Introducing Arabic Morphology March 22, 2008

Benefit of the Arabic Language

 The first thing to appreciate and understand is the significant of learning the Arabic
language. There is a purpose to learn a language. The reason we study Arabic is purely
religious. It is to understand the word of our creator and to access the heritage (from our
scholars). We will be studying those parts of the Arabic language required to read vowel
less texts (reading tafseer, Islamic literature, fiqh, quran, hadith, or listen to the kutbah).
Within months you will be able to understand much of the language.

 Imam Shafiee wrote a book called Ar-Risaalah (first book in Usool –Principles of Islamic
Jurisprudence). He explains in the book to study the Arabic language is an obligatory
(fardh). Umar (ra), he would send his governors to different parts of the Muslim worlds,
one of the advices he use to give was:

‫ﻻدُﻛُﻢ َﻓﺎِﻧِّﮭَﺎ ﻣِﻦَ ا ْﻟﺪﱢﯾْﻦ‬

َ ْ‫ﻋﱢﻠﻤُﻮْاھَﺎ اَو‬
َ َ‫ﺗَﻌَﻠﱠ ُﻤﻮْا اﻟْﻌَ َﺮﺑِﯿﱠﺔ و‬
“Learn the language of the Arabs and teach it to your children as it is a part of religion.”

Sample Derived Word

 Example word: ‫ﺳ َﺘﻨْﺼَ ُﺮوْا‬
ْ ِ‫( إ‬is tan sa roo), Translation = they sought help (plural masculine)

 Analyzing this word will help introduce the sciences of arabic. There are two subjects to
introduce: Sarf ‫ ﺻﺮف‬and Nawh ‫ ﻧﺤﻮ‬. This word looks like one word but it is a
combination of 8 or 9 meaning word no language can do this but Arabic.

1. the base letters are ‫ ن ص ر‬which means help

2. seeking, sought = ‫( س ت‬non base letters), this is a verb and it can be enhanced to the base
letters (at the infinitive level)
a. Alif with dhamma, fathah or kusrah is pronounced hamza.
b. The hamza is called the enabling hamza. It enables you to pronounce a word
which begins with a sukun. Initiating a word with a sukun is not natural however
it is possible called ‫( ﻣﺘﻌﺬ‬muatiz =difficult). An example in English the word
“school” is initiated with sukun because there are 2 consonants together with no
vowels at the beginning of the word. The foreigners would have trouble saying
school and instead would say i-school. When the sukun is at the beginning then it
has to be enabling with hamza or waw for the pronunciation purpose.
c. The hamza under the alif does not effect the meaning of the word but effects the
pronunciation.
d. Alif is silent and is added for the script purpose.
e. The sound that hamza gets is from the middle of the word.
3. past tense verb (is indicated by b & c below)
a. in Arabic there are 3 types of verbs
i. prefect verb that is occurred
ii. imperfect verb are perfect and future verbs
iii. command verb

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b. Four letters that have to be in the front to be imperfect verb: ‫ ا ت ن ي‬with the
sound of yes or tes. In the word example none of the four letters are in the word
so therefore this word is not present or future but the verb is past tense.
c. The kasrah on the ِ‫ ص‬rules out the command verb because there is a fatha on the
َ‫ص‬.
4. active voice is by the added vowels that are arranged on the word, the arrangement can
change the voice to passive
5. pronoun is masculine - they (gender- masculine and feminine) is coming from the ‫و‬
6. plurality – they (singular-one person, dual-second person, plural-third person or more) is
coming from the ‫و‬
7. 3rd person – they (1st, 2nd, 3rd ) is coming from the ‫و‬
 The alif at the end is silent and it is for script purpose. The alif helps for when reading
texts that are vowel-less. Alif helps in the text where the ‫ و‬could be confused to be a
conjunctive word “and” and to save us from making this mistake this alif is at the end of
the word.
 An Arabic reading book has letters with no vowels. When the vowels are added this
gives us grammar. The grammar, morphology, and vocabulary allow us to read the
Arabic text without vowels.

Introduction to Sarf
 Learning to derive words and the meaning by studying Sarf. The Sarf is a classical
science which is the method that was used at the beginning which started 180 Hijrah
based on the first book that Abu Hanifah attributed to writing this book. The book is
called Ul Uk Masood with 3 commentary which is compiled into 4 books. If you are
learning sarf in class then getting this book is not needed.

 Al Kundun, a Philosopher and historian, who is very famous, wrote this famous book, Al
Mukadema. The book is about 8 to 10 volumes. He wrote about the history of the
nations and the kings. In the first volume, he discusses everything (economics, politics,
language development, and civilizations). He compares languages and a point out that
Arabic is superior due to the comprehensive nature. The comprehensive nature is if there
is 3 lines of Arabic sentences and to translate it in English will take quite a few sentences
to explain what was written. The Arabic words convey meanings and the non words
(patterns & vowels) convey the entire meaning. A word sample was analyzed from the
above lesson. (‫ﺳ َﺘﻨْﺼَ ُﺮوْا‬
ْ ِ‫ = إ‬They sought help.) The grammatical positioning is another
way of analyzing a word which identifies the nouns, verbs, pronouns, adverbs and etc. A
Hadith explains: I was given words of great comprehensive meaning, and speech was
been made concise for me (I am able to speak a little amount of words and the meanings
contained within the words are huge). This is why the hadith books have about 20
volumes because the commentary on each hadith is huge. Allah (swt) has chose Arabic
as our language because of its beauty and superior.

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 It is easy to know the non words which found in the dictionary. Vocabulary is the least
important part because it comes from 30% comprehension (which is Sarf-variation of the
verbs) and 70% grammar (which is complex) and morphology. All of Sarf and the
absolute essential of grammar can be mastered within 7 months. Vocabulary takes time
to build by the more reading is done and looking up the word in the dictionary in the
learning stages. Sarf enhances the vocabularies which is builds many words and gives
various meaning. The base letters are presented in a unique way which is discussed in
Sarf. After mastering and the reading session begins, one will know many vocabulary
and there will rare occasion where one might know what the root word means at the time
in the book there will footnotes to define the word or commentary of the word.

Sarf ‫ ﺻﺮف‬is the science of the classical Arabic that deals with patterns and ending.
1. Patterns of vowellization ( ُ َ ِ ) which convey the tense and voice of verbs and non
base letters that are added to the root word
a. Get a group of 3 letters and knowing there meaning
‫ ن‬+ ‫ ل‬+ ‫ = ج‬sit, ‫ ب‬+ ‫ ت‬+ ‫ = ك‬write, ‫ ر‬+ ‫ ص‬+ ‫ = ن‬help, etc
b. Now the words have to be voweled
i. to be able to add pronoun
ii. to remove the limitation
iii. to give the word more meaning
2. Suffixes reflects the subject (gender, plurality, and person) and are the designated
letters that comes at the end of the word

Arabic Language
 Base letters
o Upon gaining a mastery of the science of Sarf, one will be empowered with the
skill of determining base letters from non-base letters and thus recognizing even
the most complex of conjugations which may number in the hundreds.
o When words are written in Arabic, most words made up of three base letters from
the 28 letters, this makes up millions of groups of words. The 3-letter groups of
consonants have an associated “root” meaning: ‫ ب‬+ ‫ ت‬+ ‫ = ك‬writing, ‫ ر‬+ ‫ ص‬+ ‫ن‬
= helping
o But, consonants without vowels cannot be pronounced, and in Arabic, these
vowels also carry a meaning, a non-word meaning.

 Conveying the Meaning

o There are several non-word meanings that are conveyed via vowels, non-base
letters, prefixes, suffixes, and etc. by adding to the root word (to give tense, voice,
added connotations, and much more). Hyperbole means exaggeration (cuter =
huge cuter, scholar = huge scholar) and this is done vowellization.
o In order to get a grasp on these non-word meanings, heavy emphasis is placed on
mastering the essentials of Arabic Morphology in classical teaching
methodologies.

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 Arabic Alphabet
o There are 28 or 29 letters (difference in opinion because of the letter hamza) and
is all consonants. ‫ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي ء‬
Some have English equivalents and others are unique with no English equivalents.
o The short vowels are not considered separate letters and therefore are not part of
the alphabet. Some consonants can be change to be used as vowels.
o Consonants alone are not pronounceable because it needs vowels to pronounce
them. The speaking language has syllables to create words to speak. Under one
root word, there are hundreds of words due to different patterns of vowellisation
(there are 27 different ways) to give different words and meanings.

 Short vowels are called ‫( ﺣﺮﻛﺎت‬plural) harakat or ‫( ﺣﺮﻛﺎ‬singular) harak. They are not part
of the Arabic alphabet. Vowels are symbols that are placed on the consonants above or
below the letters which creates the sound a, e, i, o, and u. In English the vowel are 5 and
in Arabic there 3 vowels.
1. ‫( ﺿَﻤﱠﺔ‬dhammah): ُ - corresponds to a short ‘o’ or ‘u’ in English. A letter that has
a ‫ ﺿَﻤﱠﺔ‬over it is said to be ‫( ﻣَﻀﻤﻮم‬adjective that describes the letter)
2. ‫( ﻓَﺘﺤَﺔ‬fathah): َ - corresponds to a short ‘a’ in English. A letter that has a ‫ﻓَﺘﺤَﺔ‬
over it is said to be ‫ﻣَﻔﺘﻮح‬
3. ‫( ﻛَﺴﺮَة‬kasrah): ِ - corresponds to a short ‘e’ or ‘i’ in English. A letter that has a
‫ ﻛَﺴﺮَة‬under it is said to be ‫ﻣَﻜﺴﻮر‬

 Absence of Vowels & Duplication:

o Sometimes consonants do not have a vowel sound following it like cat (no vowel
after t). The absence of vowel is called ‫) ْ ( ﺳُﻜﻮن‬. It occurs at the end of the word
on top the letter never at the beginning of a word. If a letter is ‫( ﺳﺎﻛﻦ‬i.e. has a
‫ ﺳُﻜﻮن‬on it), this would mean it is the final consonant in a syllable. By definition,
a syllable is the sound produced by coupling at least one consonant and one
vowel. Consonants alone can not be pronounced. For instance, try pronouncing
the letter ‘b’ without adding a vowel to it. The moment a sound comes out, one
realizes it’s either ‘ba’, ‘be’ or the like, which has been pronounced, not just the
letter ‘b’ by itself. The reality is that all consonants need to be coupled with
vowels in order to become syllables and thus pronounceable. This is the nature of
human utterance. So this is the bare minimum requirement: you have at least one
consonant and a vowel.

o A word with 2 syllables, the first syllable ends with a consonant that is the same
consonant in the second syllables which in English the consonant is written twice
like pretty and funny. In Arabic, the consonant is not double but is written once
and the letter pronounced twice. The symbol is a ‘‫ ’ﺳُﻜﻮن‬with a ‫ﺣﺮﻛﮫ‬, is called
‫ ﺗَﺸﺪِِﯾﺪ‬or ‫) ّ ( ﺷَﺪّه‬, and the letter is said to be ‫( ُﻣﺸَﺪّد‬the ‫ ب‬in ‫ َﺗﺒﱠﺖ‬is ‫) ُﻣﺸَﺪﱠد‬.

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 Aspects of Subject: In all languages, verbs are conjugated to reflect three aspects of their
subjects:
o Gender: Masculine or Feminine
o Plurality: Singular, Dual (unlike English, Arabic also has separate forms to
indicate on two of something) and Plural (3 or more)
o Person: 3rd person, 2nd person and 1st person
o This process in English is fairly simple due to the reflection occurring via a
separate pronoun. Table shows what this would look like.

Person Conjugation Gender Plurality

He slept Masculine
Singular
3rd She slept Feminine
They slept Masculine or Feminine Plural
nd
2 You slept Masculine or Feminine Singular or Plural
I slept Singular
1st Masculine or Feminine
We Slept Plural

 Conjugation Tables: A great portion of Arabic Morphology is devoted to memorizing the

tables that result from MULTIPLYING the three aspects mentioned above (i.e. gender,
plurality, and person).
Person Gender Plurality English Equivalent #
Singular He 1
Masculine Dual (2) They (M2) 2
Plural (>2) They (M>2) 3
3rd
Singular She 4
Feminine Dual (2) They (F2) 5
Plural (>2) They (F>2) 6
Singular He 7
Masculine Dual (2) They (M2) 8
Plural (>2) They (M>2) 9
2nd
Singular She 10
Feminine Dual (2) They (F2) 11
Plural (>2) They (F>2) 12
Singular I (M/F) 13
Masculine Dual (2) We (M/F≥2) 14
Plural (>2) We 15
1st
Singular I 16
Feminine Dual (2) We 17
Plural (>2) We 18

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o A pronoun for a mix group of females and males uses the plural masculine
conjugation.
o Table of 14 Conjugations: Due to the fact that EVERY subject will need a gender,
plurality AND a person, we look at the total combinations that result from
multiplying the above. It comes to 18, six for each of the third, second and first
persons.
o In the first person, separate dual and feminine forms do not exist and there is
minimal overlapping. This will reduce the number in the first person group from
six to just two: #13 ‘I’ (male or female) and #14 ‘We’ (males or females; two or
more than two)
o In English, there are few pronouns (6) which do not affect the way the verb looks.
Some pronouns overlap.
o In Arabic, the pronoun does affect the way the verb looks which gives the
conjugating table and that is why it is important to memorize the table.
o The conjugation of a single verb into these 18 (14 after condensing) gender-
person-plurality combinations is called a “Gardaan”, and each line of the Gardaan
Table, is called a ‫“( ﺻِﯿﻐﮫ‬seegha”).

 Model Base-letters:
o For simplification purposes, in order to isolate the pattern meanings (subject
matter of Sarf) from the meaning coming from the base letters (which are found in
dictionaries; not directly a concern of Sarf), the scholars of Sarf have used the
most basic base letters in terms of meaning as models for all of the patterns to be
discussed through out the science.
o The three ‘model’ letters reference the letter position in a word.
o ‫ ف‬- 1st letter in the 1st position
o ‫ ع‬- 2nd letter in the 2nd position
o ‫ ل‬- 3rd letter in the 3rd position

The Scholars of Sarf use these letters (excluding all other combinations), there purpose is not so
you translate the pattern (ex: he did, they did, she did, you did, I did, etc). Rather it will be just
to show you what pattern of vowellization is associated with what tense. So when you have your
three letters ready for constructing (they can be any three letters taken from a dictionary), then
the letters can be vowel them accordingly and produce the intended compound meaning. This is
similar to how a tailor will have many different paper cut-outs of shirts and pants in order to
facilitate and simplify his work. Nobody ever attempts to wear the cut-out but rather they wait
until some garment is produced. Likewise, for example, when we say the model pattern for the
active past tense verb for tri-literal verbs is َ‫ َﻓﻌَﻞ‬, and for the passive voice it is َ‫ ُﻓﻌِﻞ‬, literal
translation of each conjugation is never the purpose. Therefore, throughout these discussions we
will be only giving the patterns and conjugation tables. We will not make any attempt at
translating the tables. In the very first tables, ‫ ﻓﻌﻞ‬will be replaced with other base letters so as to
produce clear translations for all conjugations. A clear explanation of the tenses and other
distinct meanings associated with the patterns will be discussed.

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