Nahw – The Anatomy of a Sentence – Part 2

As promised here is the second part of our sentence analysis exercise. In this post, Insha Allah, I will take up a complex Arabic sentence and will show how rules of grammatical states apply to such sentences.

و کانَ ﺍﹺﺑﺮﺍﻫﻴﻢﹸ ﻳﹶﻌﺮﹺﻑﹸ انَّ الاَصنامَ حِجارةﹲ ( And Ibrahim would recognize that idols are rock)

Right away you can see that this sentence can be divided into two main parts: إسم of كان , which is ﺍﹺﺑﺮﺍﻫﻴﻢﹸ , and the rest of the sentence, starting from ﻳﹶﻌﺮﹺﻑﹸ , which is the خبر of كانﹶ. However, within this خبر of كانﹶ are at least two other complete sentences: انَّ الاَصنامَ حِجارةﹲ (idols are rock) and ﻳﹶﻌﺮﹺﻑﹸ انَّ الاَصنامَ حِجارةﹲ (he knew that idols are rock). As a rule, whenever an Arabic sentence is composed of other smaller sentences (and most of them do!) then the rules of grammatical states apply to the inner sentences and the outer sentence is assumed to take the grammatical state which a stand-alone word would have taken had there been one. To understand this concept fully take the word ﺍﹺﺑﺮﺍﻫﻴﻢﹸُ . The dhamma at its end signifies that it is in the state of رفع, which is expected since إسم of كان goes into the grammatical state of رفع . However, the rest of the sentence which constitutes the خبر of كانﹶ has to go into نَصَب , but how do you put a complete sentence (which itself is composed of two other sentences) into نَصَب? The answer is that we start analyzing the inner sentences and apply rules of grammatical states to them individually and the complete outer sentence is assumed to be in the state of نَصَب. So let us do exactly that and in the end we will recombine the inner sentences to complete the whole outer sentence.

انَّ الاَصنامَ حِجارةﹲ : Here الاَصنامَ is the اِسم of اَنَّ . As with اِنُّ , the اِسم of اَنَّ goes into نَصَب , thus the fatha on الاَصنامَ . Similarly, حِجارةﹲ is the خبر of اَنَّ and therefore it is in the state of رفع, as signified by the dhamma at the end. Also recognize that the complete sentence is a جمله أسميّه .

Now look at the verb ﻳﹶﻌﺮﹺﻑﹸ: It needs a فاعل (the doer) and a مفعول به (the one upon whom the verb is done. Do remember, though, that there are other verbs which do not require a مفعول به). The فاعل for ﻳﹶﻌﺮﹺﻑﹸ is implied since it is the first conjugation (he recognize). Since the فاعل is contained within the verb, the rest of the sentence, انَّ الاَصنامَ حِجارةﹲ , has to be the مفعول به of the verb ﻳﹶﻌﺮﹺﻑﹸ (Revert back to the previous paragraph and note that this مفعول به itself is a جمله أسميّه ). Again, since we cannot put a whole sentence into the state of نَصَب , where a مفعول به is supposed to go, therefore we assume that this part of the sentence is in the state of نَصَب . Also, this sentence is a ﺟﹹﻤﻠﻪ ﻓﹻﻌﻠﹻﻴﹽﻪ since it starts with a verb, ﻳﹶﻌﺮﹺﻑﹸ.

So until now we have desiccated and analyzed this sentence into at least 2 major parts: جمله أسميّه and ﺟﹹﻤﻠﻪ ﻓﹻﻌﻠﹻﻴﹽﻪ , and have seen how each word within these parts is following its particular rule for grammatical states. Now let us move ahead and combine the whole sentence. Since the sentence starts with کانَ , a verb, therefore the complete sentence is a ﺟﹹﻤﻠﻪ ﻓﹻﻌﻠﹻﻴﹽﻪ , and the part starting from ﻳﹶﻌﺮﹺﻑﹸ up to the end is assumed to be in the state of نَصَب , since it is the خبر of كانﹶ . As I mentioned before, ﺍﹺﺑﺮﺍﻫﻴﻢﹸُ, being the إسم of كان, goes into رفع , and hence the dhamma at the end.

I hope that this example further explains how the concept of grammatical terms is used in Arabic Language.

Sarf – More variations of المُضارع

Here we go! We are now back dealing with المُضارع . In this post we will deal with some more variations of the future tense. In a previous post I had explained how المُضارع , which encompasses both present and future tense in Arabic, can be limited to future tense only. However, recall that at that time we had done this by negating the verb. In this post, Insha Allah, I will show how to do the same without negating the verb i.e. how to say he will help, she will help etc. Secondly, I will also talk about the imperative for المُضارع i.e. how to say verily he will help, verily you will help etc.

Simple Future Tense: This is built by simply adding a س or سَوفَ in front of each conjugation of المُضارع verb; this will restrict the tense to future. Thus,ﻳﹷﻔﻌﹷﻞﹸ becomesﺳﹷﻴﻔﻌﹷﻞﹸ( or سَوفَ ﻳﹷﻔﻌﹷﻞﹸ ) and so on. That’s it! There is nothing more to building a simple future tense verb in Arabic, so we will move onto our next variation.

Emphatic Future Tense: This one is not going to be as easy as the three-liner above. To build the emphatic for المُضارع not only do we have add a ل in front of it (with a fatha), but the endings of the verb change as well. More specifically, a ن is added at the end of the verb. It is interesting to note that this ن can be in a مُشدّد (i.e. with a shadda on it) form or in the ساکِن (i.e. with a sukun on it) form. The former is called ن ثقيلة and the latter is called ن خفيفة , literally meaning heavy nun and light nun, respectively. In terms of meaning the two endings do not differ, except in their tone. Thus one may be picked up over the other to satisfy complex poetry rules or when giving sermons. Meaning wise, there is no difference between the two conjugations, be they are formed from ن ثقيلة or ن خفيفة . Let us now see how these conjugations are formed:

1. The five singulars will have there ending dhamma changed to a fatha and the final ن , either مُشدّد or ساکِن ,will added. Thus,ﻳﹷﻔﻌﹷﻞﹸ becomes لَيَفْعَلَنَّ. Please see table below for full listing of conjugations. Also note that there is a fatha on ل (just before the final ن ثقيلة . The reason for this will become obvious as I explain the conjugation change for the two plural masculines (see bullet #3 below)
2. The four duals, which already have a ن at the end, will have this ن dropped so that we do not end up having three ن when we attach a ن ثقيلة or ن خفيفة to the end of the conjugations. Moreover, the final ن will have a kasra on it
3. The two masculine plurals ( يَفْعَلُوْنَ and تَفْعَلُوْنَ ) and the second person feminine singular ( تَفْعَلِيْنَ ) will have their و and ی dropped and either ن ثقيلة or ن خفيفة will be added with a kasra on it. Now imagine what would have happened had we not changed the dhamma on ﻳﹷﻔﻌﹷﻞﹸ to a fatha when forming the emphatic conjugation: the final form then would have been لَيَفْعَلُنَّ . But this is also the form which we get when we transform the third person masculine plural to the emphatic conjugation! Therefore, to avoid confusion, the dhamma on the third person masculine singular ﻳﹷﻔﻌﹷﻞﹸ is changed to a fatha when forming the future emphatic. Conversely, the dhamma on the two masculine plurals which remains there in the emphatic conjugation is an indication of the dropped و . Similarly, the kasra on the second person feminine singular future emphatic form is an indication of the dropped ی
4. Nothing will drop from the two plural feminines. However, to ease pronunciation, an الِف is inserted between the original final ن and the emphatic-forming ن ثقيلة or ن خفيفة

Verily he will do	لَيَفْعَلَنَّ
Verily they (2 males) will do	لَيَفْعَلاَنِّ
Verily they (group of males) will do	لَيَفْعَلُنَّ
Verily she will do	لَتَفْعَلَنَّ
Verily they (2 females) will do	لَتَفْعَلاَنِّ
Verily they (group of females) will do	لَيَفْعَلْنَانِّ
Verily You (male) will do	لَتَفْعَلَنَّ
Verily you (2 males) will do	لَتَفْعَلاَنِّ
Verily you (group of males) will do	لَتَفْعَلُنَّ
Verily you (females) will do	لَتَفْعَلِنَّ
Verily you (2 females) will do	لَتَفْعَلاَنِّ
Verily you (group of females) will do	لَتَفْعَلْنَانِّ
Verily I will do	لأَفْعَلَنَّ
Verily we will do	لَنَفْعَلَنَّ

Notes:

1. An example of ن خفيفة conjugation is:لَيَفعَلَنْ
2. There are 6 less conjugation in the خفيفة tables than there are in the ثقيلة tables. This is because the ن خفيفة is not attached to those conjugations which end in an الِف (the four duals and the two feminine plurals). Thus, rules 2 and 4 do not apply to the خفيفة tables

Nahw – The Anatomy of a Sentence – Part 1

In this post I will give a few examples from القصص ﺍﻟﻨﹽﺒﻴﹽﻦ (Qasas-un-Nabiyyeen – Stories of the Prophets) which is the text which we are reading at the Toronto Shariah Program. The purpose here is to see how some of the grammatical terms which we have learned so far fit into an Arabic sentence. This will help in identifying the correct terms and how they can be properly used while constructing longer Arabic sentences. We will also learn a few new grammatical states and will fit each of them in the table which we built in the previous Nahw post.

كانﹶ في قريةﹴ رجُلﹲ ﻣﺸﻬﹹﻮﺭﹲ جِدّاﹰ : (In a town there was a very famous man) Note the order of Noun, Adjective, and Adverb here. In English we put Adverb + Adjective + Noun (very + famous + man); in Arabic this order is reversed (man + famous + very). جِدّاﹰ is the adverb here, called the normal adverb or مفعول مطلق and it goes into نَصَب , therefore you see the two fathas at the end. In addition to this قريةﹴ is in جر since it is preceded by a preposition, في . Also noticeرجُلﹲ ﻣﺸﻬﹹﻮﺭﹲ : they have a صفة، موصوف relationship and thus the following rules apply to them, as explained in this post:

1. Definiteness: no ال in front of either
2. Plurality: both are singular
3. Gender: both are masculine
4. Grammatical state: both are in رفع (double dhamma at the end). Why they are in رفع is because رجُلﹲ is the إسم of كان and ﻣﺸﻬﹹﻮﺭﹲ has to agree with it in grammatical state because of the صفة، موصوف relationship. One important thing to note here is that there is no rule which says that the word immediately following كانﹶ is it’s subject. We have already stated in a previous post that no such rule of sequence exists in Arabic and in this sentence we see that رجُلﹲ is not the word which immediately follows كان

کَانَ اسمُ ﻫٰﺬﺍ الرّجُلِ آزَرَ : (The name of this man was Aazar) Let’s take آزَرَ first: it is in نَصَب as can be seen by the fatha at the end. This is because آزَرَ is the خبر of کَانَ therefore it goes into نَصَب . Also, note the one dhamma on اسمُ which means that it is in the state of رفع . This is because it is إسم of كان so it goes in the state of رفع . Also, الرّجُلِ is the مضاف إليه of اسمُ therefore it goes into جر as our Grammatical State Table shows. (Note: the final kasra may not show properly on the web page)

و کانَ فی ﻫٰﺬﺍ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖﹺ اصنامﹲ (And in this house there were idols): اصنامﹲ is the إسم of كان so it is in the state of رفع , thus the double dhamma at the end. The whole phrase فی ﻫٰﺬﺍ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖِ is termed to be in place of نَصَب . This is necessary since this whole phrase, rather than just a single word, is the خبر of كانﹶ . However,ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖﹺ itself is in جر because of فی , a preposition. This concept of being in a grammatical state is important since most of the time it is a whole phrase which will need to take up a specific grammatical state rather than a single word. Because we cannot put dhamma, fatha, or kasra on the entire phrase therefore we consider the whole phrase into that specific grammatical state. This will become more clear, Insha Allah, when I give more examples involving complex sentences.

و کانَ آزَرُ ﻳﻌﺒﹹﺪﹸ الاَصنَامَ ( And Aazar would worship these idols): The combination ofكانﹶ and المُضارع verb (ﻳﻌﺒﹹﺪﹸ in this case) gives the meaning of would. In other terms, this combination depicts the past continuous tense and is used whenever the idea of a general habit or an action occurring over and over again is to be conveyed. Notice the fatha at the end of الاَصنَامَ : it is the مفعول به of ﻳﻌﺒﹹﺪﹸ thus it goes into نَصَب.

I hope that these simple examples would be an easy primer to the application of the concept of Grammatical States in Arabic Language. Insha Allah, I will soon post more example with more complex sentences.

Sarf – Variations of المُضارع

Welcome back to صرف, finally! After a long haul with نحو we are back in the domain of صرف. Insha Allah I will explain some of the variations which can occur with المُضارع (the present and future tense verb) and how the grammatical structure and meaning of the verb will change with these variations.

There are two حرف (particles) which will combine with the المُضارع to change it to a negative verb: لن and لم. Each of these imparts a slightly different meaning to the resulting verb and each of them will cause the original verb to have different endings as well.

1. لن : Adding لن to المُضارع will negate it and will restrict it to the future tense. Remember here that we had earlier said that المُضارع covers both present and future. So now we know how to talk about just about the future! Finally, when لن negates the المُضارع an element of emphasis is added to the negation. Thus, لن یَنصُرَ means he will never help and لن یُنصَرَ means he will never be helped.
2. لم : Adding لم to المُضارع will negate it and will remove all notions of present and future tense from the verb, thus rendering it back into past! This might seem a little odd since we already have the الماضی (past tense) with us and we have already seen that we can negate it by using ما. So why exactly do we need to stick لم in front of المُضارع to construct what we already have? The difference here is rather subtle: If your listeners have no previous knowledge of an event occurring and you want to say that the event did not happen (meaning you are simply informing them of the action not occurring) then you would use ما ; on the other hand if you are speaking to someone who has incorrect knowledge of the event and believes that the event did occur whereas the evenet did not occur then you would use لم. So ما نَصَرَ is simple negation whereas لم ﻳﹶﻨﺼﹸﺮ has the element of rejection in it. One way of putting this is to say that لم is used when arguing with someone.

Rules for Conjugating المُضارع + لن :

1. The 5 conjugations which ended in dhamma will now end in fatha
2. Out of the remaining 9 all except the two feminine plurals will lose their final ن
3. The two feminine plurals will not undergo any change

He will never do	لَنْ يَفْعَلَ
They (2 males) will never do	لَنْ يَفْعَلاَ
They (group of males) will never do	لَنْ يَفْعَلوْا
She will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلَ
She (2 females) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلاَ
She (group of females) will never do	لَنْ يَفْعَلْنَ
You (male) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلَ
You (2 males) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلاَ
You (group of males) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلُوْا
You (female) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلِيْ
You (2 females) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلاَ
You (group of females) will never do	لَنْ تَفْعَلْنَ
I will never do	لَنْ أَفْعَلَ
We will never do	لَنْ نَفْعَلَ

Rules for Conjugating المُضارع + لم :

1. The 5 conjugations which ended in dhamma will now end in sukun
2. Out of the remaining 9 all except the two feminine plurals will lose their final ن
3. The two feminine plurals will not undergo any change

He did not do	لَمْ يَفْعَلْ
They (2 males) did not do	لَمْ يَفْعَلاَ
They (group of males) did not do	لَمْ يَفْعَلُوْا
She did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلْ
She (2 females) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلاَ
She (group of females) did not do	لَمْ يَفْعَلْنَ
You (male) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلْ
You (2 males) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلاَ
You (group of males) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلُوْا
You (female) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلِيْ
You (2 females) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلاَ
You (group of females) did not do	لَمْ تَفْعَلْنَ
I did not do	لَمْ أَفْعَلْ
We did not do	لَمْ نَفْعَلْ

Two final points:

1. The passive of the لَنْ construct is built by switching the fatha on the first letter to a dhamma e.g. لَنْ يَفْعَلَ becomes لَنْ يُفْعَلَ , and so on
2. The passive of the لم construct is built by switching the fatha on the first letter to a dhamma e.g. لَمْ يَفْعَلْ becomes لَمْ يُفْعَلْ , and so on

Nahw – The Grammatical States in Arabic Language – Part 2

In the last post we started discussing the concept of grammatical states in the Arabic Language and saw a few examples where an اسم took on these grammatical sates. It was also mentioned that the اسم itself can occur in Arabic sentences in the form of more than simply nouns. In fact, an اسم can act like an:

1. Adjective e.g. The green apple
2. Adverb e.g. He ran quickly
3. Object of Preposition e.g. in the house
4. Adverb of time and place e.g. I met Amr yesterday
5. Adverb of reason and cause e.g. I stood up out of respect

In this post I will introduce quite a few more grammatical terms, all of which form part of Arabic sentences and all of which will be اسم , and then we will see how each of these terms fall into one of the 3 grammatical states. Since there are only 3 grammatical states which an اسم can take but multiple ways in which it can occur in an Arabic sentence therefore رفع نصب ، جر will cover a lot more than just indicating the Subject/Object/Possessive characterization, as we had mentioned in the previous post. In fact, there are 22 positions or grammatical states in an Arabic sentence which an اسم can take.This will entail defining a whole set of new grammatical terms, some of which we have already seen. Let’s start from the basics and see how it works.

We had earlier said that there are two kind of sentences in Arabic: ﺟﻤﻠﻪ ﺍﺳﻤﻴﻪ (Nominal Sentence) and ﺟﻤﻠﻪ ﻓﻌﻠﻴﻪّ (Verbal Sentence). We can extract 5 separate grammatical terms from these two type of sentences:

1. خبر ، مبتداء : ﺟﻤﻠﻪ ﺍﺳﻤﻴﻪ e.g. الوَلَدُ قاﺋِﻢٌ i.e. The boy is standing (Standing = خبر , Boy = مبتداء )
2. فعل,فاعل : ﺟﻤﻠﻪ ﻓﻌﻠﻴﻪّ e.g. ضَرَبَ حامِدٌ i.e. Hamid hit (Hamid = فاعل , Hit = فعل). If we were to say ضَرَبَ حامِدٌ احمد i.e. Hamid hit Ahmad, then Ahmad, the object of the verb hit, becomes مفعول به
3. If we were to change the sentence above to passive voice i.e. Ahmad was hit, then the فاعل (Hamid)is no more present and the مفعول به (Ahmad) becomes the subject of the sentence. In such cases it is called نائب فاعل , or the deputy doer

In addition to this we have also been introduced to the concept of phrase and already know that a possessive phrase consists of two parts:

1. مضاف ﺍﻟﻴﻪ (The possessor)
2. مضاف (The possessed)

This is now the right time to introduce another term which is frequently encountered in Arabic sentences, called مجرور . As you may have guessed correctly this is the state when an اسم goes in the state of جر . In Arabic, whenever an اسم is preceded by a preposition it automatically goes into جر . An example of this is: فى البيتِ (in the house). Note that البيتِ has entered its grammatical state because of the preposition فى in front of it. There are certain particles in Arabic which cause an اسم to enter a specific grammatical state. These particles are known as Governing Agents. There are 17 of them in total. However, we will start with only two at this time and will see how the two of them affect the grammatical state of an اسم. These two particles are:

1. كان
2. إنََََََََََََََ

Both these governing agents affect ﺟﻤﻠﻪ ﺍﺳﻤﻴﻪ and cancel the original grammatical states of مبتداء and خبر .Also, the name of both these terms change as well when a sentence contains either كان or إنََََََََََََََ. What was earlier known as مبتداء is now known as اسمُ کانَ (Ism of kana) and in case of إنََََََََََََََ, as اسمُ اِنَّ (Ism of Inna). Similarly, the predicates are known as خبرُ کانَ and خبرُ اِنَّ .

So, all in all we have 12 terms at our disposal and the rules of نحو will dictate which grammatical state each of these terms go in. Firstly, since we are only concerned with اسم at this stage, therefore we will remove فعل from our list, leaving us with 11 terms to deal with. The following table lists which grammatical state each falls in:

رفع	فاعل, نائب فاعل, مبتدأ, خبر, إسمُ كان, خبرُ إنََ
نصب	مفعول به, إسمُ إنَََََ, خبرُ كانَ
جر	مضاف إليه, مجرور

Now this is a lot of information! Insha Allah I will give a number of examples in the coming posts for each of these rules so that they become easy to understand.

Nahw – The Grammatical States in Arabic Language

The concept of Grammatical States is the cornerstone of نحو . Without the proper understanding of grammatical states you can end up saying The rat ate the cat when you actually want to say The cat ate the rat. An oft cited example for this is from the Quran:

…و اذابتلٰی ﺍﹺﺑﺮٰﻫﻴﻢﹶﺭﺑﹽﹹﻪﹸ ُ…

“And remember when the Lord of Ibrahim tested him…” (Al-Baqarah: 124)

Notice the fatha at the end of ﺍﹺﺑﺮٰﻫﻴﻢﹶ and the dhamma at the end of ﺭﺑﹽﹹﻪﹸ (…Ibrahima Rabbuhu…). Now if someone was to say the same thing as (…Ibrahimu Rabbahu…), that is, switch the fatha with the dhamma, that would mean “Ibrahim tested his Lord”, which would change the meaning altogether [Thanks to Fajr who posted this explanation here].

In English language we seldom see nouns changing their grammatical structure in sentences no matter whether they are subject, object, or part of possession in a sentence. Take for example the following three sentences in English:

1. The house fell
2. I entered the house
3. Door of the house

Notice the noun house: no matter how it occurs in the sentence (Subject in the first, Object in the second, and possessive in the third) its form does not change. The word house remains house. Not so in Arabic! The word for house, ﺍﻟﺑﻴﺖ, will change grammatically (and not structurally) when the above three sentences are rendered in Arabic:

1. سقط ﺍﻟﺑﻴﺖُ (dhamma at the end of ﺍﻟﺑﻴﺖ )
2. دخلت ﺍﻟﺑﻴﺖﹶ (fatha at the end of ﺍﻟﺑﻴﺖ)
3. باب ﺍﻟﺑﻴﺖِ (kasra at the end of ﺍﻟﺑﻴﺖ)

This is a classic example of change in grammatical state in the Arabic Language. Technically speaking there are 4 grammatical states in Arabic:

1. رفع
2. نصب
3. جر
4. جزم

Let’s start with some simple rules:

1. whenever a noun is the subject in a sentence it automatically goes in the state of رفع i.e. its last letter will have a dhamma on it
2. whenever the noun is the object it goes in the state of نصب and its last letter will have a fatha on it
3. whenever a noun occurs in a possessive phrase it will automatically go in the state of جر i.e. its last letter will have a kasra on it
4. the state of جزم is experienced only by the مُضارِع (present and future tense) and we will tackle this in a later post, Insha Allah

The name given to this process i.e. reflecting grammatical states on the last letters of words by using dhamma,fatha, and kasra is إعراب .

You should remember here that an اسم in Arabic Language covers more than simply nouns. It spans the definition of Adjective, Adverb, Noun, and Pronoun. Therefore, rather than saying that an اسم goes into a certain grammatical state, we will desiccate the اسم into each of these categories and will see in which grammatical state each category falls. For now, let us take another example using three Arabic words: ضرب ، ولد ، ﺯﻳﺪ meaning Zaid, boy, and hit when read from left to right. Using these three words and the grammatical states 1-3 noted above we will see how we can convey different ideas. This example also shows the fact that there is no Subject-Object order in Arabic, as there is in English:

1. ضَرَبَ وَلَدﹰ ﺯﻳﺪﹲ Zaid hit a boy
2. ضَرَبَ وَلَدﹲ ﺯﻳﺪﹰ A boy hit Zaid
3. ضَرَبَ وَلَدُ ﺯﻳﺪﹴ Zaid’s boy hit…

Notice how the the nouns Zaid and boy are being made subject, object, and part of a possessive phrase just by switching from one grammatical state to another. This is, thus, the concept of Grammatical Statesin Arabic. More on this in a later post, Insha Allah!

Nahw – The Phrase

In the last post we defined the concept of the Sentence, also called مركَّب مفيد . Now we define the other part, مركَّب غير مفيد , or Phrase. A Phrase is essentially a group of words which does not convey a complete idea e.g. tall boy, intelligent girl etc. We will start by defining two kinds of phrases:

1. Noun / Adjective Phrase:This kind of phrase is made up of two اسم , the first being a noun and the second an adjective. The first اسم is called موصوف and the second is called صفة. Unlike in English, where the adjective precedes the noun, in Arabic the noun will come before the adjective e.g. الولد ﺍﻟﻄﻮﻳﻞ (tall boy) or البنت ﺍﻟﺮﺷﻴﺪﺓ (intelligent girl)
   

   Rules for موصوف / صفة phrase:

   • Both موصوف and صفة should agree in Gender
   • Both موصوف and صفة should agree in number e.g. الولدان ﺍﻟﻄﻮﻳﻼﻥ (two tall boys)
   • Both موصوف and صفة should agree in definiteness i.e. both should either be definite or indefinite e.g. ولدٌ طويلٌ (a tall boy) or الولد ﺍﻟﻄﻮﻳﻞ (tall boy)
   • Both موصوف and صفة should be in the same grammatical state
2. Possessive Phrase: This phrase is also made up of two اسم , which are linked together in a possessive structure e.g. رسُول ﺍﻟﻠﹽﻪ (messenger of Allah). The possessor is termed as مضاف ﺍﹺﻟﻴﻪ (here the word ﺍﻟﻠﹽﻪ) and the possessed is termed as مضاف (here the word رسُول )

Nahw – An Introduction to the Science of Arabic Grammar

أهَمُّها النَّحوُ إذ لَولاه أصلُ التَفاهُم

The most important of the sciences associated with the Arabic language is نحو, for without it no communication can exist : Ibn-e- Khaldun

نحو is the science of Classical Arabic which describes:

1. How to arrange words to make meaningful sentences
2. How to determine the grammatical structure of a sentence(by determining the positioning of حرف ، فعل، اِسم ) by change in the last letter of a word

Recall that a sentence in Classical Arabic is defined as a group of words conveying a complete idea and which has a Subject/Predicate relationship. Whenever we want to convey something to our listeners we first form a mental image into our own minds and then describe that image in words to other people. The ’something’ or the ‘primary’ part of the idea is the Subject of the sentence and its ‘description’ is the Predicate of the sentence. The Subject is called مُسنَد إليهand the Predicate is called مُسند in Classical Arabic grammar. In English Language it is fairly easy to differentiate between the Subject and Predicate in a sentence by using the word is. As an example, note the sentence ‘Amr is standing’. Here Amr is Subject and standing describes what is happening with the Subject. As another another example note the sentence ‘The cat ate the rat‘. Here it is very obvious that the cat is the subject and ‘ate the rat‘ is the predicate, the rat being the object of eating . In English there is a sequence of words which determines which part is the Subject and which is the Predicate. However, in Arabic there is no such rule that a Subject has to come before the object i.e. there is no sequence rule. At first this might seem a little odd; however, this is what gives the language its flexibility, where using only a few words one can express themselves in variety of ways.

So how do we determine which is Subject and which is Predicate in a sentence? To make this easier, Scholars of نحو have divided sentences into two types, based on the first word, and have named the Subject and Predicate in each differently:

1. جمله أسميّه (Nominal Sentence): This is the kind of sentence which begins with an اِسم e.g. الوَلَدُ قاﺋِﻢٌ (The boy is standing). The Subject, الوَلَدُ , is called مُبتَدا , and the predicate, قاﺋِﻢٌ,is called خَبَر
2. جُملَة فِعلِية(Verbal Sentence): This is the kind of sentence which begins with a فعل e.g.ذَهَبَ حامِدٌ . Here حامد is فاعل and ذَهَبَ is فعل

Exactly how we determine which is the Subject and which is the Object will be dealt with once we define the concept of Grammatical States in Arabic, where we will make use of all the terms defined above and will see which grammatical state each fits in.