Arabic grammar () is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities with the grammar of other Semitic languages. Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic have largely the same grammar; colloquial spoken varieties of Arabic can vary in different ways.
The largest differences between classical and colloquial Arabic are the loss of morphological markings of grammatical case; changes in word order, an overall shift towards a more analytic morphosyntax, the loss of the previous system of grammatical mood, along with the evolution of a new system; the loss of the inflected passive voice, except in a few relict varieties; restriction in the use of the dual number and (for most varieties) the loss of the feminine plural. Many Arabic dialects, Maghrebi Arabic in particular, also have significant vowel shifts and unusual consonant clusters. Unlike in other dialects, first person singular verbs in Maghrebi Arabic begin with a n- (ن). This phenomenon can also be found in the Maltese language, which itself emerged from Sicilian Arabic.
History The identity of the oldest Arabic grammarian is disputed; some sources state that it was Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, who established diacritical marks and vowels for Arabic in the mid-600s,Kojiro Nakamura, "Ibn Mada's Criticism of Arab Grammarians." Orient, v. 10, pgs. 89–113. 1974 Others have said that the earliest grammarian would have been Ibn Abi Ishaq (died AD 735/6, AH 117).Monique Bernards, "Pioneers of Arabic Linguistic Studies." Taken from In the Shadow of Arabic: The Centrality of Language to Arabic Culture, pg. 213. Ed. Bilal Orfali. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2011.
The schools of Basra and Kufa further developed grammatical rules in the late 8th century with the rapid rise of Islam,Goodchild, Philip. Difference in Philosophy of Religion, 2003. Page 153.Archibald Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language. p. 28, 1880. using Quran as the main source for Arabic grammar rules. From the school of Basra, generally regarded as being founded by Abu Amr ibn al-Ala,al-Aṣmaʿī at the Encyclopædia Britannica Online. ©2013 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Accessed 10 June 2013. two representatives laid important foundations for the field: Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi authored the first Arabic dictionary and book of Arabic prosody, and his student Sibawayh authored the first book on theories of Arabic grammar. From the school of Kufa, Al-Ru'asi is universally acknowledged as the founder, though his own writings are considered lost,Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 5, pg. 174, fascicules 81–82. Eds. Clifford Edmund Bosworth, E. van Donzel, Bernard Lewis and Charles Pellat. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1980. Arik Sadan, The Subjunctive Mood in Arabic Grammatical Thought, pg. 339. Volume 66 of Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012. with most of the school's development undertaken by later authors. The efforts of al-Farahidi and Sibawayh consolidated Basra's reputation as the analytic school of grammar, while the Kufan school was regarded as the guardian of Arabic poetry and Arab culture. The differences were polarizing in some cases, with early Muslim scholar Muhammad ibn `Isa at-Tirmidhi favoring the Kufan school due to its concern with poetry as a primary source."Sibawayh, His Kitab, and the Schools of Basra and Kufa." Taken from Changing Traditions: Al-Mubarrad's Refutation of Sībawayh and the Subsequent Reception of the Kitāb, pg. 12. Volume 23 of Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics. Ed. Monique Bernards. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997.
Early Arabic grammars were more or less lists of rules, without the detailed explanations which would be added in later centuries. The earliest schools were different not only in some of their views on grammatical disputes, but also their emphasis. The school of Kufa excelled in Arabic poetry and exegesis of the Qur'an, in addition to Islamic law and Arab genealogy. The more rationalist school of Basra, on the other hand, focused more on the formal study of grammar.Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, pg. 350. Leiden: Brill Archive, 1954. New edition 1980.
Division For classical Arabic scholars, the Arabic language sciences are divided into four branches:
(language/lexicon) concerned with collecting and explaining vocabulary. (morphology) determining the form of the individual words. (syntax) primarily concerned with inflection (). (rhetoric) which elucidates stylistic quality, or eloquence.
The grammar or grammars of contemporary varieties of Arabic are a different question. Said M. Badawi, an expert on Arabic grammar, divides Arabic grammar in Egypt into five different types based on the speaker's level of literacy and the degree to which the speaker deviates from Classical Arabic: Illiterate Spoken Arabic ( ), Semi-literate Spoken Arabic ( ), Educated Spoken Arabic ( ), Modern Standard Arabic ( ), and Classical Arabic ( ).Alaa Elgibali and El-Said M. Badawi. Understanding Arabic: Essays in Contemporary Arabic Linguistics in Honor of El-Said M. Badawi, 1996. Page 105.
Phonology
Classical Arabic has 28 consonantal phonemes, including two semi-vowels, which constitute the Arabic alphabet.
It also has six vowel phonemes (three short vowels and three long vowels). These appear as various allophones, depending on the preceding consonant. Short vowels are not usually represented in the written language, although they may be indicated with diacritics.
Word stress varies from one Arabic dialect to another. A rough rule for word-stress in Classical Arabic is that it falls on the penultimate syllable of a word if that syllable is closed, and otherwise on the antepenultimate.Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), p. 90.
(), elidable hamza, is a phonetic object prefixed to the beginning of a word for ease of pronunciation, since Literary Arabic doesn't allow consonant clusters at the beginning of a word. Elidable hamza drops out as a vowel, if a word is preceding it. This word will then produce an ending vowel, "helping vowel" to facilitate pronunciation. This short vowel may be, depending on the preceding vowel, a (: ), pronounced as ; a (: ), pronounced as ; or a (: ), pronounced as . If the preceding word ends in a (), meaning that it is not followed by a short vowel, the assumes a . The symbol ( ) indicates gemination or consonant doubling. See more in Tashkīl.
Nouns and adjectives
In Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), nouns and adjectives ( ) are declined, according to case (), state (definiteness), gender and number. In colloquial or spoken Arabic, there are a number of simplifications such as the loss of certain final vowels and the loss of case. A number of derivational processes exist for forming new nouns and adjectives. Adverbs can be formed from adjectives.
Pronouns
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.
Person Singular Dual Plural 1st 2nd masculine feminine 3rd masculine feminine
Informal Arabic tends to avoid the dual forms and . The feminine plural forms and are likewise avoided, except by speakers of conservative colloquial varieties that still possess separate feminine plural pronouns.
Enclitic pronouns The enclitic forms of personal pronouns ( ) 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 "that ...", "because ...", "but ...", (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 ( "sisters of ".)
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 (e.g. ( "you saw me").
Most of the enclitic forms are clearly related to the full personal pronouns.
Person Singular Dual Plural 1st (poss.) (obj.) 2nd masculine feminine 3rd masculine feminine
Variant forms For all but the first person singular, the same forms are used regardless of the part of speech of the word attached to. In the third person masculine singular, occurs after the vowels u or a (), while occurs after i or y (). The same alternation occurs in the third person dual and plural.
In the first person singular, however, the situation is more complicated. Specifically, "me" is attached to verbs, but "my" is attached to nouns. In the latter case, is attached to nouns whose construct state ends in a long vowel or diphthong (e.g. in the sound masculine plural and the dual), while is attached to nouns whose construct state ends in a short vowel, in which case that vowel is elided (e.g. in the sound feminine plural, as well as the singular and broken plural of most nouns). Furthermore, of the masculine sound plural is assimilated to before (presumably, of masculine defective -an plurals is similarly assimilated to ). Examples: From "book", pl (most of nouns in general). Person Singular Plural Nominative Accusative Genitive From "word" (nouns ending on ), pl or . Person Singular Plural Nominative Accusative Genitive From "world"; "hospital" (nouns ending on ). Person Singular Singular Nominative Accusative Genitive From nom. dual "teachers", acc./gen. dual (dual nouns) Person Dual Nominative Accusative Genitive From nom. pl. "teachers", acc./gen. pl. (regular plural nouns) Person Plural Nominative Accusative Genitive From pl. "chosen" (regular plural nouns) Person Plural Nominative Accusative Genitive From "judge" (active participle nouns ending on as nominative) Person Singular Nominative Accusative Genitive From "father", long construct form (long construct nouns) Person Singular Nominative Accusative Genitive From any nouns ending on , or (more commonly loanwords). Person Singular Nominative Accusative Genitive From any nouns ending on (more commonly loanwords). Person Singular Nominative Accusative Genitive Prepositions use , even though in this case it has the meaning of "me" (rather than "my"). The "sisters of " can use either form (e.g. or ), but the longer form (e.g. ) is usually preferred.
The second-person masculine plural past tense verb ending changes to the variant form before enclitic pronouns, e.g. "you (masc. pl.) wrote it (masc.)".
Pronouns with prepositions Some very common prepositions — including the proclitic preposition "to" (also used for indirect objects) — have irregular or unpredictable combining forms when the enclitic pronouns are added to them: Meaning Independent form With "... me" With "... you" (masc. sg.) With "... him" "to", indirect object "in", "with", "by" "in" "to" "on" "with" "from" "on", "about"
In the above cases, when there are two combining forms, one is used with "... me" and the other with all other person/number/gender combinations. (More correctly, one occurs before vowel-initial pronouns and the other before consonant-initial pronouns, but in Classical Arabic, only is vowel-initial. This becomes clearer in the spoken varieties, where various vowel-initial enclitic pronouns exist.)
Note in particular: