjunctive pronoun or Relative pronoun in English and in Arabic. If the pronoun refers to a human being it is to be translated "who" and if it refers to non human beings or an object it is translated as “which (or that)”.

An Arabic relative pronoun is a pronoun which refers or relates to some Arabic noun preceding it e.g., if we say:

In the above sentences, the nouns Muhammad, door and cat are called antecedents and the words who, which and that refer to them respectively. In Arabic however all these three words (who, which and that) are represented by a single word.

The masculine form of the Relative Pronoun is  and is translated as 'who' if used for a human being and to 'which or that' if used for the non human beings. Similarly the feminine form of the Relative Pronoun is with the same meaning as the masculine form, however used for feminine objects or persons. Consider the following examples: