Lesson 4 – الدَّرْسُ الرَّابِعُ

The VerbalSentence - الْجُمْلَةُ اَلْفِعْلِيَّةُ

  • We are still in lesson four of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
  • In this part of lesson we will learn The Verbal Sentence In-Shā'-Allâh (God-Welling), this is called /ĵumlatun Feξliyyatun/جُمْلَةٌ فِعْلِيَّةٌ in Arabic.
  • Please read the following sentences carefully:

 

Verbal Sentence /ĵumla Fiξliyya/

جُمْلَةٌ فِعْلِيَّةٌ

Arabic

ذَهَبَ أَحْمَدُ إِلَى الْجَامِعَةِ.

Transliteration

/đahaba Aħmadu ilal ĵāmiξati/

Literary Reading

Went Ahmad to the university

Arabic

خَرَجَ الْمُدَرِّسُ مِنْ فَصْلٍ.

Transliteration

/Kharaĵa almudarrisu min faŝlin/

Literary Reading

Went out the teacher of a class

  • The two sentences above are the examples of verbal sentence /ĵumlatun Feξliyyatun/.
  • A verbal sentence is called /ĵumla Feξliyya/ and the rules relating to such sentences are:
    • It mostly starts with a verb.  
    • It has three parts.
    1. The first part is a word that describes an action. This word is called "Verb" in English language and /Fiξlun/ in Arabic. In English language the verb can be a single word or combination of two or more words but in Arabic verb /Fiξlun/ is always a single word. A verb generally refers to three times: Past, Present or Future. In Arabic, the verb is the most important part of the language and therefore it is very important to learn verbs and the verbal sentences to understand Arabic properly.
      In this part of lesson we will be discussing the masculine verb used to describe something done in the past time. This type of verb is called Past Tense in English and /Fiξlun Māđin/
      فِعْلٌ مَاضٍ  in Arabic. A masculine /Fiξlun Māđin/ always takes accusative case but no nunation - a single /fatħah/ and no /fatħatain/.  We will learn the present and future tenses at a later stage In-Shā'-Allâh (God-Willing). Unlike English, in Arabic language different types of the verb الْفِعْلُ are used for masculine and feminine subjects, we will learn the verbs used for feminine subjects later also In-Shā’-Allâh (God-Willing). 
    2. The second part of a verbal sentence /ĵumla Feξliyya/ is the person or the thing doing the action described by the verb. This person or the thing is called Subject of the verb in English and /Fāξilun/ فَاعِلٌ in Arabic. A "Fāξilun" always takes nominative case - single /đammah/ when it is definite i.e., appearing with the definite article al - and /đammatain/ when it is indefinite i.e., appearing without the definite article al.
    3. The third part of a verbal sentence /ĵumla Feξliyya/ is the thing on which the action has been done. This thing is called the Object in English and /Mafξūlun/ in Arabic language. A /Mafξūlun/ can be of the following types:

Types of Object /Mafξūlun/

مَفْعُولٌ

Arabic

English

A noun

أَكَلَ أَحْمَدُ تُفَّاحًا.

Ahmad ate apples

Genitive Construction /ĵārrun wa Maĵrūrun/

خَرَجَ يَاسِرٌ مِنَ الْمَدْرَسَةِ.

Yasir went out of the school

ذَهَبَ الرَّجُلُ إِلَى الْبَيْتِ.

The man went to the home

  • In the above sentences all the words appearing in red are the /Mafξūlun/ which might be a noun or the genitive construction /ĵārrun wa Maĵrūrun/.
  • When a /Mafξūlun/ is a noun it always takes accusative case i.e., it will be originally signed with a single /fatħah/ when appearing definite - (i.e. with the definite article al) - and double /fatħah/  (fatħatain) when appearing indefinite (i.e. without the definite article al). However when the object /Mafξūlun/ is an expression with preposition /ĵārrun wa Maĵrūrun/ then it takes the genitive case as a result of the preposition. 
  • We will have some tests in the next part of the lesson to test your understanding In-Shā’-Allâh (God-Welling).