ArabicAn Essential Grammar

The book has the great advantage of introducing Arabic grammaticalterminology in a manner that is clear and easy to follow . . . there isnothing like it on the market at present and I believe it will be muchappreciated by teachers and students alike

Stefan Sperl, Senior Lecturer in Arabic, SOAS, UK

Arabic: An Essential Grammar is an up-to-date and practical referenceguide to the most important aspects of the language. Suitable forbeginners, as well as intermediate students, this book offers a strongfoundation for learning the fundamental grammar structures of Arabic.The complexities of the language are set out in short, readable sectionsand exercises and examples are provided throughout.

The book is ideal for independent learners as well as for classroomstudy.

Features of this book include:

coverage of the Arabic script and alphabet a chapter on Arabic handwriting a guide to pronunciation examples provided throughout.

Faruk Abu-Chacra is Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Arabic at the Uni-versity of Helsinki, Finland.

Routledge Essential Grammars

Essential Grammars are available for the following languages:

ChineseCzechDanishDutchEnglishFinnishGermanModern GreekModern HebrewHungarianNorwegianPolishPortugueseSerbianSpanishSwedishThaiUrdu

Other titles of related interest published by Routledge:

ArabicEnglish Thematic Lexicon (forthcoming)By Daniel Newman

Colloquial Arabic of EgyptBy Jane Wightwick and Mahmoud Gaafar

Colloquial Arabic of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia(second edition forthcoming)

By Clive Holes

Modern Written Arabic: A Comprehensive GrammarBy El Said Badawi, Mike Carter and Adrian Gully

ArabicAn Essential Grammar

Faruk Abu-Chacra

First published 2007by Routledge2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2007 Faruk Abu-Chacra

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted orreproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafterinvented, including photocopying and recording, or in anyinformation storage or retrieval system, without permission inwriting from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataAbu Shaqra, Faruq.

Arabic : an essential grammar / by Faruk Abu-Chacra.p. cm.

1. Arabic language Textbooks for foreign speakers English.I. Title.

PJ6307.A384 2007492.782421dc22

2006023828

ISBN10: 0415415721 (hbk)ISBN10: 0415415713 (pbk)ISBN10: 0203088816 (ebk)

ISBN13: 9780415415729 (hbk)ISBN13: 9780415415712 (pbk)ISBN13: 9780203088814 (ebk)

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledgescollection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

ISBN 0-203-08881-6 Master e-book ISBN

v

Contents

Preface viiAcknowledgements viiiList of abbreviations ix

1 Arabic script, transliteration and alphabet table 12 Pronunciation of consonants 53 Punctuation and handwriting 94 Vowels 135 Sukun, saddah, noun cases and nunation as indefinite form 176 Long vowels,

alif maqs

urah, dagger or miniature

alif, word

stress and syllable structure 217 Hamzah (hamzatu l-qat

i) and the maddah sign 26

8 Definite article ... al..., nominal sentences, verbal sentences, word order and adjectives 31

9 Sun and moon letters, hamzatu l-wasli (was

lah) 39

10 Gender 4611 Conjunctions, prepositions and the particle h atta 5112 Id

afah construction (genitive attribute) and the five nouns 61

13 Number: dual and plural 7014 Perfect tense verbs, root and radicals, triliteral verbs and

word order 7815 Separate personal pronouns and suffix pronouns 8716 Demonstrative, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns 9817 Imperfect tense verb in the indicative and word order 10618 Derived verb forms (stems), roots and radicals, transitive

and intransitive verbs 11519 Passive verbs 12820 Rules for writing the hamzah (hamzatu l-qat

i) 135

21 Broken plurals and collective nouns 14422 Triptotes and diptotes 151

23 Participles, verbal nouns (masdar), nouns of place, time and

instrument 16024 Interrogative particles and pronouns, vocative particles 16925 Adjectival patterns, relative adjectives (nisbah),

comparatives and superlatives, diminutives 18126

Inna and its sisters, kana and its sisters 193

27 Relative pronouns and relative clauses 20128 Moods: subjunctive, jussive (apocopatus) and imperative 20929 Doubled verbs (mediae geminatae) and quadriliteral verbs 21830 Verbs with hamzah 22431 Verbs with a weak initial radical 23132 Verbs with a weak middle radical 23733 Verbs with a weak final radical, doubly weak verbs and

weak verbs with hamzah 24634 Cardinal numbers 25635 Ordinal numbers, fractions, expressions of time and

calendars 26936 Exception 28237 Verbs of wonder, the negative copula laysa, verbs with

special uses and some special uses of the preposition .. bi... 28938 Adverbs and adverbials, absolute or inner object, h

al

(circumstantial clause) and tamyz (accusative ofspecification) 299

39 Conditional sentences 309

Appendices

Appendix 1 Tables of verb forms 319Appendix 2 Verb conjugation paradigms 328

Index 351

vi

Contents

vii

Preface

This book describes the fundamental grammar and structure of modern

literary Arabic. It is complete with exercises and offers a strong founda-

tion for reading and writing the Arabic of newspapers, books, broad-

casts and formal speech, as well as providing the student with a course

for self-study. The exercises and examples contain modern vocabulary

and expressions taken from everyday use.

The work contains thirty-nine chapters with an appendix of tables for

verb forms and verb conjugation paradigms. All chapters are progres-

sive and they complement each other. For this reason it is recommended

that the student master each lesson before going on to the next.

Up to chapter 22, a full transliteration into the Latin alphabet is given

for all Arabic examples and exercises. From chapter 22 onwards, the

transliteration is omitted from the exercises only.

There are two types of exercise: Arabic sentences translated into

English, and English sentences to be translated into Arabic. The words

of the English to Arabic translation exercises are taken from the Arabic

to English exercises of the same chapter.

So that readers do not have to use ArabicEnglish dictionaries, which a

learner of Arabic would find difficult at this stage, most Arabic words

in the exercises are indexed with a superscript number and the same

number is given to the equivalent English word.

I am confident that this book will prove to be of great help to those who

have begun or will begin the study of Arabic, and that teachers will find

it a useful aid.

viii

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to my former colleagues at the

Institute for Asian and African Studies at the University of Helsinki

(Finland), especially Professor Tapani Harviainen and Dr Bertil

Tikkanen, and to Professor Daniel Newman of the University of

Durham (England) as well as Professor Benjamin Hoffez of Oakland

University (USA). They read the original manuscript and made

numerous valuable comments and suggestions for its improvement. In

addition I should also like to thank the anonymous reviewers appointed

by Routledge for their constructive criticism and advice.

I also acknowledge the generous financial support of the Ministry

of Education of Finland, the University of Helsinki, Alfred Kordelin

Foundation, Jenni and Antti Wihuri Foundation, and the Finnish

Association of Non-Fiction Writers.

Faruk Abu-Chacra

Helsinki, Finland, 2007

ix

Abbreviations

acc. accusativeact. activeC consonantdef. definitedipt. diptotedu. dualf./fem. femininegen. genitiveimperat. imperativeimperf. imperfectindef. indefiniteindic./ind. indicativeintrans. intransitivejuss. jussivelit. literallym./masc. masculinenom. nominativepart./particip. participlepass. passivepers. personpl./plur. pluralprep. prepositions./sing. singularsubj. subjunctivetrans. transitiveV. vowelv. verb

1

Chapter 1

Arabic script, transliterationand alphabet table

1.1 The Arabic script

The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters representing consonants. In

addition there are three vowel signs which are used in writing both short

and long vowels. Moreover, there are various other orthographic signs

that are explained in the following chapters.

The 28 letters are written from right to left. When writing words, the

letters are connected (joined) together from both sides, except in

the case of six letters, which can only be joined from the right side.

These letters are numbered 1, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 27 in the table below

and are marked with an asterisk (*). It is important to remember that

these letters cannot be connected to the following letter (i.e. on their left

side).

Most of the letters are written in slightly different forms depending on

their loc